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Mexican immigrants make up approximately 46 percent of the entire Mexican-origin population in the United States, establishing Mexican immigrants as one of the largest ethnic subgroups in the U. S. (Pew Research Center, 2012). Current research indicates that only 14.5 percent of all Hispanic adults have a four year degree. This is considerably less for Mexican adult immigrants compared to 30 percent white adults with a baccalaureate (Zarate & Burciage, 2010). Since academic proficiency in English is one critical factor for college success, this study investigates how Mexican adult immigrants acquire academic English in a community college setting and what strategies they perceive are effective in this context. Utilizing Adult Learning, Second Language Acquisition, and Social Capital theoretical frameworks, this study addresses the following questions: 1) What do Mexican adult immigrants perceive as challenges (for themselves) while learning academic English in a community college? 2) How do Mexican adult English language learner (ELL) students at a community college use their native language to learn English? 3) What teaching and learning strategies do Mexican adult immigrant students perceive to be effective in learning academic English? To better understand the participants' English language learning experience, the students in this high-intermediate English as a second language (ESL) class were surveyed. A case study was conducted, taking field notes, collecting writing samples, and interviewing (audio-taped) to identify participants' challenges and obstacles hindering their acquisition of academic English, identifying native language support mechanisms, and developing effective teaching strategies for L2 acquisition. Data was collected over the course of one semester in a community college setting. Findings from the data were triangulated resulting in three emerging themes, all central to issues in academic English proficiency: collaborating and helping others; recognizing the need to practice English; and being college ready. The first theme addresses the preferred and effective learning styles of the participants in this study. The second recognizes the need to practice English, a limitation of which is access to native English-speakers. And the third theme, college readiness, addresses what is needed for Mexican adult ELLs' success in obtaining a college degree. This study is useful for those educators and administrators developing curricula, designing intervention strategies and implementing effective collaborative and comprehensive instructional approaches critical for ELLs learning academic English. Implications for college and university administrators address intervention strategies which may increase college enrollment and retention. Also, SLA researchers could further explore technological applications for linguistic and social support, as well as cognitive development for English language learners.

Previous nonnative-English-speaking teacher (NNEST) research has shown that nonnative speaker (NNS) students' attitudes towards NNESTs improve after exposure to them (Moussu, 2002). Past second language (L2) writing research has found that native speaker (NS) teachers interact with NS and NNS students differently (Thonus, 2002, 2004). Little has been investigated regarding NNESTs in mainstream composition courses that include both NS and NNS students. Also, most past NNEST attitude studies relied exclusively on perception data, without investigating whether or not the expressed perceptions were observed in practice. This study, involving both NS and NNS students and teachers, explored (1) students' attitudes towards composition teachers based on the teacher's NS status, (2) interaction characteristics during individual writing conferences, (3) reflections on expressed attitudes, if any, in actual teacher-student interactions, and (4) student attitude change after exposure to NS and NNS teachers. A questionnaire, distributed to 43 (23 NS and 20 NNS) students in composition classes taught by NS and NNS teachers, explored student attitudes towards teachers. Teacher-student interaction patterns were investigated via 12 (3 NS and 9 NNS) students' video-recorded writing conferences, two each, one with the NS and the other with the NNS teacher. Student attitude change was investigated via post-conference interviews. Several interaction characteristics attributed to the teachers' NS status and the students' linguistic and cultural backgrounds (e.g., turn-taking characteristics, question and advice types, etc.) were identified from the conference data. The questionnaire results showed that teachers' personal traits and teaching styles influenced student attitudes more strongly than NS status. Some student attitudes were found to be only perceptions, not reflected in actual interactions. It was also found that NS students' attitudes towards NNS teachers changed favorably after their conference experience with the NNS teacher. Students consider personally tailored conferences to be most successful, regardless of preconceptions about teachers. The findings that students evaluate and acknowledge teachers based on various factors (e.g., individual teachers' expertise, teaching performance, personality traits, etc.) offer implications for teacher training programs. This study also addresses the issue that NNS students should be treated as individuals, rather than categorized as a general group of NNS students.

This dissertation examines the Episodic L2 Hypothesis (Jiang & Forster, 2001), which postulates that first language (L1) words are represented in a specialized system that is devoted to one's L1, i.e., lexical memory, and second language (L2) words are represented in a more general memory system that is not specialized for language, i.e., episodic memory. This idea was based on a double dissociation found in masked translation priming studies - i.e., L2-L1 translation priming is obtained in episodic recognition but not lexical decision, whereas L1-L2 translation priming is obtained in lexical decision but not episodic recognition (Jiang & Forster, 2001; Finkbeiner, 2005). These results are interpreted to show that the decision systems are tuned to episodic memory during the performance of episodic recognition task. Hence, since L2 words are represented episodically, L2 primes assist the recognition of L1 targets, while L1 words are represented lexically, so L1 primes do not assist the recognition of L2 targets.A series of masked priming studies were conducted in this dissertation to further examines this Episodic L2 Hypothesis. Experiment 1 partially confirmed Jiang and Forster's (2001) results with highly-proficient L2 bilinguals, showing that these bilinguals indeed store their L2 words in episodic memory. Experiments 2 to 5 were conducted to examine the "episodic" nature of this memory system by showing that newly-learned L2-like words can be effective as masked translation primes for L1 targets in episodic recognition but not in lexical decision. Experiments 6 to 8 were conducted to eliminate other possible accounts as to why there is a dissociation of L2-L1 translation priming between these two tasks. Finally, Experiment 9 offers further evidence to the Episodic L2 Hypothesis by using masked repetition priming in episodic recognition.These studies, overall, lend support to the hypothesis that L2 words are indeed represented in episodic memory. The final chapter discusses the mechanisms behind masked translation priming, the nature of the memory system that L2 words are stored in, and generally on L2-L1 translation priming.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--Regis University, Denver, Colo., 2007. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Oct. 29, 2007). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Dept. of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, 2001. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 380-392).