Today, numerous universities around the world are struggling with ever growing financial limitations arising from the education market and governments that control educational funding. At the same time, despite increasingly limited finances, educators must offer the same high quality of instruction that they always have to ensure their students' success in the future while working with diminished resources and funds. Current pressure leads universities and foreign language educators to seek new ways to optimize education and learning. Intensive methods can be considered a part of a solution. The current paper will not focus on the effectiveness of intensive language programs, but rather on intensive language instruction and methodologies that have been developed and are in the process of continuous development as education changes. This paper will discuss intensive methods both in their theoretical framework and practical applications. As most of the methodologies used in intensive instruction were developed in the former Soviet Union and now in Russia, this paper will also focus on Soviet and Russian developments of teaching methodologies during the past century. / text

The study applied behavior analytic principles to foreign language instruction in a college classroom. Two study methods, vocabulary banks and scripts, were compared by assessing the effects on Italian language acquisition, retention, and generalization. Results indicate that students without prior exposure to Italian engaged in more exchanges and emitted more words in script tests compared to vocabulary bank tests. Participants with at least two classes in Italian prior to the study engaged in more exchanges and emitted more words during vocabulary bank tests. Data suggest that different teaching strategies may work for different learners. More research is needed to determine efficient teaching methods and how to ascertain which approaches work best for learners with different histories.

This literature review investigates what previous research has found regarding target language use in the Elementary EFL classroom, and what different views there might be on communicating in English during English lessons. The study is conducted with Stephen Krashen’s (1982) Second Language Acquisition Theory as theoretical perspective. Findings show that one important reason for target language use in the EFL classroom is increasing the target language exposure to provide opportunities for the pupils to develop their language proficiency, while first language is used to instruct, translate, scaffold, explain, and facilitate and confirm learning, to discipline and criticise, and to give feedback and positive reinforcement. The results from the five reviewed studies in this thesis imply that both target language and first language have their place in the EFL classroom, and that the teachers’ choice of which language to use is highly individual. They also indicate that vocabulary acquisition and communicative skills call for different language approaches, and that different language theories apply to different teaching situations. Another conclusion from this review is that further research on teachers’ choices of instructional language is needed, as are further investigations of pupils’ preferences and in what situations they benefit from target language and first language respectively.

Abstract This study examines the Comenius exchange project between Da Vinci, Kattegattgymnasiet in Sweden and Liceo Scientifico F. Vercelli in Asti, Italy from both a qualitative and a quantitative angle. This exchange project was working with immersion. The purpose of this essay is to investigate to what extent second language learning is achieved in an immersion project. The essay aims to answer the following thesis questions:   What are the learning outcomes of this exchange project, focused on immersion? What are the advantages, and disadvantages of an exchange project, focused on immersion?   To undertake this study, I travelled to Asti and distributed a quantitative questionnaire to the students in this project. Qualitative interviews were conducted with the two main teachers and the students, as well. The data was then processed and analyzed, along with my theoretical framework: second language acquisition theory and immersion.   The results show that the Swedish students were better at speaking; the Italian teacher focused more on grammar, that the objectives sometimes were unclear and that language development occurred. The study also provides the data that tells us that there might be challenges with your colleagues and that it is time-consuming.   For further research I suggest a focus on why language development features in a project like this. It would also be interesting to analyze a project like this by observations of the linguistic content of the lessons and the specific differences between Italy and Sweden.   Key words: Immersion, Second language acquisition, input, exchange project, language instruction

Using Nacon & Cole’s (2009) three ideologies of diversity, I look closely at how teachers’ beliefs and attitudes about language and culture influence learning. Through reviewing the research collected over the past eleven years, I seek to answer the following questions: What have researchers found and concluded about how teachers should approach language instruction in linguistically diverse classrooms? What is the relationship between language instruction and the language ideologies of the classroom teacher, and how do these ideologies impact the learning that occurs? / text

This study investigated the factors that influence foreign language instructors to adopt the use of educational technology as a supplement to their on-campus face-to-face classes. In particular, this study explored the various educational technologies that the foreign language instructors in one public post-secondary institution used to meet their teaching and learning objectives and the factors that affected their technology selection decisions. Previous literature has shown that the field of language education has historically included educational technology but few studies have explored the role that conversations amongst instructors can have on their technology adoption decisions. This study, therefore, utilized social network theory to explore the effects of foreign language instructors’ conversations with one another on their technology adoption decisions. The findings revealed an emerging trend for instructors who had adopted a greater number of technologies to be in a central position in their departmental social network influencing the spread of information and subsequently helping promote technology to their peers. However, interview data concluded that the most influential factors for technology adoption are not the result of these social networks or conversations, but are consistent with Davis’ Technology Acceptance Model instead. / 2012-10

French Immersion teachers are constantly frustrated by both the amount of and skill level of their students when using French in informal situations. My research attempts to answer: How can informal language be taught in the French Immersion context? Will teaching informal language in a systematic way in a Classroom Community of Practice improve the frequency of second language (L2) use by FI students in peer-to-peer interactions? Can we teach students to actually speak French – to spontaneously communicate in informal situations? Informal language is the language used in conversations and interactions beyond academic topics or class time such as conversations between students during group work, on field trips and during games and play time. Is it through pedagogical approaches or by developing a clearer understanding of the community of practice necessary for a successful language classroom? This study is an action research study conducted in Victoria, British Columbia with a team of 5 teachers, including the researcher as co-participant. Grounded theory was used to analyze the findings and the themes of ‘spaces’ are presented using creative nonfiction to recount the participants’ stories. The study concludes that it is the importance of the teacher as member of both the classroom community and as member of a community of educators that is critical to success. / Graduate

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

abstract: ABSTRACT Much of teacher feedback research is conducted in the L1 and L2 contexts. There is a paucity of research about feedback in the Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) context. Particularly, little is known about teachers' feedback practices and student views of teacher feedback. The present study was undertaken to fill the research gap by focusing on teachers'written feedback. Student data from surveying 38 students was interpreted with teacher data gained from interviewing three teachers. The findings indicate that teacher written feedback, which occurred in a multiple-draft writing cycle, generally accorded with recommended feedback principles. Students responded favorably to teacher written feedback. The results also reveal discrepancies between teachers' feedback practices and student perceptions of and preferences regarding teacher feedback. The results show that students wanted more written comments from teachers, though most teachers didn't prioritize written comments. Despite teachers' practices and their inclination toward offering coded indirect error correction, students in the study expressed their preferences for direct error correction. Most students are interested in receiving teacher feedback that addresses all aspects of writing rather than primarily focusing on language accuracy. The reasons that may account for the disjuncture are also discussed in the study. The study concludes that it is important for teachers to be aware of student attitudes and expectations regarding teacher feedback. Teachers should be flexible enough to provide individualized feedback. Pedagogical implications are included in the paper in the hope of shedding light on the development of effective and helpful teacher feedback. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Asian Languages and Civilizations 2012

This study explored how a computer-assisted second-language instructional method introduced basic Arabic vocabulary and grammar and affected vocabulary acquisition. This instructional method used audio, text and animated images to introduce the vocabulary and grammar in a meaningful step-by-step presentation. Volunteers from Brigham Young University and Brigham Young University-Idaho were randomly assigned to either a control group or an experimental group to participate in interactive Arabic language computer programs. The control group received Arabic instruction by means of computerized flashcards, while the experimental group received Arabic instruction by means of animated images. Following the treatment, the volunteers completed an online posttest to measure how much Arabic vocabulary and grammar they learned. Statistical analyses indicated that, overall, neither method was significantly better than the other for these groups of volunteers.