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The number of English Language Learner (ELL) students in U.S. public schools are increasing yearly. More than 75% of ELL student's home language is Spanish. Their academic performance and graduation rates are lower than their non-ELL peers. Parent involvement contributes to student success in school, and urban leaders must examine how they involve ELL students and parents in school. The purpose of this study was to identify perceived strategies urban high school teachers use to involve ELL parents and to identify whether perceived barriers exist. School leaders can benefit from this qualitative study to address the achievement gap between ELL and non-ELL students. Five ESL teachers, six content teachers, and three Graduation Coaches participated in three focus group interviews. Seven findings arose from the interviews. A few findings include 71% (10 out of 14) of participants perceived that all educators in the building are responsible for ELL students, 93% (13 out of 14) of participants perceived there are practices and policies established to aid teachers with communicating and involving ELL parents, and 80% percent (4 out of 5) of ESL teachers interviewed believed parents are more trusting of the school when schools partner with other community agencies to host events. Teachers perceived barriers exist that inhibit them from involving and communicating with parents. Ninety-three percent (13 out of 14) of participants noted time as a barrier. Almost 43% (6 out of 14) participants noted parents being unaware of their rights as a barrier. / Doctor of Education / Hispanic English Language Learners (ELL) are the fastest-growing group of students in U.S. public schools. There is an achievement gap between ELL students and non-ELL students. The graduation rates and academic performance of ELL students are lower than non-ELL students. Parent involvement is one factor that increases students' academic performance. The research in this study explored the impact and perception of parent involvement. The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify perceived strategies urban school teachers use to involve ELL parents and whether teachers perceive the strategies are effective. Content Teachers, Graduation Coaches, and ESL teachers from two high schools within one eastern Virginia school division participated in focus group interviews. The study indicated seven findings and eight implications. A recommendation for future studies is to explore and examine the practices of more diverse areas of Virginia and the impact of ELL parent involvement.

Master of Arts / Department of Modern Languages / Mary T. Copple / The English article system is one of the most difficult and subtle structural elements for EFL learners, and even advanced learners make errors in article use. This research analyzes patterns of use of English articles (a/an, the, zero) in guided conversations with Afghan Dari speakers who are intermediate or advanced English learners and who do have an article system in their primary language, Dari. In this research, six intermediate and six advanced learners participated by discussing similar topics (their first impressions of the USA, their life in Manhattan, their classes, and their future plans). These conversations were recorded and transcribed. The collected data were analyzed on the basis of referentiality, information status, and various properties of nouns. The results indicate that the participants were most accurate in their production of the indefinite article ‘a/an’ in referential and non-referential contexts with new information, the definite ‘the’ in referential contexts with known information, while the zero ‘Ø’ was difficult for both ELP (intermediate) and Post-ELP (advanced) learners mostly in referential contexts.

The objective of this research was to investigate the perceptions and experiences of educators and Grade 6 and 7 learners on the effectiveness of school rules at public primary schools within the Fezile Dabi school district. Chapter Two of this dissertation focused on the specific identification of what effective school rules comprise of, as perceived by the academic community. In order to provide the reader with an overview of the nature of effective school rules, this chapter was divided into providing a short historical reflection on discipline, looking at the nature of discipline, developing a South African framework for legal school rules and taking note of international and foreign law relevant to the topic of this dissertation. The researcher then discussed the outlines of the research design used to collect, edit and analyse the data in Chapter Three. The chapter included the research paradigm, and the difference between research designs was highlighted to motivate the choice for the research design. The research design chosen for this study was a quantitative design. The researcher also indicated that she used a pilot study while conducting the empirical research of this dissertation. It was followed by the data collection method and the data collection strategies were discussed. Reliability and validity were dealt with and the guarantees thereof included. The chapter negotiated ethical considerations and ended with a discussion of foreseen research challenges. The data were extrapolated from questionnaires. This study was conducted at 6 primary schools in the smaller Metsimaholo district. Learner participants (n = 421), as well as educator participants (n = 54), were selected to answer the same/similar questions on the effectiveness and experiences concerning school rules so as to enable comparisons of learners and educators’ perceptions of learner misconduct. The data were analysed and interpreted. Learner responses were used to determine the factor analysis, after which the same factors were applied for educators. The empirical study led to the following findings: • According to this study, it appears that educators with more experience than the average educator do not necessarily have command of content on the contemporary approach to dealing with learner discipline, which may contribute to learner misconduct. • According to the responses of participants, it seems that the role players are not aware of their influence on one another in terms of learner misconduct. *Educators are not aware of the influence of gang activities on learners. *Educators are not aware of the high prevalence of abuse within their school communities. *Learners are not aware of the educators’ concerns for the influence of family structures and divorces. *Educators feel that they are not respected by parents. • Learners acknowledge that they have less control over and input into the drawing up of school rules, than educators are willing to admit. • Some learners indicate that educators turn to illegal forms of punishment in a desperate attempt to maintain discipline. / MEd, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2012

This study explored how the use of real-life contexts influences South African Grade 8 learners’ responses in solving mathematical word problems. A mathematical task was given to investigate whether the influence exists and if so how. The study falls within a social constructivist framework which emphasizes construction of learners’ own knowledge in the learning process. Learners do so when they are able to recognize and interpret a mathematical task as one for which everyday knowledge as well as mathematical knowledge would be a relevant resource on which to draw. The research method employed was a case study. Data for the study was collected through written a mathematical task and individual learner interviews. In the report key issues are identified and discussed. They are concerned with (a) learners representation of a number and (b) learners’ mathematical and real-world knowledge. The study concludes that current use of word problems does not foster in learners realistic considerations even though the South African curriculum emphasizes the incorporation of everyday life experiences into mathematics. Rather than providing realistic contexts that encourage learners to use commonsense knowledge and experience in the problem-solving process, school word problems are perceived as artificial, undoubtedly solvable, but also that everything in the problem text is confined to relevance and no-ambiguity. The report concludes with recommendations for classroom practice, teacher education and further research.

Thesis advisor: Maria E. Brisk / This qualitative research study examined how student teachers and novice history teachers learn to teach adolescent bilingual learners (BLs) from coursework to the classroom. The purpose of the study was to investigate to what extent five participants drew upon social justice-oriented pre-service preparation when they taught history to bilingual students in secondary schools in the Greater Boston area. More specifically, this study examined how participants scaffolded history instruction for BLs and taught the language of history to BLs. Classroom data--observation videotapes, interviews, lesson plans, and teaching materials-- were analyzed using the Sheltered Immersion Observation Protocol (SIOP) (Echevarría, Vogt and Short, 2008) and Lucas and Villegas's framework for Linguistically Responsive Teachers (LRT) (2011) to assess trends in how individual participants, student teachers, and novice teachers scaffolded instruction. An analytical framework was created based on systemic functional linguistics (SFL) description of key genres of secondary history (Coffin, 1997, 2006; Martin and Rose, 2008) to understand how participants taught the language of history. Findings of this study suggest that as participants gained classroom experience, they increasingly implemented instructional scaffolds aligned with classroom activities to engage students in rigorous content instruction. Yet participants did not consistently teach language demands of history. Based on study results, I suggest outcomes for early phases of a continuum of teacher learning related to teaching history to BLs. I also propose a framework for teaching the language of history that draws from SFL-informed genre pedagogy (Coffin, 1997, 2006; Gibbons, 2009; Rose and Martin, 2012; Schleppegrell, 2005), and I propose a model for language and content teacher preparation specific to history but also applicable to other secondary content areas. A key argument that this dissertation advances is that secondary history teachers need coherent, consistent, and coordinated support from pre-service coursework to student teaching to full-time teaching to learn to teach BLs. Implications of this study can inform teachers, teacher educators, and researchers who seek to improve opportunities for adolescent BLs to receive equitable access to rigorous content instruction and to develop specific literacy skills that could serve as a foundation for individual achievement and engaged citizenship. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

This study utilizes Lave and Wenger’s (1991) communities of practice (COP) model to explore how ELLs navigate their positions within and between their many language learning communities. Drawing on Norton’s (1995, 2013) work on ELLs’ identity negotiation and Wenger’s 1998 work on the reinforcing impacts of identities between multiple COPs, this study explores what adults consider to be their COPs, how they perceive themselves within and between them, and how past, current, and imagined or possible COPs impact each other. A constructivist, multiple case study design was used to focus on participants’ perceptions of their identity negotiation processes through their own narratives across three interviews and weekly audio-recorded self-reports. Eight adult ELLs participated in the study, and their narratives revealed the temporal and situational nature of their connections to past, present, and future identities as English learners, as professionals, and as members of their communities. They experienced persistent explicit and subtle barriers to participation in their COPs with native English speakers, including a range of linguistic gatekeeping strategies. The study revealed several themes of COP membership, in particular an identification with a larger, less concrete, immigrant group that lead the participants to focus their narratives and English-learning efforts on their ability to advocate for themselves and for other immigrants in the United States. Recommendations from the ELLs and the researcher are presented for a more holistic approach to adult ELL instruction that incorporates more of the multiple facets of ELLs’ learning trajectories in the target-language context.

Colleges and universities face some retention problems for female adult learners over the age of 25 who face technical requirements in higher education courses. However, little is known about how technology influences the experiences of female adult learners. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to identify how female adult learners over the age of 25 perceived the technical demands of the courses in their degree programs and how they coped with those demands. The conceptual frameworks for the study were the adult learning theory, which focuses on self-directed learning, and the transactional distance theory. Participants for this study were 12 female adult learners who reside in Tennessee who have been enrolled in undergraduate and graduate courses and were over the age of 25. Data sources included face-to-face and phone interviews. Data were analyzed using open coding to identify patterns and themes. The findings of this study indicated that participants were influenced by the technical demands they faced. Participants attributed the extent of success in their courses to the level of technical competence they possessed during their time as students. Participants used individual coping strategies in their courses as well as resources provided by the institutions they attended. This study contributes to positive social change because it provides information that higher education institutions can use to both increase retention and help female adult learners succeed during their higher education careers.