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This study investigates the effectiveness of creative writing instruction (CW) in classrooms where English as a second language (ESL) is taught. The study aims to determine under what circumstances CW can help learners grow in terms of autonomous learning (AL) and motivation. These benefits stretch beyond formal language acquisition into more personal, socio-cultural, and psychological domains that lead to self-empowerment. AL and motivation are central constructs in the Swedish steering documents. By contrast, creative writing in second-language English (CW L2) does not feature heavily in the steering documents. Given the absence of specific studies, the role of CW L2 in Swedish schools is difficult to estimate and potentially quite limited. Against that background, this study asks under what conditions AL and motivation result from CW L2. It does so by selecting ten articles relevant to the research question and synthesizing thematically two by two. This has allowed us to identify and analyze five essential aspects of CW in L2: first, that pupil surveys widely report positive effects from CW L2 on motivation but that this may not always extend into other areas, notably attitudes toward learning English; second, that instructors can specifically design CW L2 to boost motivation; third, that there appear to be set cognitive patterns as AL is built up through CW L2; fourth, that CW L2 can be readily combined with other modes of output; and finally that teachers can adjust CW to generate motivation in unmotivated learners.

The purpose of this study is to explore the beliefs of students, teachers and parents regarding new students’ experiences in a Sheltered Immersion/Newcomers Program in a K-8 school district to provide recommendations and implications for other schools who are or wish to develop similar programs. The participants were given opportunities to reflect and dialogue about their experiences in this type of bilingual program through the implementation of Participatory Action Research (PAR). The research questions inquire about how language learners make sense of their experience of becoming bilingual and the factors that encourage or inhibit their engagement.

This dissertation explores the effect of visuals on test-takers’ L2 listeningprocesses. It uses a mixed methods design, following a concurrent transformative model (Creswell & Poth, 2018). There are three components to the study. The first is a comparison of group performance, aiming to shed light on how test-takers’ test performance may be affected by the inclusion of visuals. A total of 190 undergraduate students in China took part in this component. After being randomly and evenly placed in two groups according to their estimated proficiency level, their listening ability was assessed by a pre-test. They then took one of the two versions of a post-test, one where the participants could both see and hear the speakers, and the other one where they could only hear the speakers. A comparison of the two groups’ post-test scores using ANCOVA showed that the audio-visual participants scored significantly higher than the audio-only participants on the post-test. This indicates that the inclusion of visuals significantly enhanced the participants’ test performance. The second component of the study is a retrospective cued recall that investigatestest-takers’ specific listening processes. Ten participants in each group were randomly selected to join this part to the study. Their post-test test-taking processes were recorded and served as the stimuli for them to recall their viewing patterns, note-taking practice, identification of authentic features, and question-answering approaches. The comparisons between the two groups showed individual and group similarities, along with differences in every aspect of the listening processes. The last component is an analysis of the notes taken by the test-takers. Thequalitative participants’ notes taken during the post-test were rated regarding the correct levels of information noted, overall organization, and irrelevant and incorrect information noted. Using Spearman’s correlations, the note quality was correlated with the post-test scores in each condition. No significant correlations were found. This indicates that there was no substantive relationship between the participants’ note quality and test scores. Based on the results of the study, I advocate for the practice of including visualsin L2 listening tests, and an expansion of the construct definition of academic lecture listening to include the assessment of test-takers’ ability to understand visual cues. I also propose a five-dimension authenticity scale to measure the authenticity level of L2 listening input used on L2 listening tests. The study also has several other practical implications that are useful for L2 listening research, test development, and teaching and learning. Key limitations are acknowledged and discussed, and future research directions are suggested. / Teaching & Learning

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