abstract: How hard should the books be in elementary small-group reading? This study explored text difficulty for bilingual students reading below grade level in third grade. Using a convergent parallel mixed methods design, I used qualitative methods to analyze students’ engagement and discussion during small groups and single case design to evaluate students’ fluency and reading comprehension after reading and discussing texts in small groups. Six Spanish-English bilingual students, split into two groups of three, participated in twelve, 30-minute, small-group reading sessions. Students in Group 1 read approximately one year below grade level, and students in Group 2 read approximately a year and a half below grade level. In six of the twelve sessions, students read and discussed texts matched to their reading levels, and in the other six they read and discussed texts one year ahead of their reading levels. I assigned matched and difficult texts across the twelve days by blocked randomization. I analyzed video transcripts of each session to understand students’ engagement (focus of engagement, strategies, and interaction) and discussion (inferential vs. literal responses, instances of verbal participation). At the end of each session, students reread and retold the book the group had read and discussed that day to produce a fluency (words correct per minute) and comprehension (ideas correctly retold) score. Findings were complex and revealed that different levels of texts have both advantages and drawbacks. Key findings included: For fluency, half of the students benefited from matched texts. The other half read difficult texts with similar fluency to matched texts. For comprehension, text difficulty did not matter for anyone except one student, and for him it only had an effect on 3 of 12 days. Group 2 engaged much more with texts and ideas in difficult books and with pictures in matched books. Group 1 had more inferential/interpretive responses with matched texts, and Group 2 had more inferential and interpretive responses with difficult texts. Most students participated evenly regardless of the difficulty of the text under discussion. However, two students talked more when discussing matched texts. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Learning, Literacies and Technologies 2018

abstract: The Stretch Model is a model of first year composition (FYC) that “stretches” the first semester's class over two semesters in order to help writing students who arrive at university with low test scores to succeed in their composition courses. Originally piloted in 1994 at Arizona State University (ASU), the Stretch Model of composition has been found to be effective in terms of retention and persistence of first language (L1) writers (e.g., Glau, 1996; 2007). It has become known at ASU and abroad as the Stretch Program. Since 1997, a separate track of the Stretch Program has been solely for second language (L2) writers, and L2 writing students are now roughly 17% of the program's population. Until fairly recently, there was no attempt to collect L2 data to support the Stretch Program's claims for effectiveness for the L2 population. As many universities across the nation have garnered inspiration for their own programs ("Stretch Award" 2016), and L2 writers have the potential to be in any composition class (Matsuda, Saenkhum, & Accardi, 2013), it is imperative to include the voices of L2 writers in the analysis of the Stretch Program. This study addresses the need for L2 writers' voices to be included in the analysis of the Stretch Program at Arizona State University. From the quantitative analysis of 64,085 students’ institutional data records, and qualitative analysis of 210 student surveys, findings include L2 writers have the highest rates of passing, but the lowest rates of persistence in the three-semester first year composition requirement when compared to Stretch L1 students and the traditional FYC population. Survey data also lends L2 student perceptions to complicate the main features of the Stretch Program including perceived writing improvement, having the same teacher and classmates for two semesters, and having more time to work on their writing. The quantitative findings are consistent with Snyder’s (2017a) analysis of the 2012 fall Stretch Program L1 and L2 cohorts. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2018

abstract: This study is of professional development of secondary teachers seeking an English as Second Language (ESL) endorsement. Participants are secondary teachers of a major urban metropolitan school district with over 70% student population that is identified as speakers of a language other than English (LOTE). The study analyzes teachers' understanding of knowledge, skills and dispositions associated with teaching English Learners (ELs) after these teachers have completed a long term, coherent professional development program designed for urban secondary teachers of one school district. In seeking a determination, the study utilizes two guiding research questions. The first research question addresses what mainstream teachers say about their knowledge, skills and dispositions relative to teaching ELs. The second focuses on a more generalized understanding of what mainstream teachers say is important to understand about EL students. In order to interpret findings, the study utilizes two theoretical frameworks, Knowledge-for-Practice (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999) and Cultural Relevant Teaching (Villegas & Lucas, 2002b). The primary data instrument is an e-survey, which includes open-ended and Likert questions. Data analysis includes an SPSS analysis for descriptive statistics, measures of internal reliability and Spearman correlation analysis, as well as constant comparison method (Glasser &Straus;, 1967; Straus & Corbin, 1994) of data from responses to open-ended questions. The findings suggest that teacher participants understand that supporting EL students' first Language facilitates connections to prior learning in their first language to school content. Respondents identify that scaffolding, heterogeneous grouping, and allowing of first language use among students are ways that foster learning of English while learning content. In terms of language perspectives on the use of English-only or English plus ELs' first language in classroom teaching, some respondents support English-only instruction for learning English and content while others identify the importance of first language support while learning English and content. Supporting ELs' cultural background is deemed important by respondents as a way of promoting EL student academic success. Respondents also identify supporting ELs' academic success through EL advocacy among fellow teachers as means to educate and guide teachers who are unfamiliar with teaching ELs. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction 2012

abstract: This study investigates the uses of English in advertising in Brazil and the attitudes of Brazilians towards the use of different difficulty levels of English in advertising. Using a two part, mixed-methods approach, drawing from quantitative and qualitative methods, I utilized a corpus study to examine English uses in Brazilian magazines and a survey to investigate the difficulty of English slogans as a determinant for people's attitudes towards English in advertising. For the first part, three major Brazilian news magazines, Veja, Época, and ISTOÉ were used. From three issues of each magazine, results showed that 57% of the advertisements in all nine magazines contained English in different parts of the advertisements, with most occurrences in the product name, followed by the body copy, headline, subheadline, and slogan. English was used to advertise a number of different product types, but was especially used for advertising cars, electronics, events, and banks. It was also found that the majority of English was used for its symbolic representations of modernity, prestige, globalization, and reliability. Using a survey for the second part of the study, I investigated how Brazilian participants judged four advertisements that featured English slogans that were comparable to slogans judged to be easy or difficult to understand in a similar study conducted by Hornikx, van Meurs, and de Boer (2010). Participants were offered attitudinal choices to mark off on a 4-point Likert scale, where they indicated their attitudes towards the English slogans provided. They were also asked to determine if they understood the slogans and to translate them to indicate their actual understanding of the slogans. Participants showed more positive attitudes towards the uses of English than negative attitudes. The survey provided evidence that with the very low numbers of correctly translated slogans, many participants believed they understood the slogans, which could prove to be more of an indicator of positive attitudes than their actual understanding of the slogans. This project provides an example from one Expanding Circle context touched by the far-reaching influences of World Englishes. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Applied Linguistics 2014

The purpose of this essay was to see what mistakes Swedish university students make when writing English essays and to focus on one specific mistake, namely the use of capital letters. Fifty essays written by students of Swedish origin were taken from the SWICLE (the Swedish Component of the International Corpus of Learner English), corrected and the mistakes were subsequently analysed. Furthermore, six Swedish school book series were examined in order to find examples of how Swedish pupils are taught how to use capital letters in English. The results showed that mistakes concerning capital letters were very common compared to other mistakes and that the students in the study seemed to have grasped some grammatical rules on the matter, but not all. Other common mistakes made in the essays were spelling mistakes and choice of words. Most common among the mistakes concerning capital letters were overuse of capital lettering and the lack of initial capital letters when writing weekdays, months and holidays. Only one out of the six school book series went deeper into the matter of when to use capital letters in English, which suggests that one of the reasons why capital letter mistakes are so common might be that the students are not extensively taught on the matter.

The aim of this study is to investigate if the levels of attainment in national reading comprehension tests in English reflect the types of reading texts which pupils encounter inside and outside the classroom. A further aim is to find out if there is a gender distinction between boys’ and girls’ levels of reading comprehension which can be related to existing reading habits. A questionnaire was completed by upper secondary school pupils of Englishin order to investigate the threeresearch questions. The questionnaire involved 10 questions about the pupils’ reading habits. Furthermore, two reading comprehension tests that were created by The Swedish National Agency for Education were also used and distributed to the pupils to complete. The pupils’ results from the reading comprehension test were used by the author to answer the three research questions thatthis study is based on. The results of this study showthat the types of texts the pupils encounter inside and outside the classroom affect their results on the reading comprehension tests. Regarding the second question that this study investigates, there is no gender distinction between boys’ and girls’ levels of reading comprehension, whichcan be related to existing reading habits. Concerning the third research question in this study, the results show that both girls and boys spend more time on social media than reading English fiction. These results might indicate the fact that technology such as the Internet and social media are very popular and important in the pupils’lives. Moreover, technology and theuse of social mediamightas well affect the pupils’ reading habits and reading comprehension.

The study of motivation in language learning and language teaching has a long history. The present study investigates what attitudes students in upper secondary school have towards the English language and what motivates them to learn it. The study is based on a questionnaire regarding motivation and sixty students have participated. The study shows that the students have acknowledged the status of the English language in the world and its function as an international language as well as its function as a tool for communicative purposes. A conclusion is that they have positive attitudes in general towards the English language as well as learning English.

This study aims to investigate Namibian teachers’ attitudes towards English as a medium of instruction in Namibian classrooms. Regardless of the fact that English has no historical ties with Namibia, English still operates as the official language and the language of instruction in schools. This study briefly discusses the probable reasons for choosing English as an official language in Namibia, and as the medium of instruction in educational institutions. Furthermore, it discusses the attitudes that Namibian teachers have towards English as a medium of instruction in Namibian classrooms. A pilot electronic questionnaire, a revised questionnaire, and telephone interviews were used to acquire data for the study. The results indicate that English is a challenge for many learners and this poses a challenge to teachers as well. However, a majority of teachers from this study portray English as the language that is capable of uniting Namibian learners from different backgrounds, and a language that makes education possible in Namibia. In addition, teachers also reported that knowledge of English opens up educational opportunities for learners to study abroad.

Research has shown that children who have English as a first language acquire grammatical morphemes in a predictable order. Many researchers claim that second language learners also follow a predictable pattern when learning English grammatical morphemes regardless of their linguistic background, and that the same mechanisms are responsible for both first and second language acquisition. The aim of this paper was to study Swedish students’ knowledge of English grammatical morphemes, and to compare their knowledge with that of second language learners from other countries as well as with that of first language learners. The results show that Swedish students seem to acquire morphemes in a similar way to that of second language learners in general and that they make errors similar to those made by first language learners. For example, the copula was almost fully acquired, while the third person regular and irregular constituted a problem for the students. The most notable exception was the possessive ´s, which Swedish students seem to acquire at an early stage compared to other second language learners.

Magister Educationis - MEd / The purpose of this case study was to investigate how the Francophone students from Congo, Gabon and Cameroon negotiated competence and identities in English (L2) in and outside the classroom. The study also aimed at understanding the nature and extent of academic support that was made available to the Francophone students who had to learn through the medium of English (L2) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). Through the lens of the sociocultural and poststructural theories, the study argues that identity construction in a second language is a fluid phenomenon which should be understood within a particular context, particularly in multilingual environments like UWC. The study followed a qualitative research design which involved three methods of data collection, namely, observations, semi-structured interviews and student narratives. A thematic analytical framework was used to understand the Francophone students’ experiences, and how they negotiated and (re)constructed competence and identity in English (L2) in the lecture rooms and in local communities. The findings of the study indicate that English (L2) was perceived as an investment by the Francophone students. They show that competence in English (L2) was a source of voice and agency for the students. They also illustrate that there is a close relationship between (second) language learning and identity construction, and that identity is socially constructed. The study concludes that identity construction is a fluid phenomenon which should be understood in relation to the changing social context, which is embedded in language competence.