The study applied behavior analytic principles to foreign language instruction in a college classroom. Two study methods, vocabulary banks and scripts, were compared by assessing the effects on Italian language acquisition, retention, and generalization. Results indicate that students without prior exposure to Italian engaged in more exchanges and emitted more words in script tests compared to vocabulary bank tests. Participants with at least two classes in Italian prior to the study engaged in more exchanges and emitted more words during vocabulary bank tests. Data suggest that different teaching strategies may work for different learners. More research is needed to determine efficient teaching methods and how to ascertain which approaches work best for learners with different histories.

abstract: ABSTRACT Much of teacher feedback research is conducted in the L1 and L2 contexts. There is a paucity of research about feedback in the Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) context. Particularly, little is known about teachers' feedback practices and student views of teacher feedback. The present study was undertaken to fill the research gap by focusing on teachers'written feedback. Student data from surveying 38 students was interpreted with teacher data gained from interviewing three teachers. The findings indicate that teacher written feedback, which occurred in a multiple-draft writing cycle, generally accorded with recommended feedback principles. Students responded favorably to teacher written feedback. The results also reveal discrepancies between teachers' feedback practices and student perceptions of and preferences regarding teacher feedback. The results show that students wanted more written comments from teachers, though most teachers didn't prioritize written comments. Despite teachers' practices and their inclination toward offering coded indirect error correction, students in the study expressed their preferences for direct error correction. Most students are interested in receiving teacher feedback that addresses all aspects of writing rather than primarily focusing on language accuracy. The reasons that may account for the disjuncture are also discussed in the study. The study concludes that it is important for teachers to be aware of student attitudes and expectations regarding teacher feedback. Teachers should be flexible enough to provide individualized feedback. Pedagogical implications are included in the paper in the hope of shedding light on the development of effective and helpful teacher feedback. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Asian Languages and Civilizations 2012

Master of Arts / Department of Modern Languages / Abby Franchitti / The role of first language (L1) has been controversial in foreign language (FL) learning and teaching. This study examines the relationship between L1 use and gender and level of education of EFL teachers as well as gender and EFL proficiency level of learners in an Afghan university setting. It also investigates the relationship between FL use and learner anxiety by learner gender and EFL proficiency level. The study hypothesized that female FL teachers use the L1 more than male teachers in FL classrooms. Second, low FL proficiency learners consider L1 use as necessary in FL classrooms. Third, low FL proficiency students experience more anxiety with the exclusive use of FL than higher level learners. Fourth, female learners experience more anxiety than male students with the exclusive use of FL by learners and teachers. Twenty EFL teachers participated in the study by completing a 19-item questionnaire and sixty EFL learners by completing a 27-item questionnaire about their views towards L1/FL use and learner anxiety. The data, analyzed through SPSS software, included calculating frequencies and percentages, computing correlations, and conducting independent-samples t-tests to compare the mean difference between the variables. The first hypothesis was not supported as male teachers reported using the L1 more than female teachers. The study also revealed that male teachers with BA and MA degrees used the L1 more than female teachers with BA degrees. In contrast, female teachers with MA degrees used the L1 more than male teachers with BA and MA degrees and also more than female teachers with BA degrees. The results supported hypothesis two. More elementary learners considered the use of L1 as necessary than intermediate and advanced students. The findings also supported hypotheses three and four. Elementary learners as well as female students experienced more anxiety with the exclusive use of FL than intermediate and advanced level students and male learners. The principal conclusion indicated a significant positive correlation between the exclusive use of FL and learner anxiety.

Master of Arts / Department of Modern Languages / Earl K. Brown / Considerable research exists on the various uses of modals of obligation in English, while the number of studies on Spanish modals is limited. The research of Fairclough (2000) looks at the variation and changes of the Spanish modals DEBER 'should' and TENER QUE ‘to have to’ spoken in Houston. Another study was conducted on modals and their variation in San Juan, Puerto Rico by Jose Santos (1994). However, most of the research does not include the verb NECESITAR 'to need'. This study examines and compares the uses of the modal verbs TENER QUE and NECESITAR. First, this paper presents previous research on modality, the changes and usage of modals in English, and the limited research on Spanish modals. Then the researcher examines the results of data collected using Twitter in order to determine for what main verbs TENER QUE and NECESITAR act as modal verbs, the frequency with which the Twitter users in the Spanishspeaking capitals in Central and South America use these verbs, and in what tense do these two modals occur most often. After discussing the results of the data collection, the study includes a brief discussion on the implications for teaching modals of obligation in Spanish to second language learners. This study finds overall that TENER QUE is preferred over NECESITAR. However, some verbs collocate with NECESITAR more than the average suggesting that patterns of collocations play a key role in determining the use of NECESITAR.

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is identified as dismissing translation, applying to all "translation" the restricted expression of translation within the discredited Grammar Translation Method (GTM). Recent, negative classifications of the GTM are considered and, this dissertation observes, the concept of the GTM is shown as prone to being mythologized. A summary definition of the GTM is offered. Of the five Prussian language teachers viewed by history as originating the GTM, Joahnn Valentin Meidinger and, to a lesser degree, Heinrich Gottfried Ollendorff are shown offering methods and an approach to translation that are most similar to the definition of the GTM used today. Johann Heinrich Philipp Seidenstücker, Johann Franz Ahn, and Carl Julius Ploetz are found also to stand in the lineage of the GTM, but with important qualifications. The name "Grammar Translation Method" is asserted by this dissertation to originate in the Reform Movement, specifically, Wilhelm Viëtor’s Der Sprachunterricht muß umkehren! (1882) and a lecture of Viëtor’s from 1899. Viëtor is noted characterizing "traditional" methodologies with the terms "Grammatik" and "Übersetzung," beginning with Meidinger’s Practische Französische Grammatik (1783). Translation is found to remain problematic for the Reform Movement. A separate, concurrent movement, resulting in the Direct Method, is seen banishing all use of translation, and arguably lives on in CLT today. The formulation of a novel definition of the translation of texts is attempted. This definition, along with opinions from Translation Studies, is applied to a statement by Viëtor, where translation is particularly problematized, with the goal of mitigating this problematic. The dissertation recommends that CLT similarly use this definition of translation, so as to mitigate its own skepticism towards translation.

abstract: This investigation's goal was to add to the small body of research on pragmalinguistic acquisition of L2 Spanish. Specifically, it centered on the production of complaints in Spanish. Data was collected via a written Discourse Completion Task (DCT) of a complaint-provoking situation presented in a website voiceboard to two non-native speaker (NNS) students groups of different proficiency levels and to a native speaker (NS) control group. The lower proficiency group was comprised of 11 NNS enrolled in a 200 level beginning/intermediate Spanish grammar class and the advanced proficiency group of 11 NNS enrolled in a 400 level advanced Spanish conversation and composition class. Neither group contained any participants who had studied abroad or lived in a Spanish-speaking country for more than 3 months. The control group consisted of 10 NSs of Spanish who were all natives or current residents of Northern Mexico. Data from the DCT was categorized into strategies which were organized into Head Acts and Supporting Moves, Deference and Solidarity Politeness systems, according to the frameworks of Blum-Kulka, et al. (1989) and Scollon and Scollon (1983), respectively. The results of the analysis revealed that all three groups of participants have overarching similarities in the use of multiple Head Acts, some used several times throughout a response, to realize a complaint and used some Supporting Moves to mitigate these Head Acts. The lower proficiency group diverged from the advanced proficiency group and NS control group in that lower proficiency students not only used a fewer total strategies and strategy types, but also preferred Head Acts and Supporting Moves that expressed discomfort or dislike over strategies that expressed criticism, or requested a solution from the listener, these being the primary strategies preferred by the advanced proficiency and control group participants. It was also found that the percentage of Supporting Moves decreased with the raise in proficiency level, also. After a discussion of the results, pedagogical implications are given based on these results to help students notice and acquire pragmalinguistcally appropriate responses to complaint-provoking situations. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Spanish 2012

abstract: Current research shows a positive relationship between the use of written synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) and oral production (Isenberg 2010; Kern 1995; Payne & Whitney, 2002). No prior investigations specifically analyze the effect of SCMC on the conjugation of simple present tense verbal forms in narratives produced by learners of Spanish in online environments. This semester-long study addressed this issue by systematically analyzing the effect of written SCMC on the oral production of present-tense verb conjugations in two different oral tasks by students in two different intermediate level online Spanish courses. Written chat (WC), a type of synchronous group discussion, was used in the treatment group in order to examine the crossover effects of written SCMC on present tense forms in oral production tasks among intermediate Spanish students in online courses. Both online groups engaged in 30 minutes of concentrated interaction with the instructor and other students each week. The control group engaged in 30 minutes of oral interaction per week while the experimental group was exposed to 15 minutes of oral chat and 15 minutes of WC in the 30 minute session of interaction. Specifically, this study employed a pretest/posttest quasi-experimental design and tested the differential effects of a combination of oral and written SCMC online interaction and SCMC solely oral online interaction on the acquisition of Spanish present tense verb forms. The findings show a significant difference in oral gains among the experimental group. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Applied Linguistics 2012

x, 56 p. / This thesis considers the importance of cheng-yu (Chinese language-specific, idiomatic lexical-syntactic units) in second-language acquisition at the intermediate and advanced levels and examines current research in order to formulate an instructional approach. Informed by linguistic and pedagogical research on idioms generally, the study aims to apply research relevant to Chinese language idioms specifically. Main topics to be considered include: the importance of cheng-yu in higher-level discourse including the social significance of cheng-yu use; the patterned structure of cheng-yu; idiom teaching methods and a review of idiom content and presentation in commonly-used Chinese language textbooks; and the significance of corpus data in cheng-yu instruction. Results confirm the importance of cheng-yu in discourse and recommend practicable, research-based classroom strategies. Finally, a sample lesson is provided which encourages the use of corpus data and utilizes research findings on the structure of cheng-yu and on teaching practices thought to foster acquisition. / Committee in charge: Dr. Zhuo Jing-Schmidt, Chairperson; Dr. Yugen Wang, Member

abstract: Online language learning is becoming increasingly popular with advances in technology that facilitate the acquisition of language in virtual environments (Duensing et al., 2006). Much of the recent literature on online foreign language instruction has focused on the possibilities presented by online technologies but has failed to examine the practical side of how and by whom online language courses are delivered. Several authors have published articles on the skills needed to be a successful online language teacher using empirical approaches (Comas-Quinn, 2011; Ernest et al., 2013; Shelly et al., 2006) and some focus more on the theoretical discussions (Compton, 2009; Hampel & Stickler, 2005). The current study drew on the existing frameworks in the previous literature to operationalize and measure the participants’ online language teaching skills while they taught a class online. These participants were graduate student instructors of Spanish at a large public university (n = 3). Using a case study approach to data analysis (Duff, 2008), and gathering data through a background questionnaire, pre-and post assessments, bi-monthly teaching journals, self- and researcher observations, an exit survey and a semi-structured post-interview, this study investigated how the participants online language teaching skills, proposed by Hampel and Stickler (2005) and Compton (2009), changed over the course of them teaching an online language course and the factors that seemed to influence more or less development in each skill area. Additionally, it compares the main findings from this study with those found in previous literature and offers recommendations of how to promote the development and sustainability of these online language teachers’ skills. This study serves as one of the few empirical studies conducted in the United States that concretely operationalizes and measures through carefully designed instruments the prescribed online language teaching skills in an effort to gain insights into what contributes to their development and how to sustain their continued growth. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Spanish 2015

The role of technology in education has expanded to a near universal reality. In foreign languages the field of Technology-enhanced Language Learning, has long sought to effectively implement instruction with these tools, and often to great success, often through the guise of Computer-assisted Language Learning. However, most studies investigating the student perception of class structures incorporating technology are based on what instructors have implemented. Students, the counterparts of instructors, often own more than one technological tool and will often employ these tools in their studies. For learners of foreign languages, certain aspects of technology are selected for various tasks based on personal beliefs on how effective these modes of technology may be. This study seeks to discover which technologies students of Japanese select, how they employ those tools and if it makes them feel more confident in their studies. This study also seeks to answer how much technology students wish their instructors would use and hopefully inspire foreign language instructors to adopt technology in a way that aligns with student preference.