It is essential that the citizen of today be well-informed about the world in which he lives, in order to share in its civilization and to contribute to it. Wide general reading is the only thing which can keep him so informed. It is, therefore, the imperative duty of teachers, especially in the secondary schools, to arouse in their students a desire to read. It is the peculiar responsibility of the English teachers to motivate, guide, and direct such reading. This paper will attempt to set forth the values to be derived from extensive reading, the objectives in a reading program, and some techniques and devices for the motivation and guidance of students' individual reading in high school. / "A Paper." / Typescript. / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: Griffith T. Pugh, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references.

This study examines Spanish gender assignment among mixed bilingual children with 121 English Language Learners and 17 Spanish Language Leaners from North and South Florida through the results of a receptive gender marking task. Two groups of younger (ages 4 to 6) and older (7 to 10) students participated and were tested on their accuracy of gender markers (el and la) on picture naming task of overtly and non-overtly marked feminine and masculine nouns. All participants demonstrated greater accuracy with overtly marked versus non-overtly marked nouns and with feminine versus masculine marked nouns. Greater overall gender assignment accuracy and the accuracy of marked markers was seen with older bilinguals compared to younger bilinguals. Comparisons regarding overall accuracy of gender assignment were made according to location. The results showed greater accuracy for overall gender assignment and marked nouns (overtly, non-overtly, masculine and feminine) for the participants from the South Florida compared to North Florida. For South Florida, years studying Spanish was significantly related to overall gender assignment accuracy. Equivalently, for North Florida, the number of years of exposure to Spanish was significantly related to overall gender assignment accuracy. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Communication Science and Disorders in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Spring Semester 2015. / March 27, 2015. / bilingual, gender assignment, language, non-overtly, overtly, Spanish / Includes bibliographical references. / Carla Wood, Professor Directing Thesis; RaMonda Horton, Committee Member; Gretchen Sunderman, Committee Member.

Children who are native Spanish-speaking Language Minority Youth (LMY) comprise the fastest growing population of students in the United States. In addition, these children lag significantly behind their non-LMY peers in academic achievement. To aid in their development of academic skills, it is necessary to evaluate individual factors that are related to later reading and math achievement. One such individual factor is executive function (EF). EF is defined as the set of cognitive skills that underlie children’s ability to regulate their thoughts and actions. Among the skills encompassed by executive function are inhibitory control (i.e., the ability to suppress a dominant response in favor of a subdominant response), working memory (i.e., the ability to maintain and manipulate information in short-term memory), and shifting (i.e., the ability to switch flexibly between tasks). Children who speak more than one language are theorized to have what is called a “bilingual advantage” in their executive function ability such that they outperform their non-LMY peers on tasks of inhibitory control. It is theorized that the bilingual advantage originates from the simultaneous activation of both languages and the constant need to select the relevant language while ignoring their other language. This conflict between languages and the need to select just one language in which to respond confers cognitive advantages that are said to generalize to inhibitory control. However, findings are mixed regarding whether the bilingual advantage exists. A closer examination of these findings suggests that the bilingual advantage is dependent upon the type of inhibitory control task administered. Specifically, the bilingual advantage is said to exist on tasks of interference suppression (IS; defined as the ability to ignore or suppress irrelevant salient perceptual information in a bivalent task and selectively attend to relevant conflicting information), but not on tasks of response inhibition (RI; defined as suppressing a dominant response in favor of a less dominant response). The goal of this study was to evaluate the different types of inhibitory control among children with some degree of exposure to both Spanish and English and to understand better whether there is a bilingual advantage conferred on tasks of interference suppression (but not on tasks of response inhibition) for children with a greater degree of bilingualism. In the current study, 100 Spanish-speaking LMY preschool students were administered an English and Spanish language measure to determine their degree of bilingualism as well as seven computerized tasks of inhibitory control. Four of the computerized tasks evaluated IS (two required verbal responses, two did not) and three of the computerized tasks evaluated RI (one required a verbal response, two did not). Consistent with the first hypothesis, the verbal and nonverbal computerized tasks measured a unitary inhibitory control construct. Consistent with the second hypothesis, results indicated that IS and RI were distinct domains within the broader construct of inhibitory control. Consistent with the third hypothesis, results indicated that a higher degree of bilingualism was associated with stronger inhibitory control, and that children’s degree of bilingualism was relatively more associated with IS than with RI. These findings support the presence of a bilingual advantage conferred to children’s inhibitory control, as well as a specific advantage conferred to inhibitory control tasks that require IS. However, degree of bilingualism was strongly related to children’s English language skills. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2016. / June 14, 2016. / Bilingual Advantage, English Language Learners, Executive Function, Inhibitory Control, Self-Regulation / Includes bibliographical references. / Christopher J. Lonigan, Professor Directing Dissertation; Carla Wood, University Representative; Arielle Borovsky, Committee Member; Jesse Cougle, Committee Member; Michael Kaschak, Committee Member.

The purpose of this study was to measure the impact of ARCS-based motivational email messages (MVEMs) on student participation in a free online English for Speakers of other Languages (ESOL) course. The course consisted of 10 communicative tasks and learners were to complete two tasks per week for five weeks. Each task involved pre-task activities with model language before students completed the communicative task by posting on the class message board. Students received task instructions via email. The independent variable (IV) for the study was type of email students received. The IV had three levels. The control group received task instructions via email. The experimental groups received the same task instructions with added ARCS-based motivational messages related to relevance, confidence, and volition. One experimental group received non-personalized relevance messages while the second experimental group received personalized relevance messages. Students received two emails per week for five weeks during the course. The emails were sent regardless of participation or performance so even students who did not complete any communicative tasks were sent 10 emails with instructions and, depending on group assignment, motivational messages. I measured participation based on number of students who completed at least one task, number of tasks completed, number of words written, number of visits to pre-task webpages, and time logged in to the class message board. Results suggest that ARCS-based MVEMs may encourage students to participate in free online language classes as both experimental groups outperformed the control group. No clear difference was found between the personalized and non-personalized MVEM groups. I also asked students for their thoughts about participation in the class. A qualitative content analysis revealed that students blamed commitments such as work, school, and family for lack of participation in the free ESOL class. Students credited the communicative tasks when they participated in the class. Students who received MVEMs appreciated the confidence and volitional messages. Implications for increasing student participation in free, online language courses are provided. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2017. / April 3, 2017. / ARCS, Email, English, Experiment, Motivation, Participation / Includes bibliographical references. / James Klein, Professor Directing Dissertation; Stephen McDowell, University Representative; Aubteen Darabi, Committee Member; Russell Almond, Committee Member.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / El método de enseñanza de uso común en el aula de hoy, el comunicativo, se ve frecuentemente con algunas ciertas incongruencias. Esto a veces llega a ser una fuente de frustración para el/la profesor/a que quiere transmitir el lenguaje de una manera efectiva, pero que lo ve difícil a causa de lo que parece, según muchos, una falta de información muy clara acerca de cómo y cuándo enseñar las formas gramaticales. Las investigaciones ofrecen puntos de vista muy opuestos: hay mucho debate acerca de si se debe enseñar la gramática en primer lugar; y si se enseña, ¿cómo se enseña para alcanzar el producto final de un grupo de estudiantes que usa la lengua con fluidez? ¿Existe alguna fórmula mágica, algún método eficaz para contestar estas preguntas a la satisfacción de los que requieren evaluar algo tan difícil de medir? En búsqueda de alguna respuesta concreta, aquí se va a investigar dos modelos comunicativos de la enseñanza de la gramática: uno que aparece frecuentemente en los libros de textos comunicativos, y uno de llegada más recién- el de la Instrucción Basada en el Procesamiento del Input (IBPI) de Bill VanPatten (1996, 2004a, 2004b, 2005). Las metas de esta investigación son dos. Primero, se va a demostrar las diferencias metodológicas entre la IBPI y la instrucción comunicativa estándar con lecciones explícitas. Además, se va a explorar la eficacia de estos dos métodos pedagógicos en la enseñanza de un punto gramatical con un estudio piloto de pequeña escala.

Bibliography: leaves 196-201. / The empirical survey of Xhosa amongst Standard 10 pupils in Cape Education Department Schools (CED) sought to verify or negate two central concerns which surf aced in a pilot study of five Western Cape schools. This thesis contends that little has changed throughout South Africa's colonial and apartheid history with regard to the status of African languages within South Africa and particularly in CED schools. The second contention is that various factors, including the lack of second language expertise and contact with mother tongue speakers, continue to undermine the potential development of pupils' communicative competence in Xhosa. Separate questionnaires which included categorical and open ended questions were posted to Xhosa-teachers, Standard 10 non-mother tongue Xhosa pupils and their parents. The Xhosa teachers administered the questionnaires. There was an 80% response from the total population of CED schools offering Xhosa. The number of subjects included 169 Xhosa pupils, 154 parents and 26 Xhosa teachers. STATGRAPHICS and BMDP were the statistical packages used in the analysis. Chi-Squared tests with the Yates correction for continuity were used to compare frequencies between categorical variables. ANOVA and t-tests were used with continuous variables. Findings indicated the deteriorating status of Xhosa in schools. The low number of CED schools ( 13. 0%) offering Xhosa and a 0. 5% growth rate in Standard 10 pupils doing Xhosa between 1988 and 1991 are an indication of this. The lack of encouragement and support for Xhosa from schools and the CED, coupled with problematic subject choice options, the Xhosa syllabus and the examination system, has affected the status of Xhosa and the motivation of pupils adversely. In the survey, pupils had low communicative competence in Xhosa levels of perceived due to the lack of informal, natural acquisition environments and the over- emphasis of grammatical aspects in the classroom and in examinations. Furthermore, the lack of quality primary and secondary education based on negatively affected pupils' second language theory has attitudes, motivation and communicative competence levels in Xhosa. The recognition of the importance of African languages in a future non-racial South Africa in the current language debate has highlighted the contradiction that exists today. This contradiction necessitates the urgent re-assessment of language and education policies, strategies and teaching methodologies in order to uplift the status of African languages and improve the levels of competence in the target language amongst school pupils.

The purpose of the research was to develop a test of oral communicative competence for English as a Second Language (ESL) students at the college level. This research first reviewed the current literature on the topic of communicative competence from the perspectives of linguistics and sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, and speech communication. The 1iterature on testing for communicative competence within the ESL and foreign language teaching fields was also reviewed. A 7-minute oral semi-direct taped test was then developed and administered to a trial group of 5 ESL students and a final group of 25 ESL students at Portland State University. The test consisted of 5 short information questions and 10 social situations to which the subject was requested to respond. The test was rated for three separate criteria: intelligibility, grammatical correctness, and appropriateness. Two different raters were used for each criterion; another rater rated for all criteria. A reliability study was conducted on the raters wherein the reliability of the raters was shown to be significantly high. The validity of the test was established by conducting face-to-face interviews with the trial and final subjects prior to their taking the taped tests. The results showed that the degree of association between the overall ratings on the taped test and the overall ratings on the interview was significant, though not significant for individual criteria. A correlation with the CELT listening comprehension test was not significant.

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