<p>This study examines the interpretation and production of inalienable possession among heritage speakers and L2 learners of Spanish. Inalienable possession lies at the syntax-semantics interface and has previously been found to be challenging among bilingual populations (Giancaspro & Sánchez, 2019; Montrul & Ionin, 2010, 2012; Pérez-Leroux et al., 2002). In particular, this study explores the extent to which Spanish heritage speakers and L2 learners exhibit knowledge of Spanish inalienable possession with pronominal verbs requiring the use of the clitic <i>se</i>. Results from an Elicited Production Task and a Contextualized Preference Task administered online showed that the L2 learners followed a distinct pattern of response compared to the native speakers in the production and interpretation of inalienable possession. This pattern was characterized by the preference of possessive determiners over definite determiners. Heritage speakers, on the contrary, were not found to differ from the native speakers of Spanish. They behaved similarly to the control group as they followed the continuum that emerged for inalienable possession. That is, both groups were more accepting of definite determiners, while they showed less preference for structures with possessive determiners. The findings are discussed in terms of current debates on the role of factors involved in language acquisition such as maturational issues, learning experience, patterns of language exposure and usage, cross-linguistic influence, and the grammatical structure itself.</p>

AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OF Rania Hassan Talafhah , for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Curriculum and Instruction, presented on 4 May 2017, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING: JORDANIAN EFL LEARNERS’ PRACTICES AND EXPERIENCES MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Christina C. McIntyre The purpose of this mixed-methods sequential explanatory study was to identify the EFL learners’ practices and understand their experiences with SNSs (social networking sites) as a tool for English language learning. The study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, quantitative results were obtained from a survey of 144 undergraduate Jordanian EFL learners in the English and Translation Departments at Yarmouk University in Jordan. In the second phase, richer information and a deeper insight was gained through a qualitative case study. In the quantitative phase of the study, the research questions focused on the actual practices and strategies of EFL students on SNSs. In the qualitative phase, 12 participants were purposefully selected and interviewed in order to explain further the statistical results of the first phase, develop a rich descriptive picture of their lived experiences using social networking to improve their English language learning, and identify the factors and barriers that influence their practices. This study was guided by the following research questions: 1. To what extent do Jordanian EFL learners use Facebook as a tool for language learning? 2. What language learning practices do Jordanian EFL learners engage in on Facebook? 3. How do these Facebook practices affect their language learning experiences? The results revealed that most participants felt comfortable using Facebook in English language learning. However, less than half of them used Facebook on a regular basis to learn English. In addition, they tended to read and observe discussions in English rather than participate in them or produce language output. The results also revealed that learners’ practices or behaviors in the SNS environment changed depending on certain factors, such as the context, audience, sense of belonging, self – confidence, and the learners’ needs and interests. The results of the study brought to light some implications in the context of formal and informal language learning. The study might raise learner, teacher, and educator awareness about SNSs as a tool for language learning, particularly for countries with limited resources. The results also showed the need for a theoretical and pedagogical framework for the teaching and learning process that identifies the best practices and ways to avoid any harm in a SNS environment. Integrating SNSs in language teaching and learning is a topic that requires further study. Using SNSs inside and outside the classroom to practice different language skills is an important topic for future research.

The construct of academic language—while of great interest, in part, because of recently adopted or revised content and English-language development (ELD) standards that explicitly focus on academic language—and its role in the academic success of all students, including young learners and English learners (ELs), is far from clearly understood. Nowhere is the issue of the construct of academic language more contested than in the locus where many students are formally introduced to schooling in the United States; that is, in kindergarten classrooms. Kindergarten is many students’ formal introduction to public education in the United States, and this includes ELs, who represent a growing percentage of students in U.S. schools. Indeed, about 16% of kindergarteners in the country are classified as ELs (U.S. Department of Education, 2019a). Beginning at the kindergarten level, academic language is a primary focus of College and Career Readiness (CCR) standards, such as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which require students to engage in cognitively and linguistically complex academic practices (van Lier & Walqui, 2012). Similarly, ELD standards in the U.S. have recently been written anew or revised to correspond to the ambitious CCR standards, and, therefore, English language proficiency (ELP) expectations inherent in the ELD standards have become more rigorous as well. A hallmark of both ELD standards and CCR standards is a predominant focus on academic language. Yet consensus is lacking on what academic language is, exactly, and how it is operationalized in classrooms; some researchers argue that the construct of academic language may not even exist as it is currently conceptualized (e.g., Bunch, 2014; Gutiérrez et al., 2011; Valdés, 2004). In this study, I provide a description of classroom language usage in formal literacy contexts in kindergarten, inclusive of ELs, through a qualitative analysis of language use at the lexical, syntactic, and discoursal levels in academic literacy events. Additionally, I investigate whether students’ degree of exposure to academic language in kindergarten, language status, prior exposure to formal classroom contexts, gender, and age are related to academic language proficiency at the end of one academic year and when controlling for beginning-of-year academic language knowledge. Qualitative analyses illustrated that, while classroom discourse contained a relatively small percentage of lexically and syntactically complex language, students were exposed to a wide range of language during formal literacy events, from high-frequency to low-frequency (sophisticated) words, and from syntactically simple to complex utterances, across a variety of language functions aligned with the state’s literacy standards, both within and across classrooms. Greater amounts of sophisticated words and syntactically complex structures were present during shared reading activities specifically and, to a lesser degree, during foundational literacy activities. Exemplars from qualitative analyses illustrated that common, high-frequency words and simple syntactic structures were, at times, employed to present and discuss academic language and concepts and also employed, at times, as an instructional support for some ELs. Lessons that featured language functions related to the reading strand of the literacy standards and, to a lesser degree, the foundational literacy skills strand, afforded opportunities for sophisticated vocabulary and complex syntax. At this formative grade, then, the use of common, high-frequency words and simple syntax in service of teaching academic vocabulary and academic concepts during shared reading and other literacy activities was characteristic of the classrooms observed. Quantitative analyses indicated a significant relationship between academic language proficiency, as measured by a standardized language proficiency assessment, and language status, gender, and academic language exposure. However, when controlling for students’ beginning-of-year academic language proficiency (operationalized as their pretest scores), the relationship between academic language proficiency and academic language exposure in the classroom was no longer significant. In consideration of both qualitative and quantitative results, then, minimal exposure to academic language may not be sufficient to promote academic language proficiency. I recommend that literacy instruction could be enhanced to maximize exposure to and productive use of sophisticated words and syntactically complex language, as appropriate for kindergarten ELs and EOs, and in consideration of their developing language proficiency. Findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the language used in academic literacy contexts as instantiated in kindergarten classrooms, and begin to explore under what linguistic conditions all students, ELs and EOs, can more readily develop academic language proficiency in the earliest of elementary grades. / Applied Linguistics

Given the explicit focus of compulsory schooling in Sweden on providing pupils with opportunities to develop their communicative abilities, all available resources should be utilised to their fullest potential - one of these resources being the way a teacher talks to and with their pupils, i.e., their teacher talk. Previous research in the field has had its focus on non-Swedish classroom contexts and has primarily considered the impacts of teacher talk on learners in secondary school or above. This study therefore set out to contribute to the field by observing Swedish EFL lessons for grades 4-6 and interviewing the teachers of these lessons. The observations show that different teacher-talk categories were employed at varied frequencies, some noticeably more widely represented than others. Additionally, valuable insight was gained from the interviews into teachers’ reflections on their didactic choices made regarding teacher talk. Some of the teachers’ choices correlated with those found in previous research, such as the rationale for direct translations from L2 to L1. On the other hand, it emerged that teachers perceived that some teacher-talk categories were utilised more in the higher grades, in contrast with the results noted in the observations of this study. This could suggest that teachers were not utilising all available resources effectively and possibly could benefit from further support and/or training in how to use their teacher talk consciously. To comprehensively evaluate which, to what extent, and why different teacher-talk categories are represented, further research should focus on a prolonged engagement in longitudinal studies of Swedish EFL classrooms representing a greater variety and number of schools as well as participating teachers.

As unlabeled data becomes increasingly available, the need for robust data mining techniques increases as well. Clustering is a common data mining tool which seeks to find related, independent patterns in data called clusters. The cluster validation problem addresses the question of how well a given clustering fits the data set. We present CVIC (cluster validation using instance-based confidences) which assigns confidence scores to each individual instance, as opposed to more traditional methods which focus on the clusters themselves. CVIC trains supervised learners to recreate the clustering, and instances are scored based on output from the learners which corresponds to the confidence that the instance was clustered correctly. One consequence of individually validated instances is the ability to direct users to instances in a cluster that are either potentially misclustered or correctly clustered. Instances with low confidences can either be manually inspected or reclustered and instances with high confidences can be automatically labeled. We compare CVIC to three competing methods for assigning confidence scores and show results on CVIC's ability to successfully assign scores that result in higher average precision and recall for detecting misclustered and correctly clustered instances across five clustering algorithms on twenty data sets including handwritten historical image data provided by Ancestry.com.

Being a competent writer is an important skill in academic education. However, second language (L2) writers often struggle to be linguistically and lexically competent. This project explored the most frequent linguistic writing errors made by 343 English as a second language (ESL) students when Dynamic Written Corrective Feedback (WCF) was applied as an instructional methodology. These errors were also classified by language groups based on the students' first language (L1). These students were enrolled in an intensive English program at the English Language Center (ELC), Brigham Young University. The first languages of these students were Spanish, Korean, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian. The students' writing samples were collected to compile the most frequent linguistic error types. The results of this project show that the most frequent linguistic errors for ESL students are spelling, word choice, determiner, preposition, singular/plural, and word form. Among these errors, spelling and word choice were the most common errors for all ESL students no matter their L1. The principal aim of this project was to take the data collected in the error analysis and create a booklet to be used as a reference guide to frequent ESL linguistic writing errors. With this booklet, teachers should be more aware of frequent errors to better assist their students since this could help them anticipate some of the linguistic difficulties that L2 learners may encounter. This booklet could also help L2 learners attain writing linguistic competence.

The focus of this thesis was to develop vocabulary materials to supplement those already in use for emergent literate Burundian refugees preparing for the U.S. Citizenship Test. These learners study in conjunction with the International Rescue Committee in Salt Lake City, Utah, and with volunteer tutors who help them study. The flashcards and supporting activities were designed to better enable tutors to teach learners highly-dense vocabulary items, as well as to provide vocabulary scaffolding support for both learners and tutors and to increase depth of vocabulary knowledge with the target vocabulary. The U.S. Citizenship Test Vocabulary Flashcards and Vocabulary Support booklet were the products of a frequency-based vocabulary analysis to provide content-focused vocabulary instruction. This thesis details the steps and rationale of the process used to create these materials.

Syftet med detta arbete var att ta reda på vilket stöd det finns för språkminoritetselever, dvs elever i USA som inte har engelskan som modersmål, i de amerikanske klassrummen. Jag intervjuade fem amerikanska lärare i Atlanta. Jag ville ta reda på hur medvetna dessa lärare är om de speciella behov språkminoritetselever har. De fem intervjuade lärarna kände till grundläggande ideer om att undervisa språkminoritetselever i sina klassrum men ingen av dem hade läst om det under sin utbildning. Undersökningen indikerar att andra språk än engelska inte har så stor betydelse i skolor i Atlanta och att lärare inte får tillräckligt med undervisning om språkminoritetselever. Något som är överraskande eftersom det är förutspått att år 2020 kommer tjugofem procent av de amerikanska eleverna ha ett annat modersmål än engelska. / In order to find out what support there is for ELL students, students with a first language other than English in mainstream classrooms in the US, I have interviewed five teachers in Atlanta. I was interested in seeing how much these teachers know of the special needs these students have. The five teachers interviewed knew basic idea of how to instruct ELL students in their mainstream classroom but no one had been taught anything about second language acquisition or theories about the needs of ELL students in their education. This study also indicates that other languages than English are not of importance in the schools in Atlanta and teachers are not taught how to deal with ELL students. This is surprising since predictions say that in 2020 twenty five percent of students in the US will speak a first language others than English.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to get secondary school students’ perspectives on how they encounter and use English outside school. Eleven students, six boys and five girls, at two secondary schools in the southern parts of Sweden have been interviewed for the study. The findings of the study show that the secondary school students interviewed in this studyhave many opportunities to use English outside of school. They play online computer games, watch American TV shows and movies, read books in English, listen to music and travel. The students are fond of English and realise the importance of English in society and for their future. They find English, as they encounter it outside of school, of great importance for their development of English.

Syftet med studien är att beskriva hur specialpedagoger och klasslärare uppfattar kunskapskraven när det kommer till svagt teoretiskt begåvade elever som inte har rätt till anpassad grundskola (IK inom området 70-85). Syftet är också att beskriva hur specialpedagoger och klasslärare arbetar med dessa elever för att de ska ges möjlighet att uppnå kunskapskraven på lågstadiet. Avsikten är att försöka tydliggöra vilka upplevda konsekvenser kunskapskraven har i verkligheten för elever med svag teoretisk begåvning, med fokus på lågstadiet, och utgå från följande frågeställningar:● Hur uppfattar specialpedagoger och klasslärare kunskapskraven i anslutning till elever med svag teoretisk begåvning?● Vilka för- och nackdelar med kunskapskraven i skolan uttrycks av specialpedagoger och klasslärare i anslutning till elever med svag teoretisk begåvning?● Hur beskrivs specialpedagogers och klasslärares arbete för att svagt teoretiskt begåvade elever ska få möjligheten att uppnå kunskapskraven?Förhoppningen är att denna studie ska bidra till en bättre förståelse för skolsituationen för elever med svag teoretisk begåvning och öka kunskap om kunskapskravens tillämpning i verkligheten. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten för studien är läroplansteori med fokus på Lindes tre arenor om läroplanens påverkan på undervisningen, Läroplansteori kommer även att kompletteras med de specialpedagogiska perspektiven, dilemmaperspektivet och bristperspektivet. Studien är kvalitativ, med en induktiv ansats och har ett tydligt fokus mot tolkning av andra människors upplevelser. Metoden är semistrukturerade intervjuer som har analyserats utifrån en tematisk innehållsanalys med inspiration från Ritchies ”framework”. Resultatet i studien visar att specialpedagoger och klasslärare främst upplever kunskapskraven som något som begränsar elever med svag teoretisk begåvning, men att kraven samtidigt ses som en guide för lärarna. Det framgår också att det kräver mycket kunskap och engagemang från lärarna och specialpedagogerna för att tillämpa kunskapskraven i undervisningen vilket också kräver samarbete mellan specialpedagogen och klassläraren genom till exempel handledarsamtal och kontinuerliga uppföljningar av eleven.