The purposes of this study were to determine whether differences existed between the communication styles and teaching effectiveness, respectively, of native and non-native teaching fellows, as perceived by their undergraduate students. In addition, the study sought to determine whether a positive correlation existed between the final grades and the communication styles and teaching effectiveness, respectively, of native and non-native teaching fellows as perceived by their undergraduate students. In order to carry out the purposes of this study, six hypotheses were tested concerning the perception of native and non-native undergraduate students toward the communication style and teaching effectiveness of teaching fellows in North Texas State University.

Recent research suggests that culturally responsive teaching (CRT) practices have the potential to increase student educational outcomes, as well as to reduce unnecessary or inappropriate placement referrals. Examination of the core components in CRT, teacher efficacy and cultural competence, is proposed to be a critical step to reduce unwarranted referrals of culturally and linguistically diverse students. However, there is limited empirical support for the relationship between CRT and instructional referrals, and even among existing studies there is inconsistency regarding the relation of these constructs. The purpose of this study is to examine teacher factors (i.e., teacher role, degree earned, years of teaching, ESL certification held, language proficiency and ethnicity) as a predictor of teacher competence, and the role these factors play in teachers’ referral decision making. To investigate these relationships, a national sample of elementary teachers (N = 258) completed a survey addressing their background, profession endorsements, sense of teaching efficiency, and the instructional decisions they would make in the scenarios presented. The results of this study revealed that teacher role (i.e., general, ESL or special educator) and ESL certification were important predictors of teacher competency. A statistically significant mean difference in teacher competency was found between teachers with and without ESL certification, indicating ESL certification as an important factor in deciding the level of teacher competency. Finally, teacher competency was found to improve teachers’ instructional decision making in scenarios in which the students displayed linguistic difficulties. The findings provide valuable insights to teacher training programs and other professional development entities regarding how to prepare educators to work more efficiently with ESL students.

This study investigates the effect of testing mode on lower-level Saudi Arabian test-takers’ performance and cognitive processes when taking an L2 reading test on computer compared to its paper-based counterpart from an interface design perspective. An interface was developed and implemented into the computer-based version of the L2 reading test in this study, which was administered to 102 Saudi Arabian University students for quantitative analyses and to an additional eighteen for qualitative analyses. All participants were assessed on the same L2 reading test in two modes on two separate occasions in a within-subject design. Statistical tests such as correlations, group comparisons, and item analyses were employed to investigate test-mode effect on test-takers’ performance whereas test-takers’ concurrent verbalizations were recorded when taking the reading test to investigate their cognitive processes. Strategies found in both modes were compared through their frequency of occurrence. In addition, a qualitative illustration of test-takers cognitive behavior was given to describe the processes when taking a lower-level L2 reading test. A mixed-method approach was adhered to when collecting data consisting of questionnaires think-aloud protocols, and post-experimental interviews as main data collection instruments. Results on test-takers’ performance showed that there was no significant difference between the two modes of testing on overall reading performance, however, item level analyses discovered significant differences on two of the test’s items. Further qualitative investigation into possible interface design related causes for these differences showed no identifiable relationship between test-takers’ performance and the computer-based testing mode. Results of the cognitive processes analyses showed significant differences in three out of the total number of cognitive processes employed by test-takers indicating that test-takers had more difficulties in processing text in the paper-based test than in the computer-based test. Both product and process analyses carried out further provided convincing supporting evidence for the cognitive validity, content validity, and context validity contributing to the construct validity of the computer-based test used in this study.

This study investigated the relationship between reading attitudes in L1 and in L2 of learners in Pakistan. It also investigated the differences between reading attitudes of learners from different home backgrounds, rural and urban. The participants of the study had Sindhi as their L1 and English as their L2. They came from rural (n=186) and urban (n=202) parts of Sindh. The study employed a mixed methods approach. It collected data through a questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews. The questionnaire collected information on four reading attitude variables: self perception as a reader, utilitarian value for reading, personal involvement for reading and lack of reading anxiety both in Sindhi and in English. The fifth variable was learner’s rural/urban home background. My study partially confirms findings from previous studies indicating that reading attitudes in L1 and in L2 are related. Rural learners displayed a stronger relationship between reading attitudes in L1 and in L2, whereas urban learners displayed a weaker relationship. This finding was further confirmed when, through a multiple regression analysis, the contribution of each reading attitude was checked in terms of the coefficient values. A learner’s ‘rural/urban home background’ emerged as the strongest indicator of a learner’s reading attitudes than his/her reading attitudes in Sindhi. Thus, urban home background seems to add positively to reading attitudes in English. The findings show the importance of one’s educational background, home and society on the whole in the process of developing a learner’s attitudes towards reading in English. Furthermore, this study also demonstrated marked differences in the reading attitudes of both the groups in terms of their reading attitudes in L1 and in L2. The rural learners had better reading attitudes in L1 than their counterparts, whereas the urban learners had better reading attitudes in English than the rural learners. Such a finding again supports the role of society and social background in shaping learners’ reading attitudes in L1 or in L2.

La thèse met en lumière les conditions d’enseignement et d’apprentissage des mathématiques en langue seconde en étudiant avec précision l’articulation des savoirs mathématiques et des savoirs linguistiques. Elle traite le cas spécifique de l’enseignement des mathématiques en anglais dans un contexte CLIL et les séances expérimentales ont lieu en classes européennes de lycée. Le thème commun à ces séances est celui des preuves visuelles et multimodales. La Théorie des Situations Didactiques (TSD) offre un cadre théorique privilégié – notamment pour la construction des situations expérimentales - cadre qu’il a fallu compléter par des approches théoriques sémiotiques et linguistiques. Ainsi l’approche adoptée s’est révélée en adéquation avec la perspective actionnelle et la phraséodidactique a apporté de nombreux éléments permettant de mettre en relief le rôle de la phraséologie dans un enseignement intégré. Une focalisation particulière a dû être opérée sur les objets mathématiques et les processus d’abstraction mais aussi sur certains faits de langue. Les investigations ont permis d’affiner les descriptions des raisonnements produits tout en conservant une référence aux niveaux de milieux, au sens de la TSD. L’étude a nécessité de développer le concept de représentation et de décliner les représentations produites dans le contexte de la L2. Ce sont ces concepts et celui d’adidacticité, central dans la TSD, qui ont permis d’organiser les séances de manière optimale, en faisant apparaître le rôle essentiel joué par la perception active dans les processus de conceptualisation. / The purpose of this thesis is to investigate learning and teaching conditions of mathematics in English as a second language by closely examining how mathematical and language knowledge can fit together. This study deals with the specific case of CLIL teaching and the related experimental situations are performed in European classes in a French high school. The situations have a common topic, namely that of visual and multimodal proof. The theory of Didactical Situations is the central theoretical framework but our study has proven to be compatible with task-based pedagogy. Besides, phraseodidactics provided a useful and adequate auxiliary framework by shedding some light onto the essential role played by4phraseology. We particularly kept focused on mathematical objects and processes of abstraction but also on some specific language features. The concept of representation is central in our research works and thus had to be precisely defined. The success of our experimental situations owes a lot to the use of adidacticity, a central concept in TSD, and our focusing on the crucial part played by active perception during processes of conceptualisation. The purpose of one of the experimental situations (conducted in a second language) was to ensure that pupils divised, by themselves, a visual proof of an arithmetic property previously conjectured, carried out on the very level of schematisation an explicit generalisation and used real cubes to perform another type of proof, thus making the inductive step of the induction explicit.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-22T17:27:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Francine.pdf: 1635014 bytes, checksum: 766d4215eec29b93b8bf7a4e0d6bed91 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-09-27 / The correction of foreign language students errors (corrective feedback) can be considered a useful strategy for teachers in order to help learners in the new language acquisition. Therefore, this work investigates teachers' and learners' (both Portuguese native speakers) beliefs about corrective feedback. It also identifies English language students main errors, the feedback used in the correction and the uptake given, or not, by the students. The study is based on Swain (1995), Ranta (1994), Lyster (2001, 2004), Rauber & Gil (2004), among others. The results indicated that the most used feedback was the recast and that the uptake was not given in all evidences of correction / A correção de erros (feedback corretivo) de alunos de línguas estrangeiras (LEs) pode ser considerada uma estratégia útil para os professores ajudarem os aprendizes na aquisição da nova língua. Partindo desse pressuposto, este trabalho investiga as crenças de alunos e professores falantes de português como L1 sobre o feedback corretivo; identifica os principais erros de alunos de inglês como LE, o tipo de feedback utilizado pelo professor para corrigi-los e o uptake fornecido, ou não, pelo aluno. Para tanto, foram utilizados questionários e transcrições de ocorrência de erros e correções de cinco aulas de três turmas de inglês de nível de proficiência intermediário-avançado. O estudo está fundamentado em autores como Swain (1995), Ranta (1994), Lyster (2001, 2004), Rauber e Gil (2004), entre outros. Os resultados da investigação evidenciaram que o tipo de feedback mais utilizado foi o recast e que nem sempre os alunos forneceram uptake

<p>While the number of graduate students from different parts of the world in the United States is decreasing, the trend in Latin American populations is the opposite. Nonetheless, the current lack of information regarding the reasons behind this tendency, in terms of English language proficiency and cultural aspects, affects all parts involved: graduate students do not know what type of opportunities they can make use of; American universities do not have enough information to provide Latin American students with a sheltering environment; and Latin American governments are unable to make policies that encourage the application and facilitate admission to graduate school in American universities.</p> <p>The aim of this study is to establish a starting point for understanding the linguistic and cultural complexities of the Latin American population in graduate school in the United States. To do so, surveys and interviews were carried out to explore academic experiences, cultural influences and socioeconomic patterns that influenced the admission of Latin American students to graduate school. Mixed methods were used to describe the patterns of the survey responses quantitatively while leaving room for confirmatory quantitative analysis using the information of the interviews. The participants of this study were graduate students from Purdue University, one of the American universities with the highest number of Latin American graduate students. </p> <p>The results of this study underscore the importance of effective English language instruction during college years for reaching the graduate school admission scores, especially in cases when English language training during school was not possible or had little impact on the functional proficiency of the learner. Also, there is a large body of evidence indicating that undergraduate research internships could be one of the opportunities with the highest potential to recruit graduate Latin American students, regardless of their socioeconomic background.</p>

O presente trabalho analisa as taxas de transferência da regra de vocalização da lateral em posição pós-vocálica para o inglês por falantes de língua portuguesa como língua materna em diferentes estágios do processo de aprendizagem. Para tanto, fizemos duas coletas de dados em diferentes situações. A primeira coleta foi feita em Dublin, Irlanda com cinco aprendizes de inglês em níveis pré-intermediário e intermediário em situação de aquisição de segunda língua. Essa coleta foi realizada em dois momentos do aprendizado dos informantes, uma próxima à data de sua chegada na Irlanda e outra após três meses de sua estada no país. A segunda coleta foi realizada em Canoas, na região metropolitana de Porto Alegre – RS, com seis informantes detentores de diferentes certificados da Universidade de Cambridge (FCE – First Certificate in English e CPE – Certificate of Proficiency in English). Para que pudéssemos fazer essa análise, encontrando os fatores lingüísticos e extralingüísticos que estavam agindo na aplicação, ou não, da regra variável aqui testada, submetemos os dados coletados ao programa computacional GOLDVARB2001. As coletas foram analisadas separadamente e em conjunto. Os grupos de fatores testados foram: acento, posição na palavra, contexto precedente, contexto seguinte, nível de inglês, tipo de gravação e informante. As variáveis posição na palavra, contexto precedente e nível de inglês foram as selecionadas pelo programa quando todos os dados foram testados. As variáveis contexto seguinte e tipo de gravação mostraram-se não atuantes na transferência da regra de vocalização. Das variáveis extralingüísticas, a variável nível de inglês foi a que mais se mostrou atuante, uma vez que foi selecionada em todas as rodadas, assim como a variável lingüística posição na palavra. / This study analyses the transference rates of vocalization rules of the lateral in post-vocalic position into English by speakers of Portuguese as mother language in different stages of the learning process. In order to do that, two data collection were made in different situations. The first collection was made in Dublin, Ireland, with 5 learners of English as a second language in pre-intermediate and intermediate levels. This collection took place in two moments of their learning process, one close to the date of their arrival in Ireland and another one three months later. The second collection was made in Canoas, in the metropolitan area of Porto Alegre – RS, with 6 informants who have different certificates from Cambridge University (FCE – First Certificate in English e CPE – Certificate of Proficiency in English). In order to make this analysis, finding the linguistic and extralinguistic factors which were influencing the application or non-application of the variable rules tested here, the collected data were submitted to the computational program GoldVarb2001. The collections were first analysed separately and, afterwards, the results were compared in only one run with all the collected data. The groups of factors tested were: stress, word position, preceding context, following context, English level, type of recording and informant. The variables word position, preceding context and English level were selected by the program when all data were tested. The variables following context and type of recording were shown as non acting in the transference of the vocalization rule. From the extralinguistic variables, the variable English level was the one which most acted since it was selected in all the runs as well as the linguistic variable word position.

This study examines, through the use of a quantitative questionnaire, to what extent Swedish upper secondary students are involved in receptive and productive extramural English activities and what their perceptions are of learning English inside and outside of school. Extramural English (EE) is a term referring to the English students encounter outside school as extra means ‘outside’ and mural means ‘walls’. This study also investigates if the students perceive that the extramural English activities facilitate their classroom learning of English, and more specifically in relation to the language proficiencies reading, listening, writing and speaking. The results showed that the students reported being involved in mostly receptive EE activities as the most common activities they reported being involved in daily were related to listening and reading. The listening activities involved watching English-language TV-programs, TV-series and movies with and without Swedish subtitles and reading English texts. 98% of the students perceived that they do learn English outside of school while 68.6% of the students perceived that the English that they learned outside school facilitated classroom learning. The language proficiency the students perceived they developed most outside school was listening as 39% reported they "developed very much". The majority of students also reported to be more comfortable speaking and writing in English outside of school, and 57% indicated that they have learned most of their English knowledge outside of the school environment.

This study focuses on the teaching and learning of English as a second language and how different varieties of English are currently being used in education around the world and in Sweden. The purpose is to examine Swedish upper secondary students’ comprehension of different spoken varieties of English and their attitudes towards these varieties. Additionally, it will be investigated how important the students think exposure to different varieties is, which varieties they feel are important to have encountered, and what they think more generally regarding English language teaching and learning. 92 students in an upper secondary school in Sweden took part in the study. A listening exercise was carried out with follow up questions to test comprehension and examine how easy the students found the speakers to understand and how much they liked the sound of the pronunciation. This was followed by a questionnaire where the students were asked to indicate their level of agreement with statements about the importance of exposure to different varieties of English in their education. The results showed that the participants understood the speakers well in general, but that English English and American English were considered the easiest to understand and most pleasant to listen to, while Indian English ended up at the other side of the spectrum. Most of the students answered that it is very important for them to be exposed to various varieties of English in their education, and suggestions regarding which varieties to use in class were given. In conclusion, English teaching in Sweden should include more exposure to different Englishes to meet students’ requests.