For several years, the use of translation and specifically Machine Translation - including Free Online Machine Translation (FOMT) tools - in L2 curricula has been the subject of ongoing debate. Even though the use of such tools is commonly discouraged in L2 classrooms by educators, the persistence of English as a second language (ESL) students in utilizing the tools has inspired many scholars to investigate whether it is helpful to develop effective strategies that transform FOMT into a teaching/learning tool in the ESL/English for specific purposes (ESP) classroom. Specifically, scholars have examined how FOMT can impact or enhance the writing quality of ESL students' compositions in terms of coherence and cohesion. In line with the same research interests, this project examined ESL students' typical coherence/cohesion challenges in academic writing at an Ontario post-secondary institution offering courses in French. The study explored the writing behaviours, such as the use of technologies including FOMT, that influence these challenges. In addition, this project sought to ascertain whether ESL students can be trained to better achieve coherence/cohesion in academic writing and how this training affects their writing behaviours, with particular attention to the use of technologies such as FOMT. In doing so, the study employed a mixed-methods research design and collected survey data, writing samples and screen recordings from 6 high-intermediate-level ESL students. Survey data was also collected from 23 ESL instructors about ESL students' practices, including tool use. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the students and 3 instructors who evaluated the writing samples. Based on the survey results, all the students demonstrated a positive attitude toward FOMT tools, and 5 students used the tools during the writing process in this project. In contrast, the instructors reported divided opinions about such tools for ESL writing purposes. The results showed that instructions can assist students with improving their text quality in terms of coherence and cohesion. As well, based on the results, FOMT can assist the students in constructing their texts during the writing process. The results demonstrated that this assistance can also have a subsequent positive impact on the coherence and cohesion levels in the produced texts.

This study focuses on the English Second Language (ESL) learner with inadequate English proficiency. The Schools Act allows parents to choose their children's Language of Learning and Teaching (LOLT). Consequently, many parents choose English as LOLT for their children, believing that it will guarantee success for their children in the world of school and work. ESL learners with inadequate English proficiency experience barriers to learning. Most educators do not have the knowledge or the tools to support these ESL learners. Consequently, many ESL learners are recommended for retention or defined as "slow" learners. A crucial need for a language enrichment programme to augment these ESL learners' inadequate English proficiency was identified. After an in-depth search no South African language enrichment programme could be found for Grade 4 mainstream educators to implement in the classroom. A questionnaire was designed, based on the literature research, and distributed to determine what the needs of Grade 4 mainstream educators Concerning a language enrichment programme were. Grade 4 educators were targeted as a population since Grade 4 has been reported by educators as a critical period in the learners' education and also falls into the researcher's sphere of responsibilities. A great need for a language enrichment programme was confirmed. From the questionnaire it was deduced that educators felt comfortable using a story as medium for the language enrichment programme. A language enrichment programme suitable for the mainstream classroom was compiled for Grade 4 ESL learners based on the literature research and the responses of the questionnaire. 40 Grade 4 Language, Literacy and Communication (LLC) educators with knowledge on how to support learners with barriers were requested to implement the language enrichment programme over a six week period in their classroom. A short questionnaire to assess the suitability of implementation was completed by them afterwards. The response from the educators was exceptionally positive. The results of this study suggest that the story-based language enrichment programme can be implemented with success in the mainstream classroom to augment ESL learners' inadequate English proficiency, making the road to academic and career success so much smoother. / This study focuses on the English Second Language (ESL) learner with inadequate English proficiency. The Schools Act allows parents to choose Their children's Language of Learning and Teaching (LOLT) consequently, many parents choose English as LOLT for their children, believing that it will guarantee success for their children in the world of school and work. ESL learners with inadequate English proficiency experience barriers to earning. Most educators do not have the knowledge or the tools to support these ESL learners. Consequently, many ESL learners are recommended for retention or defined as "slow" learners. A crucial need for a language enrichment programme to augment these ESL learners' inadequate English proficiency was identified. After an in-depth search no South African language enrichment programme could be found for Grade 4 mainstream educators to implement in the classroom. A questionnaire was designed, based on the literature research, and distributed to determine what the needs of Grade 4 mainstream educators concerning a language enrichment programme were. Grade 4 educators were targeted as a population since Grade 4, has been reported by educators as a critical period in the learners' education and also falls into the researcher's sphere of responsibilities. A great need for a language enrichment programme was confirmed. From the questionnaire it w deduced that educators felt comfortable using a story as medium for the language enrichment programme. A language enrichment program suitable for the mainstream classroom was compiled for Grade 4 El learners based on the literature research and the responses of the questionnaire. 40 Grade 4 Language, Literacy and Communication (LLC) educators with knowledge on how to support learners with barriers were requested implement the language enrichment programme over a six week period their classroom. A short questionnaire to assess the suitability of implementation was completed by them afterwards. The response of the educators was exceptionally positive. The results of this study suggest that the story-based language enrichment programme can be implemented with success in the mainstream classroom to augment ESL learners' inadequate English proficiency, making the road to academic and career success so much smoother. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Education))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2004.

Data are presented in seven chapters that address the reciprocal relationship between oral vocabulary and reading development. Chapter 2 explores exception word reading in poor comprehenders longitudinally, finding deficits that are pervasive over a period of two years. The results support the hypothesis that weak oral vocabulary skills are causally related to poor exception word reading in this group. In Chapter 3, orthographic and semantic skills in poor comprehenders are investigated in a word learning paradigm. This chapter provides evidence that poor comprehenders have more difficulty learning and retaining semantic information than orthographic information. A similar paradigm is described in Chapter 4 to investigate predictors of orthographic and semantic learning. In a large group of typically developing readers, this demonstrates that decoding is the strongest predictor of orthographic learning while existing oral vocabulary knowledge is the strongest predictor of semantic learning. In Chapters 5 and 6 orthographic and semantic skills in poor comprehenders and children with dyslexia are compared using standard off-line tasks (Chapter 5) and an online word learning experiment (Chapter 6). These chapters indicate similarities as well as differences in the reading and language profiles of these groups. Chapter 7 adopts a different approach by using a word learning study to investigate the benefit of teaching new oral vocabulary in the presence of orthography.

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar atividades voltadas ao ensino do léxico em livro didático de Português Língua Estrangeira (PLE). Apoiamo-nos especialmente em Oxford e Scarcella (1994) e Nation (2005) para investigar como o léxico é apresentado e explorado nas atividades do livro didático Português Via Brasil: um curso avançado para estrangeiros (LIMA; IUNES, 2010), bem como seu potencial pedagógico para explorá-lo. A partir da análise de atividades da unidade 1 do livro didático selecionado, observou-se que há uma preocupação em ensinar vocabulário, com ênfase aos aspectos semânticos do léxico e de modo descontextualizado, apresentando-o, por exemplo, no formato de listas de palavras. Foi possível confirmar que o ensino do léxico é tratado com importância nesse material, dada a quantidade de atividades voltadas ao tema, no entanto, ainda está cristalizada a ideia de que seu aprendizado ocorre pelo estudo de listas de palavras isoladas de um contexto específico e limitadas ao seu significado principal (LARA, 1996). / The aim of this study is reviewing activities related to the education of the lexicon in Portuguese as Foreign Language (PFL) textbooks. Mainly we reviewed Oxford and Scarcella (1994) and Nation (2005) textbooks to investigate how the lexicon is introduced and used in activities from Português Via Brasil: um curso avançado para estrangeiros (LIMA; IUNES, 2010) textbook, as well as its pedagogical potential to expand it. From the investigation of the Unit 1 activities in the selected textbook, a concerning about teaching some vocabulary is observed, whose semantic aspects of lexicon and de-contextualization are highlighted when it is used as a word list, for example. It was possible to confirm that the lexicon education is considered as an important material because of the amount of activities related to the theme. However, the idea of learning via a list of single words compiled from a specific context and limited to their primary meaning is still deeply rooted (LARA, 1996).

A fonética, estudo dos sons de uma língua, tem um papel fundamental na aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras, principalmente na aquisição das competências orais. No entanto, a transposição didática desta disciplina não é sempre evidente para o professor de línguas estrangeiras. Por um lado, ele tem que enfrentar um assunto considerado excessivamente técnico e inacessível aos não-iniciados, e por outro, são poucas as obras escritas para este fim. Esta dissertação tem como objetivo discutir o lugar da fonética no ensino/aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras e propor procedimentos metodológicos para o trabalho da fonética em sala de aula. Para isto apresentaremos no primeiro capítulo um percurso histórico das diferentes metodologias, mostrando como a pronúncia foi tratada em cada uma delas. Isto nos permitirá determinar, no capítulo II, os princípios a serem levados em conta na elaboração de um programa e das atividades de fonética. No último capítulo descreveremos as três experiências realizadas em duas instituições de ensino de francês língua estrangeira na Universidade de São Paulo. Graças a esta pesquisa poderemos não só avaliar a importância da fonética para o ensino/aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras como também sugerir atividades lúdicas que ajudem o professor a motivar seus alunos no aprimoramento da pronúncia. / Phonetics is the study of speech sounds. Even though it plays an important role in the second language acquisition, specially of the oral skills, its didactic transposition is not always evident for the language teacher. On the one hand he has to face a discipline considered too technical and unavailable to the non-initiated, on the other hand, there are very few works on the subject. The objective of this paper is to discuss the place of phonetics in second language teaching and to propose methodological procedures for its learning. For that, we will present in the first chapter an historical view of second language methods, showing how pronunciation was treated in each one of them. In chapter II we will determine the principles that should be taken into account when elaborating a phonetics program or activities. In the last chapter we will describe three experiences achieved in two different language institute at São Paulo University. Due to this research we will be able to evaluate the importance of phonetics in the second language acquisition and suggest fun activities to help teachers to motivate their students in pronunciation classes.

Submitted by Alisson Mota (alisson.davidbeckam@gmail.com) on 2015-06-01T21:41:34Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação -Maria da Conceição Queiroz Vale.pdf: 1667762 bytes, checksum: e413c9838d714fe490b868bbcdb3d43b (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Divisão de Documentação/BC Biblioteca Central (ddbc@ufam.edu.br) on 2015-06-02T17:45:01Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação -Maria da Conceição Queiroz Vale.pdf: 1667762 bytes, checksum: e413c9838d714fe490b868bbcdb3d43b (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Divisão de Documentação/BC Biblioteca Central (ddbc@ufam.edu.br) on 2015-06-02T17:49:52Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação -Maria da Conceição Queiroz Vale.pdf: 1667762 bytes, checksum: e413c9838d714fe490b868bbcdb3d43b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-06-02T17:49:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação -Maria da Conceição Queiroz Vale.pdf: 1667762 bytes, checksum: e413c9838d714fe490b868bbcdb3d43b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-06-06 / FAPEAM - Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Amazonas / The objectiv e of this study is to investigate teacher’ s teaching beliefs x students ` learning beliefs about En glish as a Foreign Language ( EFL ) in a public s chool setting and contrast those beliefs to events in the EFL classroom, in order to identify convergences and discrepancies between speech and action of teacher s and students . The theoretical basis of this study is the sociocultural perspective in spired by the work of Lev Vygot sky (1987) and the contextual appr oach proposed by Barcelos (2006) . A case study (Johnso n, 1992) is presented with e thnographic characteristics , (André, 1995). The data were collected using a semi - structured interview technique and classroom observation in a public schoo l in the city of Manaus . The research result showed that in the school ob served, specifically in the EFL classroom, teac her and students share basically the same beliefs and that t hese beliefs likely influence their behavior in the classroom . The sociocultural perspective , which is the perspective adopted in this work , allows u s to situate and understand classroom events as a collaborative en deavor in which students and teachers participate in the construction of knowledge. Finally , in the current state of the research on beliefs, in the field of the Foreign Language teaching - le arning, it is clear that it is not yet possible to establish a direct causal relationship between beliefs on one side and behaviors/actions on the other side, raising the hypothesis that this relationship i s indirect . / Este trabalho tem como objetivo investigar as crenças de ensinar de professore s x crenças de apre nder de alunos de Inglês como Língua Estrangeira (LE) no contexto da escola pública e contrapor essas crenças aos eventos da sala de aula de Inglês como LE , tentando flagrar convergências e discrepâncias entre o dizer e o fazer de professor e alunos. Este trabalho fu ndamentou - se teori camente n a pers pecti va s ociocultural inspirada pela obra de Lev Vygotksky (1987) e a abordagem contextual proposta por Barcelos (2006) . Esta pesquisa é um estudo de caso (Johnson, 1992) , com viés etnográfico, ( An dré, 1995). Na coleta de dados foi utiliza da a técnica de entrevista semi estruturada e a observação de aulas em uma escola públic a situada na cidade de Manaus . O resultado da pesquisa mostrou que, na escola investigada, ma i s especificamente na sala de aula observada, professor e aluno s compartilham p raticamente das mesmas crenças e que essas crenças , provavelmente, exercem influência em seu s comportamentos em sala de aula . A perspectiva sociocultural , que é a perspectiva adotada neste trabalho, permite situar e compreender os eventos da sala de aula c omo uma empreitada col aborativa em que todos os envolvidos participam da construção do conhecimento. Por fim, no estado atual da pesquisa sobre crenças, no domínio de ensino - aprendizagem de LE, fica claro que ainda não é possível estabelecer uma relação ca usal direta entre crenças de um lado e comportamentos/ações do outro, levantando - se a hipótese de que essa relação é indireta.

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar atividades voltadas ao ensino do léxico em livro didático de Português Língua Estrangeira (PLE). Apoiamo-nos especialmente em Oxford e Scarcella (1994) e Nation (2005) para investigar como o léxico é apresentado e explorado nas atividades do livro didático Português Via Brasil: um curso avançado para estrangeiros (LIMA; IUNES, 2010), bem como seu potencial pedagógico para explorá-lo. A partir da análise de atividades da unidade 1 do livro didático selecionado, observou-se que há uma preocupação em ensinar vocabulário, com ênfase aos aspectos semânticos do léxico e de modo descontextualizado, apresentando-o, por exemplo, no formato de listas de palavras. Foi possível confirmar que o ensino do léxico é tratado com importância nesse material, dada a quantidade de atividades voltadas ao tema, no entanto, ainda está cristalizada a ideia de que seu aprendizado ocorre pelo estudo de listas de palavras isoladas de um contexto específico e limitadas ao seu significado principal (LARA, 1996). / The aim of this study is reviewing activities related to the education of the lexicon in Portuguese as Foreign Language (PFL) textbooks. Mainly we reviewed Oxford and Scarcella (1994) and Nation (2005) textbooks to investigate how the lexicon is introduced and used in activities from Português Via Brasil: um curso avançado para estrangeiros (LIMA; IUNES, 2010) textbook, as well as its pedagogical potential to expand it. From the investigation of the Unit 1 activities in the selected textbook, a concerning about teaching some vocabulary is observed, whose semantic aspects of lexicon and de-contextualization are highlighted when it is used as a word list, for example. It was possible to confirm that the lexicon education is considered as an important material because of the amount of activities related to the theme. However, the idea of learning via a list of single words compiled from a specific context and limited to their primary meaning is still deeply rooted (LARA, 1996).

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T18:22:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Flavio Aneas.pdf: 964801 bytes, checksum: 6b36b64b9067f0a622a1f48af5da7180 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-10-08 / Secretaria da Educação do Estado de São Paulo / This research has aimed to investigate the representations which teachers and students of adult and young adult education have about English Language teaching-learning and, by comparing them to each other, find convergences and divergences that might point out any kind of tendency. The research is grounded on the social representation theory, based on Moscovic (2003), Farr (1995), Minayo (1995), and Celani e Magalhães (2002), among others. It is also grounded on adult and young adult students different concepts, the factual and legal history of this education segment in Brazil based on official documents and scientific articles, as well as on the most well known and diffused teaching-learning theories in this country. The research has followed the case study methodological frame (JOHNSON, 1992, e STAKE, 1998) and has been developed among four of the Guarulhos city government schools, located in São Paulo state, Brazil. 3 teachers and fourteen students of adult and young adult classes (fifth to eighth grades) have participated in the research, whose data were collected through questionnaires in November, 2009. The results showed to exist convergences into the Socio-intereactionist teaching-learning theory among the representations of teachers and students and also divergences from this focus in some of the students representations which seems to present traditional characteristics. Because representations with Socio-interacionist characteristics are present in a larger number and because of the action of the representations, there seems to be a tendency of diminishing the number of Socio-interationist diverging representations / Este trabalho teve como objetivo investigar as representações que têm professores e alunos da Educação de Jovens e Adultos sobre o ensino aprendizagem de inglês e compará-las, a fim de verificar se apresentam entre si convergências ou divergências e que tendências esse fato evidencia. Como fundamentação teórica que o embasa, estão presentes a teoria das representações, a partir de autores como Moscovici (2003), Farr (1995), Minayo (1995), Celani e Magalhães (2002), entre outros, além de conceitos sobre o aluno jovem e adulto, a história factual e legislativa do segmento EJA no Brasil, a partir de artigos científicos e documentos oficiais e as principais teorias de ensino-aprendizagem conhecidas e difundidas no Brasil. A pesquisa insere-se no quadro metodológico de um estudo de caso (JOHNSON, 1992, e STAKE, 1998) e foi desenvolvida em quatro escolas da rede pública de ensino do município de Guarulhos, estado de São Paulo. Dela participaram três professores de inglês e quatorze alunos de classes de EJA ciclo três. Os dados foram coletados por meio de questionário, em novembro de 2009. Os resultados obtidos demonstram haver entre as representações de professores e alunos convergências na direção da abordagem sociointeracionista de ensino aprendizagem e também divergências desse foco em algumas representações dos alunos que são permeadas por elementos de abordagens mais tradicionalistas. Sendo as representações com características sociointeracionistas em maior número, parece haver, pela ação das representações, tendência de diminuição das representações com características divergentes da sociointeracionista

Thesis (Ph.D. (Language Education)) --University of Limpopo, 2018. / Refer to document

Thesis (Ph.D. (Education))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2004.