published_or_final_version / Language Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Children learn language in the family. They also learn about the ways in which language can be used to communicate needs, share ideas, express cultural identity and negotiate and reinforce group membership. In bilingual and minority language families children also learn about the existence of different languages, of different ways of talking about the same object and expressing the same ideas, and the appropriate time and place to use each language. The place of language in the development of cultural identity and group membership is particularly important for people who speak more than one language and feel attachments to more than one culture. This study explores what it is to be a bilingual parent of young children. Parents who were themselves bilingual were asked about their own experiences with language, and their experiences with raising their children. The dissertation is organized around the themes of language learning in the family, in the community, and within the context of school. This study has resulted in a broad range of findings, among which are: that raising children to be bilingual is a deliberate act requiring considerable, conscious effort on the part of parents, that parents who have a mentor, someone they know who has successfully raised bilingual children, are more likely to persist with their efforts despite difficulties, and that close religious, cultural or familial ties to other speakers of the minority language are positive influences on both parents and children. Another important finding is that parents are greatly encouraged by meeting health and/or educational professionals who are positive and informative about bilingualism in young children. Conversation is the methodology for this study because it allows the participants and the researcher to work together toward a greater understanding of the topic under study. Through conversations with other interested people I was able to invite them into my questions. Sharing stories of language, and reflecting on what these stories mean and how they have affected and continue to affect us, opens the possibilities for a much greater understanding of what it means to speak more than one language in this society, and how that will affect our children.

Children learn language in the family. They also learn about the ways in which language can be used to communicate needs, share ideas, express cultural identity and negotiate and reinforce group membership. In bilingual and minority language families children also learn about the existence of different languages, of different ways of talking about the same object and expressing the same ideas, and the appropriate time and place to use each language. The place of language in the development of cultural identity and group membership is particularly important for people who speak more than one language and feel attachments to more than one culture. This study explores what it is to be a bilingual parent of young children. Parents who were themselves bilingual were asked about their own experiences with language, and their experiences with raising their children. The dissertation is organized around the themes of language learning in the family, in the community, and within the context of school. This study has resulted in a broad range of findings, among which are: that raising children to be bilingual is a deliberate act requiring considerable, conscious effort on the part of parents, that parents who have a mentor, someone they know who has successfully raised bilingual children, are more likely to persist with their efforts despite difficulties, and that close religious, cultural or familial ties to other speakers of the minority language are positive influences on both parents and children. Another important finding is that parents are greatly encouraged by meeting health and/or educational professionals who are positive and informative about bilingualism in young children. Conversation is the methodology for this study because it allows the participants and the researcher to work together toward a greater understanding of the topic under study. Through conversations with other interested people I was able to invite them into my questions. Sharing stories of language, and reflecting on what these stories mean and how they have affected and continue to affect us, opens the possibilities for a much greater understanding of what it means to speak more than one language in this society, and how that will affect our children. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Not available / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Linguistics / Master / Master of Philosophy

It is widely assumed that participation in study abroad contributes to developing second language (L2) proficiency, as well as related outcomes such as higher levels of L2 learning motivation and intercultural competence. However, empirical studies into the outcomes of participation in study abroad have been affected by a series of methodological limitations, including complete reliance on participant self-assessment, the omission of longitudinal design elements, failure to control for non-equivalent comparison groups where these are included and insufficient sample sizes for testing programme effects. Thus, the present study investigates further the impact of studying abroad with the EU's ERASMUS programme on the participants' overall L2 proficiency, their self-efficacy and anxiety in using the L2 with native and non-native speakers and on their self-motivation to continue learning the L2. To this end, a longitudinal mixed methods design was employed in which 143 German university students who applied for an ERASMUS exchange with a British university for the academic year 2012-2013 and were either accepted or rejected/ withdrawn formed the abroad and comparison groups. All students completed C-tests of overall English language proficiency and questionnaires that inquired into the students' mobility history, their L2 learning background, L2 motivation, intergroup attitudes and aspects of the study abroad experience itself. Both instruments were administered online at the onset of the study abroad period (September 2012), one term into the programme (December 2012) and prior to the students' return (either December 2012 or June 2013). This predominantly quantitative group-level study served to establish the outcomes of participation in study abroad for the students' linguistic and motivational development. Repeated interviews with a sub-sample of 15 participants served to illuminate the observed outcome patterns in terms of the motivational dynamics during study abroad, as well as common factors associated with individual differences in linguistic development. The results of the study show that during the first 3 months abroad the ERASMUS students made significantly higher gains in overall English proficiency than the group of potentially mobile students who continued to study at home. The effect of the learning context was large and highly significant (p =.001), even after the influence of pre-existing participant characteristics on the students' proficiency development was controlled for. During the subsequent 6 months of the study abroad period, however, progress among the ERASMUS group slowed and the between-group differences were no longer significant. The participants' L2 proficiency level at programme entry emerged as the strongest predictor of overall L2 proficiency gain, explaining up to 31.5% of the variance. The students' attitudes towards their own national group, their perceptions of self-efficacy and feelings of anxiety when using English in social interactions, the perceived present-future L2 self-discrepancy and gender explained another 13.6% of the variance in overall L2 proficiency gain. Learner-external factors, including participation in English language instruction, participation in clubs and societies, the number of academic contact hours and type of enrolment, and free time spent with co-national peers, including friends and family back home explained a further 10.9%. The qualitative analysis of the students' accounts provided further insights into the ways in which these factors play out in L2 learning abroad, as well as into the students' perceptions of aspects of studying abroad that contributed most to their linguistic development. Regarding the motivational impact of the study abroad experience, the study found that ERASMUS students tended to develop significantly higher levels of self-efficacy in using English in social interactions as compared to the group of potentially mobile students who continued to study at home, while both the levels of perceived present-future self-discrepancy and English use anxiety with native and non-native speakers fell during the first 3 months abroad. While the overall impact of the study abroad experience on the students' motivation to continue learning the L2 was perceived as positive by the vast majority of participants, a decline in learning motivation was observed for most students after the initial 3-month period. The qualitative analysis showed that this decline can be plausibly explained by developments in the students' English self-concept that occurred in response to the study abroad experience. Evidence-based recommendations are made regarding ways in which the linguistic and motivational development of ERASMUS students can be more effectively supported by higher education institutions.

This thesis reports on a longitudinal, mixed-methods study of the relationships between informal (i.e. out-of-class) second language (L2) contact, vocabulary-related strategic behaviour and vocabulary gain in a study abroad context. The study addressed three main gaps in knowledge that arose from analysis of the literature: (1) the evidence of informal L2 contact was largely unreliable, ungeneralisable, or both; (2) the evidence of vocabulary-related strategic behaviour in informal L2 contact was neither context nor task specific; and (3) there was no evidence of the interplay between informal L2 contact, vocabulary-related strategic behaviour and vocabulary gain in a study abroad context. The sample (n=241) were adults undertaking a study abroad experience (SAE) in England, who comprised a range of nationalities and first language backgrounds and for whom the majority of the SAE was spent outside of the classroom. A vocabulary test was administered at the beginning and end of the SAE. A questionnaire was administered during the SAE to determine the most highly identified with informal L2 contact scenarios and out-of-class vocabulary-related strategies. Subsequently, an innovative research tool comprising computer-based simulations of the most identified with scenarios was developed and used as the stimulus in semi-structured interviews to capture task and/or context-specific vocabulary-related strategic behaviour. Analysis grouped participants by length of stay and location. The most highly identified with informal L2 contact scenarios involved participants seeking information from external sources, such as interlocutors, posters or websites. The vocabulary-related strategies most highly identified with by the sample pertained to the use of a newly encountered lexical item; that is, they were strategies in which the learner used or prepared to use a lexical item that they had decided to engage with strategically. The strategic behaviour manifested in response to the simulation tool (the 'OWLS') provided strong evidence in support of the fundamental considerations of task, context and intention in strategy-based research. Regression analysis revealed that informal L2 contact scenarios that were less strategically prohibitive and strategies that were less context-dependent were predictors of vocabulary gain. The pedagogical implications of these findings are far- reaching in terms of preparing L2 learners for informal contact on a SAE and guiding their manipulation of that contact for maximum linguistic gain.

No description available.

This study investigated the construct of comprehensible English in the context of oral proficiency assessment for international teaching assistants. I carried out a three-part mixed method design to explore instructor rater judgments, results of a speech analysis, and how specific speech variables might have influenced judgments on the assessment criteria. Each step focused on a failed/passed assessment comparison made possible through archived data from which 10 individuals initially failed the oral proficiency test but within the same year retook the task and received a passing score. Part A evaluated the perspective of the instructor raters through the rating scale judgments provided on the assessment evaluation forms. In the second part of the study, I coded and scored grammatical, temporal, and phonological variables that occurred on two-minute excerpts of a field-specific summary task from the set of 10 failed and then subsequently passed assessments performed by the same individuals. I inspected the speech analysis results to evaluate differences in the values of specific speech variables on the set of failed performances in comparison to the set of passed performances. In Part C, I conducted 10 case studies to compare each individual's rating scale judgments and rater comments on grammar, fluency, and pronunciation from their failed and their passed assessment with the results from the speech analysis of grammatical, temporal, and phonological variables. The case study approach facilitated a broad inspection of the interrelation among the rater perspectives on the assessment criteria and the speech analysis results. The study findings showed evidence of an interrelation between temporal and phonological variables on rater judgments of comprehensibility, as well as the role of pronunciation as a criterion for oral proficiency assessments. I concluded with implications for future research on the interrelation among speech variables that influence listener perceptions of comprehensibility and the use of pronunciation as a speaking assessment criterion. / text