This study investigates the factors most likely to support effective communication in clinical placements for ESL nursing students in New Zealand. The experiences of ESL students as they complete a clinical placement are examined and compared with data from the students‟ clinical lecturers and preceptors. Data for the study was collected through interviews with individual students before, during and after their Transition to Practice placement. Interviews were also held with two of the students‟ preceptors, and a focus group was held with clinical lecturers who had experience of working with ESL students. Results from the study underline the importance of facilitating students‟ entry to the placement community of practice, and access to its interactions. A number of factors supported or inhibited students‟ participation and learning within the placement community. The study identified two critical factors intrinsic to the student, and two extrinsic to the student. Intrinsic factors included the student‟s proficiency with English language: in particular, the sophisticated sociopragmatic language skills used by nurses in their daily interactions. The student‟s use of learning strategies, including the proactive approach best suited to learning on placement, was also critical. Extrinsic factors likely to support the student‟s integration within the community of practice were the quality of the preceptor, in terms of attitude to and training for the preceptoring role, and the tone of the placement environment. The major outcomes of this study point to the importance of providing direct instruction for ESL students in the kinds of language and learning styles required for placement. There are also implications for the selection and training of preceptors and for the placing of students in appropriate clinical environments. The study concludes with suggestions for a specific communication programme for ESL students.

Thesis (M.A.T.) -- School for International Training, 2006. / Advisor -- Patrick Moran Includes bibliographical references (leaves 45).

Young children begin to draw spontaneously, and their drawings develop in complexity and skill as they become older. Previously, children's drawings have been utilized to assess aspects of emotional and cognitive development. On the other hand, very few studies have used children's drawings as a tool for understanding their language development. The purpose of this study was to examine the potential for using drawing as an assessment tool for language skill. Therefore, this study explored the relationship between pre-kindergarten children's drawing and language development and stability of this relationship over time. This study also examined whether children's English-language status influenced the drawing-language relationship. The study's subjects were 34 children who attended a pre-kindergarten program in a local elementary school located in a Mid-Western university town. These children participated in take-home reading and drawing activities once a week for one school year. Children's drawings that were completed after reading storybooks with their parents served as data documenting their drawing skills. Classroom teachers' observations of the children's language use were recorded on the Work Sampling System's developmental checklists, and this served as data to document their language skills. A hierarchical regression analysis revealed that children's drawing skill was a significant predictor to their language skill and explained 10% of the variance in language scores. This finding was consistent at both the beginning and end of the school year. Children's English-language status did not make a statistically significant difference in the predictive relationship of drawing for their language skills. Therefore, this study concluded that children's drawings can be used as a supplementary assessment tool to provide information about children's language skills, regardless of their primary language. However, more than half of the language variance was not identified from this study; this is an area for further investigation.

This master thesis deals with the text analysis of cover letter in German and with identifying characteristic text structures of this text type. The theoretical part covers the main concepts of text linguistics. Based on the scientific literature are defined the basic outline for the text analysis. The practical part concerns the analysis of the corpus of 30 cover letters written by Czech candidates in compliance with the criteria for job application in supposed language German. After that, the communication context, textual theme, function and text structures significant for this text type are determined. Finally, the results are compared with the set hypotheses.

abstract: ABSTRACT This study investigated the effects of a family literacy program for Latino parents' language practices at home and their children's oral language skills. Specifically, the study examined the extent to which: (a) the program called Family Reading Intervention for Language and Literacy in Spanish (FRILLS) was effective at teaching low-education, low-income Latino parents three language strategies (i.e., comments, high-level questions and recasts) as measured by parent implementation, (b) parents maintained implementation of the three language strategies two weeks following the program, and (c) parent implementation of such practices positively impacted children's oral language skills as measured by number of inferences, conversational turns, number of different words, and the Mean Length of Utterance in words (MLU-w). Five Latino mothers and their Spanish-speaking preschool children participated in a multiple baseline single-subject design across participants. After stable baseline data, each mother was randomly selected to initiate the intervention. Program initiation was staggered across the five mothers. The mothers engaged in seven individual intervention sessions. Data on parent and child outcomes were collected across three experimental conditions: baseline, intervention, and follow-up. This study employed visual analysis of the data to determine the program effects on parent and child outcome variables. Results indicated that the program was effective in increasing the mothers' use of comments and high-level questions, but not recasts, when reading to their children. The program had a positive effect on the children's number of inferences, different words, and conversational turns, but not on the mean length of utterances. Findings indicate that FRILLS may be effective at extending and enriching the language environment that low-income children who are culturally and linguistically diverse experience at home. Three results with important implications for those who implement, develop, or examine family literacy programs are discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Speech and Hearing Science 2015

Objetivo: Caracterizar o perfil das habilidades de linguagem (oral e escrita) de indivíduos com Displasia Frontonasal com e sem anomalias do sistema nervoso central. Modelo: Análise perspectiva descrevendo os achados da avaliação de linguagem em indivíduos com sinais clínicos de Displasia Frontonasal. Local de execução: Setor de Genética Clínica, HRAC-USP. Participantes: 14 indivíduos, com faixa etária variável, sendo 9 do gênero feminino e 5 do gênero masculino. O GI constituído por 7 indivíduos com displasia frontonasal isolada e 7 com displasia frontonasal associada a anomalias estruturais do Sistema Nervoso Central. Resultados: No GI, 3 Indivíduos (43%) apresentaram alterações nas habilidades de linguagem (oral e escrita), enquanto que no GII, 5 (71%) apresentaram os mesmos achados Na avaliação complementar, os resultados foram parcialmente concordantes com a avaliação clínica, sendo que 43% do GI apresentaram escores abaixo do esperado e no GII foram 71%. Conclusão: Conclui-se que a DFN associada a anomalias estruturais do SNC, como corpo caloso, apresentam em sua maioria, alterações nas habilidades de linguagem oral e escrita em porcentagem bem maior a DFN isolada. Porém as alterações de linguagem/aprendizagem podem estar associadas a DFN, uma vez que esta afecção apresenta um quadro de características fenotípicas bem distintas. / Objective: To characterize the profile of language skills (oral and written) of patients with frontonasal dysplasia with and without central nervous system anomalies. Model: Analysis perspective describing the findings of the evaluation of language in individuals with clinical features of frontonasal dysplasia. Setting: Genetics Departament, HRAC-USP. Participants: 14 individuals with varying ages, 9 females and 5 males. The GI consist 7 individuals with isolated frontonasal dysplasia and 7 with frontonasal dysplasia associated with central nervous system anomalies. Results: In GI, 3 individuals (43%) showed alterations in language skills (oral and escreita), whereas in GII, five individuals (71%) showed the same results. On supplementary assessment, the findings were consistent to the clinical evaluation, and 43% had scores below in GI and 71% in GII. Conclusions: It is concluded that the FND associated with structural abnormalities of the CNS, such as the corpus callosum, have mostly changes in the skills of oral and written language in a much larger percentage DFN isolated. However the language / learning disabilities may be associated with DFN, since this disease presents with distinct phenotypic characteristics.

En milieu scolaire capverdien, nous avons constaté que le format des tests d'évaluation reflète ceux des plans de cours et par ricochet les démarches pédagogiques. Ces dernières sont essentiellement axées sur la maîtrise des structures de la langue, c'est-à-dire sur la restitution de connaissances censées être acquises. Les spécialistes des sciences de l’éducation Hadji (1997), Scallon (2007) et les didacticiens de langues comme Tagliante (2005), Veltcheff (2009) prônent le renouvellement de la manière d'évaluer pour construire des compétences communicatives en s'appuyant sur le caractère formatif de l'évaluation. Pour l'enseignement du français en milieu scolaire capverdien, revoir le format actuel avec l'introduction des quatre activités langagières pour construire des compétences communicatives pourrait nous obliger à opter pour une démarche particulière. Celle-ci voudrait que les modules soit bâtis sur la base des objectifs d'évaluation préalablement définis à partir des descripteurs de niveau du Cadre européen commun de référence pour les langues (CECRL, 2001). Étant inscrits en milieu scolaire, comment pourrions-nous mettre en place cette démarche particulière ? Pour cette étude, réalisée selon une démarche de recherche-action solitaire, nous avons opté pour l'affectation de chaque activité langagière à un trimestre sur une période de deux ans constituant le premier cycle de l'enseignement secondaire. Ces nouvelles approches de l’enseignement/apprentissage/évaluation basées sur une évaluation formative ont permis à un groupe d’élèves de construire des compétences communicatives langagières du niveau A1. / In Cape Verdean schools, we found that the format of the evaluation tests reflects those lesson plans and in turn the teaching approaches. These are mainly focused on mastering the language structures, which is to say on the restitution of knowledge supposed to be acquired. Specialists of Sciences Hadji Education (1997), Scallon (2007) and the didactics of languages as Tagliante(2005), Veltcheff (2009) advocate the renewal of how to assess to build communication skills based the formative evaluation. For the teaching of French in Cape Verdean schools, review thecurrent format with the introduction of the four language activities to build communication skills may require us to adopt a particular approach. This would be built as modules based on the evaluation objectives previously defined from the level of the Common European Framework of Reference descriptors for Languages (CEFR 2001). Being enrolled in school, how can we implement this particular approach? For this study, conducted by a solitary action research approach, we opted for the allocation of each language activity to a quarter over two years constituting the first cycle of secondary education. These new approaches to teaching / learning / assessment based on formative assessment enabled a group of students to build communicative language skills from A1.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur andraspråkselever kan ges stöd för att förstå och skapa mening i matematiska textuppgifter. Studien är utförd som en systematisk litteraturstudie. Sammanlagt 59 studier ligger till grund för analysen. Resultatet visar att språkfärdigheter och läsförståelse har betydelse för andraspråkselevers möjligheter att lyckas med textuppgifter, vilket gör språkutvecklande arbete viktigt i matematik. Eleverna har i många fall lättare att lösa uppgifterna på sitt förstaspråk, men texten i uppgifterna kan göras mer tillgänglig genom att se över formuleringar och ordval. Undervisning som syftar till att lära eleverna läsa och lösa textuppgifter verkar ge resultat. Litteraturstudien pekar på att även kontexten är viktig. När elever arbetar med textuppgifter är det troligt att de tar hjälp av båda sina språk i tankeprocessen. Det gör att båda språken kan ses som en resurs. / The purpose of this study is to investigate in which ways multilingual students can be supported to understand and make meaning of mathematical word problems. The study is carried out in the form of a systematic review, including 59 studies. The results show that language skills and reading proficiency are important to multilingual students chances to succeed with word problems. That makes it important to adress those issues during mathematics lessons. In many cases students benefit from working with word problems in their first language, but the problem texts can be made more easily comprehensible if they are written in a less complex language. Instruction with the specific aim to teach students how to read and solve word problems seems to be useful. The review shows that the context in word problems also is significant. Students working on word problems are likely to use both their langugages in the cognitive process. That means that both languages may be considered to be resources in the classroom.

No description available.

In accordance with the governing documents of the Swedish upper secondary school, critical thinking must be promoted in all subjects. A great responsibility rests on the teachers to include this in their teaching. However, there is no clear definition of what is meant by critical thinking, which previous research has shown creates problems in the promotion of it. This study investigates how teachers in the Swedish upper secondary school (1) perceive and understand the concept of critical thinking, (2) implement it in their teaching and (3) answer to challenges they encounter in promoting it. Data were collected through a questionnaire and interviews. Thereafter, the data were analysed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The results show that teachers highly value critical thinking and see it as an essential part of participation in society. It was also found that the teachers have different ways of implementing and encouraging critical thinking in the classroom but that dialogic methods are a common denominator. Moreover, the results show that students' lack of language skills as well as teachers' uncertainty about the concept of critical thinking impact the prerequisites of the promotion of critical thinking. On this basis, it is recommended that teachers work on their own definition and concept understanding of critical thinking for challenges that arise in their own teaching. Due to the size and design of this study, more research is needed to better understand English teachers' experiences with critical thinking in Swedish upper secondary education.