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In this current era of rapid demographic shifts and high stakes school reform, studies that explore the academic and social responses of students to critical language pedagogies are very much needed as resources for education policymakers and teachers. Through a combined ethnographic and systemic functional linguistic approach, this study explores the textual and classroom process of 5th-grade Puerto Rican students engaged in a SFL-based curricular unit on literature. Three interrelated questions guide the research: how SFL-based pedagogy supports students in developing an understanding of how to write literature and to accomplish social and political goals; and on a wider level, how institutional policies and practices constrain and facilitate teachers in developing such pedagogies. To address these issues, the dissertation draws on a critical sociocultural theory of language and literacy that sees language as a semiotic process and text as a web of previous texts and contexts woven together for a specific communicative purpose. To analyze ethnographic and classroom data, the study draws on concepts from Bloome and Egan Robertson (1993), Dyson (1997, 2003), and Keene and Zimmermann (1997). The comparative SFL analysis of literary source texts and students' writing is based on the work of Eggins (2004), Halliday and Matthiesen (2004), and Thompson (1996). Analysis of the data reveals that students in this SFL-based curricular unit learned in very different ways to interweave patterns of meaning from literary source texts into their literary and other academic writing. Furthermore, the students' access to a wide variety of literature and scaffolding activities afforded them different entry points into literature that resonated most strongly for each of them (Dyson, 2003). On an ethnographic level, a history of school-university-partnerships and school reform initiatives in the research site facilitated teachers' implementation of critical language-based curricula. Implications of this study for K–12 practitioners and researchers are discussed at length. They include the importance of the explicit use of intertextuality in heightening students' awareness of language as a pliable repertoire of choices and the crucial role school-university alliances need to play in supporting teachers and students in urban school classrooms.

<p> The purpose of this qualitative research project is to describe the scaffolding strategies used by a teacher to engage and support students as they work within the continua of biliterate development in the fifth-grade Spanish language immersion classroom. As language immersion programs and dual language schools continue to grow in popularity in Canada and the United States, this study seeks to illuminate and interpret a teacher&rsquo;s work with students in the Spanish Language Immersion Program (SLIP), a research site located in the urban Midwestern United States.</p><p> This instrumental case study employed the lens of Sociocultural Theory to explore the principal research question: How does the teacher scaffold student development of biliteracy within language and content instruction in the immersion school context? The research also explores pre-planned scaffolding versus interactional scaffolding, as well as the tensions and forces within the broader context that the teacher encounters while working with students in this bilingual educational environment. Classroom observations, teacher interviews, administration interviews, and artifacts were analyzed using methods borrowed from Grounded Theory.</p><p> Findings from this study highlight the characteristics of the Community of Practice created by the teacher in this classroom that include a focus upon encouragement, knowledge, organization, and literate habitus. Additionally, two visual models were created to present the data including: &ldquo;Scaffolding Episodes in the Development of Biliteracy,&rdquo; to illustrate the task-oriented support provided by the teacher, and &ldquo;Centripetal versus Centrifugal Forces,&rdquo; to present the forces and tensions that the teacher faced within the historical phases of the Spanish Language Immersion Program.</p><p>

The primary goal of this dissertation is to examine the impact of Spanish as a Second Language instruction within a bilingual setting. The first chapter provides an overview of those issues which must be considered when developing and implementing a second language program. These issues are too often addressed in isolation by foreign language, English as a Second Language and bilingual educators. All three disciplines are concerned with language acquisition and literacy development. To date, not enough has been done to bring about collaboration among the three disciplines. The sharing of ideas and resources can only help to promote language development for all students. The second chapter reviews the literature in four specific areas: theories of second language acquisition, methodology and techniques used in the study of a second language, attitudes towards foreign language teaching and learning, and foreign language study within a bilingual setting. The exploration of these four areas provides information about theoretical frameworks on which many second language programs are based. It also emphasizes the value of integrating a second language into the overall education of youngsters. In addition, it provides one example of an educational schema which shows promise in promoting bilingualism for all children. The third chapter provides an analysis of the process followed in this study to arrive at some conclusions about the benefits of an SSL Program within a bilingual setting. The findings of the study are reported in chapter four. Results indicated that children participating in SSL made important gains in the acquisition of oral proficiency. Also, educators who were surveyed favored the approach that was used in the SSL Program because it considered the following characteristics: (1) The value of learning a second language; (2) Curriculum; (3) Methods and techniques; (4) Assessment; (5) Support for SSL instruction; (6) SSL instruction within a bilingual setting. Chapter V offers a summary of the study, the conclusions, the recommendations for applications of the findings and possible further research.

The purpose of this dissertation is to define and implement a theoretical construct of decolonizing theory as it pertains to the current issues of multicultural teacher education. A direct application of decolonizing methodologies and design will occur by focusing on the critical personal narratives of four preservice teachers and instructor involved in an introductory course on multicultural education. The rhetoric of multicultural teacher education and the challenging realities facing the field today will be addressed through qualitative research with a emphasis on critical ethnography and decolonization. The significance of this study is embedded in the voices of the students and instructor affected by the neocolonial conditions of U.S. schools, policies and practices. The goals of this research are to further the discourses on the sociopolitical constructs of decolonizing multicultural teacher education and to critically examine multicultural course construction and the potentially transformative praxis for future teachers.

Most of the studies conducted on bilingual education emphasize current educational problems. Instructional, administrative, fiscal, and political issues have highlighted the development of serious attempts to produce research accounts of the history of bilingual education in the United States. Nevertheless, it is almost impossible to find an accurate and global account of the legal struggle that allowed bilingual education to survive years of obstacles, intolerance, and success. Without utilization of recollected information on the legal process across the nation dealing with bilingual educational issues, it is rather difficult to make an objective assessment on the legal status of bilingual education within the educational and legal boundaries. This study focuses on the historical repercussions of the laws, consent decrees, and enactments favoring bilingual education across the country, specifically, the impact of those legislations that, according to the researcher's estimation, went beyond the notion of responding to political pressure. The notion of responding to the educational needs of linguistic minority students and the responsibility to a large constituency that would not understand the bilingual education concept produces the middle-road solution called "bilingual education" to pamper an everlasting educational problem. To explain the present situation of bilingual education, in general, and in Massachusetts, in particular, an historical sequence of the most important events affecting education is covered. An historical legal framework is included to provide a better understanding of the nation's educational view through the law and how cultural diversity has affected the development of education nationally. Major legal cases, as well as other legislation in favor of bilingual education, is explored in detail. After reviewing the history of laws, enactments, and consent decrees, and observing the present situation of bilingual education in this country, one has to conclude that bilingual programs have been programmed for failure. This study will enhance the information base of educators, parents, community activists, and others who need to work with linguistic minority students coming from educational systems that have denied them the right to learn. Furthermore, the intent of this dissertation is to put forth information central to the development of initiatives to aid parents, students, and educators in overcoming obstacles created by unclear bilingual laws and biased to bilingualism politicians or school administrators.

Using phenomenological interviewing as a methodology, this study reconstructs the urban high school experiences of sixteen language minority students through the participants' words. Three sixty-minute interviews were conducted with each of the participants. The study explores the social, cultural, and educational experiences of the participants before they entered high school, their experiences in ESL classrooms, the transition from ESL to the mainstream, and the mainstream English classroom. The study finds that participants learned English in a variety of ways, both inside and outside the classroom. In both the ESL and mainstream classrooms, talking, reading, and vocabulary study were considered the most important of all literacy activities, writing less so, and grammar the least. Participants considered reading aloud as vital to their learning English and they cited the short story and the plays of Shakespeare among the most compelling literary genres. In addition to how and what they were taught, participants wanted teachers who listened to, cared for, and respected them. The study suggests that secondary English teachers, within a social construction of literacy perspective, need to contextualize language learning more in accord with students' sociocultural and ethnolinguistic backgrounds and experiences. They also need to integrate an instructional skills and a whole language approach to language learning, not one or the other; to sound out, enact, and present language with a range of instructional strategies and methods; and to listen to, care for, and respect students. Generally, teachers and administrators should communicate continually to ensure the social and academic success of this growing population. Further, preservice and inservice English teacher education programs should make curricular changes to address the academic and affective needs of an increasing language minority student population. Finally, future research should focus on more in-depth studies of specific cultures or ethnicities, such as the Vietnamese who come from an Eastern to a Western culture, to gain a deeper understanding of their lives and their particular needs and goals. Educational researchers need to continue to interview students to bring their voices, concerns, and knowledge into educational dialogue and debate.

This study is an inquiry into the second language learning process of non-native English speaking adults who are preparing to enter graduate business programs in the U.S. or other English speaking countries. Specifically, I examine the process of negotiation of authenticity in communication by learners and the instructor. I begin with an initial understanding that authenticity does not reside in materials or tasks, but in how learners and instructors negotiate it (Gee, 1990). I explore and develop a broad definition of authenticity as being a perception structured and influenced by learner's needs, the instructor's perception of the target skills and needs of the participants, and the learners' own construction or negotiation of what they perceive to be appropriate in the target discourse. The site of this study was the ESL Business Case Discussion Class offered at Harvard Summer School. Using ethnography of communication research as a guide for research methodology, I used participant observation, note-taking, videotaping, and interviewing as sources of gathering data over three years (1990–1992). There were seven conclusions of this study: Authenticity manifests itself and is negotiated over phases, there is a gradual process or development of communication skills, development of language skills seems to reach a plateau, reflection time enhances learning and acquisition, learners construct and accept multiple identities, tensions stimulate negotiation of learning and conceptualization of authenticity, and scaffolding generally facilitates, but can hinder the carrying out of authentic communication. Implications of the conclusions are that understanding the process of negotiating authenticity will allow teacher educators to inform teachers on ways to improve teaching and increase learning and acquisition by structuring the learning environment to facilitate it. The ‘preparation’ case study class gives students the opportunity to create an authentic learning environment in which they explore all of the things that might assist them or get in the way of their success in the ‘real event’. This kind of scaffolded or sheltered content class is important, but it does not take away the responsibility of the ‘real case study instructors’ to scaffold second language learners.

The purpose of this study was to show that ESL students without native-like control of English could be encouraged to write to a real reader by being engaged in pen pal writing activity. Additionally, this study was to determine the effects of the activity of writing to a real reader on the writing skills of ESL students. It was the goal to increase the sensitivity of ESL teachers to realize that their beliefs, role of others, encouragement and positive responses to ESL students' writing affected ESL students' writing development. Also, the importance of creating a social context where ESL students could use writing to communicate and have opportunities to explore uses of print and the complexity of natural communication was discussed. The literature search was centered on two major sections. The first section was the studies of the development of second language writing approaches that established the groundwork for studying ESL writing. The second was about the studies of the perspectives on ESL writing. The review focused on three perspectives from which ESL writing had been examined The study was conducted with fourteen ESL students in an elementary school, age six to twelve. Each of them wrote eight letters in total to their pen pals in a six-month period and received responses for each letter they wrote. A pre-test and a post-test were given to the participants for assessing their development of ESL writing ability (quality of writing and mechanic of writing), the tests were scored by the ESL teachers with the holistic scoring method. To determine the effect of activity of writing to a real reader, the interviews and questionnaires were designed to get information and opinions from the ESL students, pen pals and ESL teachers about this letter-writing activity. Analysis of the data revealed significant differences between the results of the pre-test and post-test. The scores showed that ESL students did much better in quality of writing and mechanic of writing. The data also showed ESL students' improvement in the other areas, which greatly supported the belief that second language learning processes in reading, writing, speaking and listening are developed simultaneously. The results indicated that when ESL students wrote to a real reader with encouragement, their willingness to write was enhanced and their ESL writing abilities improved. ESL students indicated their preference of writing to a real reader and demonstrated their enjoyment of this writing experience during the entire course of this study. This study validates the idea that the students' writing skills develop best when they interact with others and learn from their environment.

This dissertation argues for a novel methodological approach to the investigation of phenomena of second language acquisition (SLA). The field of second language acquisition arose in a historical academic context which traditionally linked it to primarily quantitative research methodologies. Introspective verbalized articulations of learners had been devalued in favor of observational examination of behavioral characteristics, an approach which, despite massive investments of research energies, failed to yield a coherent theoretical understanding of the SLA process, especially in adults. An individually conducted, dialogically oriented, open-ended or phenomenological interview enables the exploration of the concerns, interests, experiences, and meanings developed by a second-language learner during the course of the process of second-language acquisition. Approximately two dozen such interviews were carried out with international speakers of English as a Second Language (ESL) studying in a community college in the United States. Analysis of these interviews permitted the demonstration of distinctive interests and focuses of attention and awareness by learners both individually, and collectively, as emergent themes came to be delineated from the group data. In sum, the argument is made that it is ultimately the recognition and the revelation of the individual learner's awareness, through the dialogically articulated learner voice, that proves more significant to an understanding of the phenomenon of SLA within learners from a theoretical research perspective, as well as to a potential enabling of enhanced pedagogical efficiency.