<p> Increasing numbers of English-language learners with limited or interrupted formal education are entering schools across the United States. This new trend is affecting school districts with new challenges as high school teachers of English speakers of other languages are not prepared to address the beginning literacy needs of students with limited or interrupted formal education. In addition, students with limited or interrupted formal education are encountering challenges in high school as they are simultaneously learning a new language and academic content in a new culture in addition to learning how to read and write for the first time in their lives. Moreover, additional challenges that arise with this group of students involve addressing their socioemotional and acculturation needs. </p><p> This qualitative study examined how high school teachers of English speakers of other languages in a small urban mid-Atlantic school district integrated social and academic English-development skills for students with limited or interrupted formal education. To accomplish this, the researcher collected data by conducting eight individual teacher interviews and six classroom observations. The researcher also gathered student background information, which included assessment scores that aided during the analysis of classroom observations. </p><p> Five general themes emerged from data analysis: (a) meeting the socioemotional needs of students with limited or interrupted formal education by building relationships, (b) differentiating instruction to meet the academic needs of students with limited or interrupted formal education, (c) meeting the beginning literacy needs of students with limited or interrupted formal education who have limited knowledge of literacy instruction, (d) lack of integration into the school culture and students creating their own community, and (e) the power of students&rsquo; native languages. The findings of this study will assist school districts across the United States to focus on the areas of needs to provide high-quality educational opportunities to students with limited or interrupted formal education. The gathered information will also contribute to enhance teaching practices that benefit the socioemotional, academic, and acculturation needs of this unique student population.</p><p>

This study documents the attitudes and perspectives toward Japanese language education of seven “newly-arrived” Japanese immigrants, jp. Shin-issei, who are raising bilingual or multilingual children in New Orleans, Louisiana. The participants of this study consisted of six mothers and one father who speak Japanese to their children at home and act as teachers of this language at the Japanese Weekend School of New Orleans, jp. Nyū Orinzu Nihongo Hoshūkō, a supplementary language school. Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, this thesis has two interrelated objectives: One is to analyze parents’ attitudes toward Japanese language maintenance and show that although the home remains the crucial site for language education, the Japanese School of New Orleans represents a relevant site for the maintenance of the Japanese language and the indoctrination of Japanese cultural values. The second is to explore how these parents connect the process of teaching at and attending the school to a sentiment of diasporic nationalism. This study calls for a renewed ethnographic focus on often ignored —or known by few— immigrant communities in Louisiana by recognizing the presence of Japanese immigrants in this area, their constant efforts to maintain ties and connections to their home country, and their motivations to do so.

This thesis explores the subject of Japanese colonial language education in Taiwan and assimilation between 1895 and 1945. It examines the overall nature of Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan through its colonial policies, followed by a review of the history of Japanese colonial language education in Taiwan, the investigation of the Japanese colonial position on language education and assimilation, the establishment of the implementation of Japanese language education in Taiwan in areas of teaching methodologies and textbook compilation, and the determination of the effects of Japanese language education on assimilation in Taiwan. The thesis further seeks to determine the link between a Taiwanese identity and the Taiwanese who were ruled and educated under Japanese colonial rule. The views of both the elite and common Taiwanese who lived through the colonial era are examined.The aim of this thesis is to test the hypothesis whether Japanese colonial education in Taiwan achieved assimilation among the Taiwanese as claimed by Japanese colonial authorities. Through the official facts and figures provided by Japanese colonial authorities, they seemed to prove a successful case of assimilation among the Taiwanese. However, through close scrutiny of these official facts and figures and reality backed up by the oral accounts of the Taiwanese and conscientious observations by the Japanese, it is found that the claims made by Japanese colonial authorities in the case of assimilation through Japanese language education are highly contestable. By interviewing those who experienced Japanese language education during the colonial period, further insights into the formation of post-colonial Taiwanese identities are gained. This study contributes to studies on Taiwans subsequent socio-linguistic developments in the post-colonial period.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1986. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 46-47). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1983. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 57-59). Also available in print.

In this dissertation, I use a hermeneutic framework drawing on critical and postcolonial theory and interpretive inquiry (narrative analysis) to explore the postsecondary curriculum for German as a foreign language and culture (GFL) in Canada, its history, and its current manifestation, in relation to the twenty-first-century Canadians who study it. I pursue the questions, What is the GFL curriculum? How did it come about? What is it like for students? and What would curriculum innovation look like if it were based on students interests? In part one, I discuss research paradigms, the influence of hermeneutics, the research process, the role of the researcher, and my research acts. In part two, I critique the history of GFL as taught at university in Canada. In part three, I examine the subject positions that have informed that history. I find that the Canadian postsecondary GFL curriculum reflects and benefits the symbolic sociocultural position of native-speaker literary professors and not the educational needs and interests of nonnative-speaker students. The Canadian postsecondary GFL curriculum has been articulated by a cross-cultural divide and withheld knowledge. Using postcolonial perspectives, I propose the diaspora and the less native speaker as potentially counter-hegemonic positions from which to conceptualize the teachers and learners of GFL and reconstruct the curriculum. I follow these initial theoretical analyses with four narrative analyses based on interviews with four Canadian undergraduate students of GFL that explored their experiences of instructional materials, teaching approaches, and curriculum design. The narratives include an episodic account, a mock epic, a psychological case with allegorical digressions, and an allegorical tale and tell of an unrequited love, a quest, shame, and an anti-quest in order to reveal how some are failed by existing curricula and yet make progress toward their linguistic and intercultural goals. In the final chapter, I present a fictional case study of a small German program where I have attempted to rethink curriculum and instruction based on the perspectives and student experiences explored in the previous chapters. I thus offer new vantage points from which to understand the GFL curriculum and enact more constructive teaching and learning.

This report investigates the use of authentic readings and videos to teach Portuguese language and culture in the foreign language classroom. It starts with a discussion of the current state of the field about definitions of culture, their pedagogical implications and some approaches to teaching culture in the foreign language classroom. This discussion is followed by a review of recent research supporting the use of authentic videos and films to teach the target language and culture concomitantly, and a thorough description of the Brazilian literary genre of crônica, based upon the works of preeminent Brazilian literary critics and historians. The report ends with a unit design proposal based on the literature reviewed and grounded in second language acquisition theories and research. The proposed innovative approach that incorporates authentic non-scripted videos and literary readings, such as crônicas, provides a strong support to teachers that seek to teach cultural perspectives as well as products and practices in the foreign language classroom. / text

This study explores English education in two local private kindergarten classes in Korea. The purpose of this study is to understand English education in private kindergartens in Korea by closely looking at pedagogical practices in two kindergarten classes and the insiders' perceptions of the pedagogical practices. The research questions guiding this study are as follows: (a) What are the pedagogical practices relative to English education in two private kindergarten classes in Korea?; and (b) How do the members of the two classes (i.e., the child participants, ECE teacher, and English instructors) perceive the language, language teaching and learning, and the pedagogical practices? The study was conducted as a qualitative study through the fieldwork using such methods as participant observations, interviews, questionnaires, and collection of documents and artifacts. The study took place in private kindergartens located in two separate communities in Korea. In each kindergarten, I focused on a particular class: The fieldwork in the two research sites spanned a two-and-a-half-month period, between May and July 2011. Regarding the first research question, I found that members of each class co-constructed the pedagogical practices relative to English education in a locally specific way. Within their particular context, the members of Red Class were involved in creating a caring classroom environment consisting of English lessons, learning, learners, and reciprocal relationships among them. The members of Green Class played their respective roles as leaners, ECE teacher, or English language instructors. However, many of the learners tended to care little about the English lessons or learning but all the same were sure to finish their English tasks. Regarding the second research question, the members of the two classes perceived English language, language teaching and/or learning, and the pedagogical practices based on their experiences in particular contexts. However, their perceptions, at the same time, reflected in various ways the larger culture. Red Class members tended to describe and interpret their pedagogical practices in positive ways and to consider English useful and important. Green Class members tended to talk more about their pedagogical practices with multiple voices. / text

This interpretive case study is an investigation of three first-year teachers’ perceptions of student writing and writing instruction in second grade classrooms. The portrayals describe each teacher’s early experiences with literacy and their professional path that led them to the classroom. The case studies also present the knowledge and the resources these three teachers report drawing on during their first year as a professional. A description of the each classroom and an account of writing instruction further contextualizes the interpretation of the perceptions about student writing and writing instruction each teacher. Classroom observation and interview data were collected during the spring semester of these three teachers first year as a professional in the classroom. Data analysis was ongoing and inductive (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Recurring themes and patterns across the cases were used to build representations that most exemplified each teacher’s perceptions. The findings in this study suggest that novice teachers draw from multiple sources of knowledge as they teach writing for the first time. The findings also suggest that the strongest influences on beginning teachers’ writing instruction are their own experiences as a writer, their assigned mentor, and their grade-level team members. From the classroom observations and debriefing interviews, the findings further suggest that beginning teachers assume writing ideas come from teachers and that there is a particular writing process that is to be followed systematically. The findings also suggest that beginning teachers believe public displays of student work should be perfect and therefore place great importance on the conventions and mechanics of writing. The implications for this study and suggestions for future research relate to the potential for first year teachers to draw from multiple sources in their teacher education programs, the potential for school-based mentoring programs where mentor teachers receive training to support their work with new teachers especially as it impacts their practice and develops their expertise as they teach writing, and the potential for first year teachers to take the initiative for their own professional development as they continue to improve their practice teaching writing. / text

This research examines the bilingual and biliterate trajectories of graduates of a K-5 dual language immersion program who are now young adults. Their experiences as emergent bilinguals within the setting of their elementary school was foundational for their long-term academic outcomes and their deep metapragmatic awareness of simultaneous linguistic experiences. This study explores where these students are now, what happened since they left this particular dual language program, and how their language practices and ideologies have shifted over time and shaped their current practices and ideologies surrounding language and literacy across time and space. Using qualitative methodology, this study draws on frameworks of New Literacy Studies, communities of practice, language ideologies, capital, and language-as-resource to highlight how bilingualism and biliteracy are complex phenomena, and how the multiple, complex, and competing forces at play ultimately shape language and literacy. This study examines the fluidity of how resources for learning are transformed across multiple landscapes and how important insights arise concerning how retrospective analysis of previous learning environments have shaped students' current lived experiences. Findings illustrate the dynamic nature of bilingualism not through discreet domains of language use in bounded contexts, but fluidly moving across fields in remarkable ways. Additional findings underscore the mobilities of language and literacy and how ideologies are neither static nor fixed, but continuously evolving in fluid and dynamic processes.