The main objective of this case-study research is to document the learning and potential development of Spanish aspect by a female multilingual learner of Spanish, Judith, during her second year of study in an SLA classroom context at a university in Northeastern United States over a two semester (one year) period. This research also examines the specific classroom context in which this learner's development was documented. The second objective is therefore to document the extent to which this approach mediated potential grammatical development in Judith, particularly in her conceptual understandings of Spanish aspect. A Vygotskyan-inspired concept-based pedagogy (CBP) (Gal'Perin, 1989, 1992; Negueruela, 2003; Negueruela and Lantolf, 2006; Negueruela, 2008) and dynamic assessment (DA) procedures (Poehner and Lantolf, 2005;, Lantolf & Thorne, 2006; Poehner, 2008), both based on Sociocultural Theory (Vygotsky 1978, 1986) were implemented to teach Spanish to learners. The quality of the new meanings being developed by Judith was documented over time under this particular concept-based teaching context. Data was collected in order to capture the personal histories and orientations to different contexts and activities for this research participant. A combination of insights from Spradley (1980) and Emerson (1995) on ethnographic records was used in order to document the social learning situation taking place in the classroom. It included a combination of artifacts such as field notes, teaching artifacts, tape-recorded interviews, and oral and written discourse from Judith. To analyze how the research participant developed the concept of Spanish aspect (preterit versus imperfect), I used the SCOBA (Schema for Complete Orienting Basis of Action) that was developed by Negueruela (2003) for L2 learning of Spanish. I also used Poehner (2008) and Bloome et al. (2008)'s perspective on data analysis to examine the meaning-making of the L2 learner participant in interaction while she was using the artifacts and interacting with her peers and me, the instructor and investigator. This combination of ethnographic and CBI tools aims at providing a richer picture of this multilingual learner's development over time that would reflect the complexity and dynamic nature of language learning and development (as suggested by Van Lier, 2004).

The study of Arabic as a foreign language in the US has witnessed a tremendous increase in recent decades, especially in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001. Implementation of modern communicative language teaching methodologies has been complicated by the diglossic nature of the Arabic language, as well as the wide variations between the many varieties of spoken colloquial Arabic; only recently has the field seen a widespread shift towards the teaching of the Arabic dialects at beginning levels of study. As a result of this shift, there exist increasing numbers of Arabic learners who have been exposed to one or more Arabic dialects in addition to the formal written language. This thesis presents the results of an interview-survey of Arabic learners who had studied more than one dialect of Arabic in structured classroom contexts, either in the US or the Arab world, with the goal of determining to what extent such instruction had helped or hindered their progress in the language. Results indicated that a majority of participants believe that despite increased challenges, exposure to multiple Arabic dialects was beneficial to their learning experience, and would advocate for such exposure in beginning and intermediate-level Arabic courses. However, many respondents also cautioned that alternate dialect forms should not be presented with the expectation of active production in class. Participants also commented on the ways in which they felt Arabic dialect instruction could be improved; frequently mentioned issues included further development of formal written materials for dialect study, and increased flexibility and understanding on the part of instructors with regard to classroom use of alternate dialectal forms. / text

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<p> This dissertation seeks to understand college writing-center work between peer tutors and college students&mdash;called <i>peer tutoring</i>. Specifically, this study explores peer tutoring between deaf peer tutors and deaf tutees as they discuss academic writing. Further, this study investigates how deaf peer tutors and deaf tutees who are bilingual users of American Sign Language (ASL) and English use strategies to support the learning of academic writing during a tutorial session in a writing center. My review of the writing-center literature shows that research on the topic of a deaf peer tutor (DPT) and a deaf tutee (DT) as a pair is limited. While the literature on deaf tutees is expanding, the research studies on deaf peer tutors remain little understood. In fact, the literature on the retention rate of deaf college students remains low and persistent (Marschark &amp; Hauser, 2008). I conducted a qualitative case study to explore the DPT-DT interaction in a writing-center setting with a theoretical framework of (1) sociocultural, (2) ASL/English bilingual, and (3) Deaf Critical (DeafCrit) theories. The analytical framework contains an early form of grounded theory analysis and a four-layer discourse analysis, which highlights the micro and macro views of the DPT-DT interaction. One of the three main findings shows that the study participants relied on visual discourse markers, consisting of signed modality and peripheral communication, which clearly supports deaf-student learning of academic writing in English. Another finding reveals that tutors offered many `explaining incidents' compared to the other five means of assistance: giving feedback, questioning, giving hints, modeling, and instructing. Finally, the third finding relates to the participants' lived experiences of audism during their school years where they experienced limited access to learning English incidentally&mdash;a form of oppression. This research effort has the potential to promote writing support for deaf students and writing-center practices for hearing and deaf tutors who are interested in working with deaf students. Further, this research effort has the potential to improve the retention rate for deaf college students and to increase career opportunities for deaf peer tutors in the writing-center field.</p><p> Keywords: Academic writing, writing center, peer tutoring, deaf college students, discourse markers, sociocultural theories, ASL/English bilingual theory, DeafCrit</p><p>

<p> This dissertation emerged at the intersection of collaboration, immigration issues, and language practices. Third-grade students started the school year with much difficulty to engage in academic content and language learning, mainly due to a lack of self-regulation which greatly affected the classroom dynamics. Drawing from Freire (1970, 1993), I believe in the importance of the process of conscientization, which is the critical understanding of the context around us and growing in awareness through reflection and transformative action, and the notion of critical literacy as the "reading of the word and the world" (Freire &amp; Macedo, 1987). The purpose of the study was to set conditions for students to engage in language learning in a collaborative participatory democracy classroom environment. The following general question guided but did not limit my study: How can I, as a teacher-researcher, and my third-grade students work so students become biliterate through collaboration and translanguaging practices? Participatory Action Research (PAR)/Research As Praxis (RAP) philosophy was both the methodology of the study and a fundamental part of my pedagogy. Two transformations: responsibility `<i>conciencia </i>' (consciousness) and language events progressed in three stages: the beginning-of-the-year stage; the settling-in-and-soaking-in stage; and the common-motto-and-`<i>mismo-barco</i>' (in the same boat) stage. As a result, both students and I were transformed. Students advanced in behavioral and emotional self-awareness, guiding dialogue, making group decisions, and solving conflicts. In their process of becoming biliterate, students stopped making translations and overcame the fear of speaking in English. They started using English and translanguaging practices as an authentic type of communication using their whole linguistic repertoire. I stood up for a symmetrical students-teacher relationship by democratically promoting participation without guiding and consciously balancing power relations permitting a more student-led classroom assembly time and conflicts solved by students. Some lessons I learned were: overcoming an initial na&iuml;ve thinking about participation, transforming to create the conditions for student participation in conflict resolution and decision-making, how I released myself from being the power figure and educated to make a good use of the power to participate democratically in conflict resolution and decision-making, the process of civic education, and biliteracy and translanguaging.</p><p>

Framed within a Sociocultural Theory of Mind (SCT) in the field of Second Language Acquisition (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006), this dissertation explores the role of verbalizing in the internalization of grammatical categories through the use of Concept-based Instruction (henceforth CBI) in the second language (L2) classroom. Using Vygotsky's (1986) distinction between scientific and spontaneous or everyday concepts applied to L2 development (Negueruela, 2008), this study focuses on the teaching and potential development of the grammatical concept of aspect in the Spanish L2 classroom, and the role of verbalizing in its internalization. It is proposed that verbalizing mediates between the learners' initial understandings of the grammatical concept of aspect, the development of conscious conceptualizations, and students' written and oral production of preterite and imperfect grammatical forms. This study presents and analyzes data from one of the thirty-two adult college students enrolled in an advanced Spanish conversation course. Data is analyzed through a clinical analytic approach, which has its roots in Vygotsky's (1978) genetic method of analysis. The study was carried out over a 12-week period and collected multiple sets of developmental data, including learners' definition of the grammatical concept of aspect, written performance protocols, and verbalization data recorded during two oral interviews. The study interprets learner performance in these three complementary, and dialectically connected types of L2 conceptual data. A close analysis of this participant's data provides critical insights to understand the role of verbalizing in L2 conceptual development. Findings confirm that learners' verbalizations are key factors to ascertain L2 conceptual development, as well as a mediational tool that fosters learners' internalization of the grammatical concept of aspect. It is proposed that verbalizing notably contributes to research on L2 development. Not only does it allow the researcher to have a more comprehensive picture of L2 development, but it also helps learners develop a more sophisticated semantic understanding of the grammatical concept of aspect and fosters their ability to understand and control relevant grammatical features in L2 communication.

The purpose of this research is to seek out Indigenous perspectives on literacy in Indigenous Language Revitalization (ILR), and to explore the role of print literacy in ILR in British Columbia. The central research question of this study is: does print literacy play a role in language revitalization? Through qualitative interviews and an extensive literature review, this thesis explores community-based language revitalization initiatives in Indigenous communities, as described by Indigenous language champions and scholars. In international forums, literacy is often discussed in terms of development goals, functionalism, and economic success. However, literacy is “socially and historically situated, fluid, multiple, and power-linked” (McCarty, 2005, p. xviii), and it is inextricably linked to political, historical, and cultural contexts (Grenoble & Whaley, 2005). This study concludes that these contexts are vital to defining the role of literacy in Indigenous communities. Every community has its own historical, political, social, environmental, technological, and philosophical context for language learning, and as such, literacy plays a different role in every community. Furthermore, the role of literacy can be expected to change over time, much like languages shift over time. This research also demonstrates that literacy, situated within Indigenous-controlled education and language initiatives, can contribute to larger goals of decolonization. / Graduate

Talk is the vehicle of exchange in language classrooms when communicative competence is being developed. Turns of talk then facilitate the meaning-making process as students and teachers collaboratively come to understand the discourse of knowledge they are co-constructing. During the pivotal third turn in the essential teaching exchange, there is potential for teachers to realise productive pedagogies as they facilitate their students' organisational and pragmatic skills in the foreign language. This study brings a lens to Initiation-Response-Evaluation (IRE) triadic dialogue, which has been criticised for its monological overuse and limitation of students' language production. Analysis of the third turn shows the uptake to be an implicit move in the exchange. Teachers appear not to be aware of the potential benefit it offers them for co-constructed language use at that point in teacher-student interactions. Teachers draw on students' background knowledge and experiential learning in the four domains of productive pedagogies (intellectual quality, supportive classroom environment, recognition of difference and connectedness) when they engage them through an authentic use of language. For this study, potential for productive pedagogy was investigated in the classroom talk of two teachers of Japanese at year 10 level. In a case study, six transcribed and translated lessons were subjected to conversational and membership categorisation analyses using Bachman's (1990) communicative language ability framework to describe language production around the third turn and to hypothesise its effectiveness in providing opportunities for students to generate output in the target language.

<p> With an increasing concern in the American school system being the significant growth in the number of bilingual students, the communication between teacher and student, and student to student, has become a focus of attention. The purpose of the present study was to draw on Sullivan&rsquo;s (2012) dialogical approach and Bakhtin&rsquo;s theoretical framework on the concept of dialogism, using Bakhtin&rsquo;s notions of utterance as the unit of analysis. Bakhtin&rsquo;s (1986) primary (oral speech genres) and secondary genres (narrative texts) were applied to analyze the growth of oral language and meaning-making during interactive read-alouds when carefully scaffolded open-ended questions were utilized. The study approached the field through an individual and collective case study with two dual language learners (Ballantyne et al., 2008) in a kindergarten classroom. Participants&rsquo; utterances were collected using videotaped and audiotaped sessions and were analyzed by applying Cazden&rsquo;s IRE (2001) protocol and a writing protocol. The findings suggested that Bakhtin&rsquo;s ideas of author/hero, double-voicing, and elements of carnivalesque matter in the narrative texts read during interactive read-alouds. The findings also determined that Bakhtin&rsquo;s concepts of (a) One Utterance, (b) Multiple Utterances, (c) Double-voicing, and (d) Revoicing emerged from the dataset. The triangulation of data sources confirmed the importance of teachers examining the texts to be used during read-alouds, and the importance of creating a dialogical atmosphere that generates multiple utterances from its participants and increases oral language skills and meaning-making.</p>

Cette thèse porte sur l’étude des besoins langagiers des étudiants économistes en matière de langue de spécialité et en rapport avec la filière Economie et gestion. J’essaierai de voir si la matière de langue et de communication (LC), enseignée dans la filière Economie et gestion répond aux besoins des étudiants en matière de langue de spécialité économique. Ce cours de langue n’est que l’ensemble des pratiques de classe et des outils didactiques employés par les enseignants. Cette thèse tend à voir également si le cours en question, donné aux étudiants économistes, est en adéquationavec la filière économique. Cette étude cible les étudiants en première année (S1 et S2), aux niveaux A1 et A2 du CECRL. En d’autres termes, cette thèse tend à répondre à une seule question, dite question de recherche : « Les pratiques de classe de langue et de communication dans la filière Economie et gestion et les outils didactiques employés par les enseignants de cette matière répondent-ils aux besoins en technolecte ou en langue de spécialité, des étudiants économistes en première année de licence (S1 et S2), aux niveaux A1 et A2 du CECRL et les aident-ils ainsi à mieux comprendre les cours de spécialité et à accéder aux savoirs universitaires ? ». Cette recherche se situe au carrefour de la sociolinguistique et de la didactique des langues. Cette intersection a abouti donc à une nouvelle approche, dite approche sociodidactique. Cette thèse se divise en quatre parties. La première partie intitulée « contextualisation » situe la recherche dans son environnement géographique, sociolinguistique et éducatif. La deuxième partie intitulée « Classe de langue dans la filière des sciences économiques » porte sur les pratiques de classe de LC. On y trouvera également les définitions de toutes les notions mobilisées, telles que pratiques de classe, observation participante… Je me pencherai également sur la notion de besoin langagier et recenserai les situations de communication qui se produisent dansle cours de LC et les situations de communication dans l’amphithéâtre (matières économiques) pour voir si les deux blocs sont en adéquation ou en inadéquation. Dans la troisième partie intitulée « Technolecte et besoins langagiers des étudiants économistes », je définirai la notion de technolecte et celle de langue de spécialité. Je présenterai par la suite le technolecte des études économiques. J’essayerai également de relever ce technolecte dans les documents relatifs à la spécialité économique (polycopiés des cours, ouvrages de spécialité et journaux économiques). Ensuite, je tenterai de chercher le même technolecte dans la méthode Cap Université. Et ce, pourvoir si cette méthode inclut dans son contenu ou exclut de celui-ci le technolecte des études économiques. Je me pencherai aussi sur l’analyse des besoins langagiers desétudiants. Et ce, à l’aide de deux méthodes d’enquête de terrain, à savoir le questionnaire et l’entretien semi-directif. Dans la quatrième et la dernière partie intitulée « Résultats et perspectives », l’accent sera mis sur les résultats de la recherchemenée sur le terrain et sur les perspectives qu’elles ouvrent / This thesis concerns the study of the linguistic needs of the student’s economists in touch with the sector Economy and management. I shall try to see if the subject of language and communication (LC), taught in the sector Economy andmanagement meets the needs of students in specialized discourse. This language course is only all the practices of class and the didactic tools employed by the teachers. This thesis tends to see also if the subject in question, given to the students economists, is in adequacy with the economic sector or not. This study targets the students in first year (S1 and S2), at the levels A1 and A2 of the CEFRL (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). In other words, this thesis tends to answer a single question: «The practices of class of language and communication in the sector Economy and management and the didactic tools employed by the teachers of this subject meet the needs in specialist language of students economists in first year of Bachelor's degree (S1 and S2), at the levels A1 and A2 of the CEFRL and do they so help them to understand better the courses of speciality and to reach the university knowledge? ". This research is situated in the crossroads of the sociolinguistics and the language pedagogy. This thesis divides in four parts. The first part entitled “Context” places the research in its geographical, sociolinguistic and educational environment. The secondpart entitled "Language class in the sector of the economic studies" concerns the practices of class of LC. We shall also find there the definitions of all the concepts used here, such as practices of class, participating observation …I shall also talk about the notion of linguistic needs and shall count the situations of communication which occur in the course of LC and the situations of communication in the economic subjects to see if both blocks are in adequacy or in inadequacy. In the third part entitled "Technolect and linguistic needs of the students economists ", I shall define the notion of technolect and specialized discourse. I shall present afterward the technolect of the economic studies. I will also try to find this technolect in documents to the economic speciality). Then, I will try to look for the same technolect in the method Cap Université. And it, to see if this method includes in its contents or excludes from this one the technolect of the economic studies. I will also bend over the analysis of the linguistic needs of the students. In the fourth and the last part entitled " Results and perspectives ", the accent will be put on the results of the research led on the ground and on the perspectives which they open