The objectives of this qualitative multiple case study are as follows: (a) identify the professional beliefs or representations of two student teachers before, during and after their last practicum in FSL (French as a second language) or in French immersion at a High School; and (b) study the evolution of these beliefs or representations during the student teaching period. / The investigation was conducted by means of semi-structured interviews: of two student teachers; of two associate teachers; of one university supervisor; and of the student teaching coordinator. Other data, taken from the portfolio of the two student teachers, were also analysed. The classroom actions of the two student teachers were observed on a daily basis (three teaching periods during seven weeks), alternating between the two student teachers. The data yielded by this observation were also examined. / The following conclusions were drawn: (a) the student teachers constructed a number of professional beliefs which were then reflected in their classroom practice; (b) social interactions with individuals and groups, personal experiences, former high school experiences, the training program and early field experiences were the basis of these student teachers' professional beliefs or representations; (c) some of the student teachers' beliefs or representations evolved as a result of their awareness of problems which were resolved through discussions and reflexive practice; (d) analysis revealed an inconsistency between certain beliefs or representations and their actualization. These findings were particularly significant in FSL and immersion classes where the two student teachers were in favour of a lot of interaction in view of promoting communicative competence. Yet, observation revealed a rather traditional teacher-centered approach oblivious of the learning process. The results of the research suggest that the evolution of the student teachers' beliefs or representations was impeded due to the lack of a more concerted, coordinated, rigorous support-oriented training program involving both the university and the associate school. / This study suggests a shared individual and collective responsibility of schools, universities and governments for improving the student teaching structure in view of more cohesiveness between all partners involved; a better articulation between theory and practice in the teacher training program; and efficient development of supervised reflexive practice.

This study arises out of research on teacher beliefs and practice with regard to the social, political and economic conditions affecting English Language Learners (ELLS). Specifically, it examines how student-teachers in an introductory course to cross-cultural education at a state university in California reflect on their own beliefs about cultural, linguistic, racial, ethnic and socio-economic diversity; whether they examine the socio-political context of schooling language minority students; their beliefs about appropriate strategies and methodologies for ELLs; and if and how these beliefs have been influenced by the course. Forty-two student-teachers completed pre- and post-course questionnaires, and two completed interviews. The results from this study show that teacher education coursework can change teacher beliefs about issues of diversity in positive ways and can lead to greater teacher awareness about the socio-political context of schooling ELLs. The next step in the research agenda will be to investigate how teacher beliefs about multicultural issues affect their practices in teaching ELLs.

This study investigated the interactional moves of Japanese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners and, in particular, how differently they modify their oral output depending on their interlocutor---either a peer or a native speaker (NS). By employing retrospective stimulated recall methodology, this study also explored the participants' feelings and perceptions which arguably determined their interaction patterns during a communicative task. / Participants were eight Japanese first-year university students and four NSs of English. Conversations of eight learner-NS dyads and four learner-learner dyads (six hours in total) were audiotaped, transcribed, and then statistically analyzed. Learners were interviewed two days after the task completion. / Results revealed that learners interacted in significantly different ways depending on whom they interacted with. Specifically, their interlocutor (peer or NS) proved to be a more influential variable than the type of feedback (i.e., elicitation or reformulation) they received. Qualitative analysis of the interview data provides comprehensive explanations for the findings.

The English article system is extremely complex because of its conceptual abstractness and context-dependent usage. For these specific features, some second language learners (e.g., Japanese) find article acquisition to be very difficult. Traditionally, the definite article the is thought to express exclusively the referential function of "identifiability", that is, the is there to identify or pick out the referent so the hearer can identify what is being discussed (Lyons, 1999). This view has been widely accepted and has served as the foundation of research as well as for pedagogical orientations. Recently, however, these traditional notions have been heavily criticized as 'insufficient'. As a result, a cognitive, mental space notion of "accessibility" has been introduced (Epstein, 2002). / This study was designed to investigate the effectiveness in teaching the English article the by comparing two instructional approaches: a traditionally-based approach and a cognitively-based approach. The study hypothesized, first, that article usage is contextually and conceptually configured; therefore, not all definite articles the exhibit the same level of difficulty (some are conceptually more complex than others). Second, the higher the complexity, the more difficult it is for learners to understand. Third, in light of these hypotheses, learners are predicted to benefit more from conceptually oriented instruction than structurally oriented traditional instruction. / In order to measure the effectiveness of these approaches, two comparable, computerized instructional treatments were created. The mental space treatment shows the learners the framework in which 'accessibility' to the object is emphasized, whereas the traditional treatment shows learners the framework in which 'identifiability' of the object is emphasized. / Eighty-three Japanese learners of English (41 in the mental space treatment and 42 in the traditional treatment) were recruited to test the hypotheses. Three lessons were administered individually; each lasted 1.5 to 2 hours (4.5 to 6 hours per participant). As predicted, the results revealed that there is a distinct order of complexity according to the conceptual load of the article the. The study also confirmed that the higher the complexity levels, the more difficult it is for the learners to learn. However, this conceptual complexity can be significantly alleviated when the conceptual framework is taught.

The number of people learning English as a second or foreign language has increased dramatically over the last two decades. Many of these second language learners are university students who must attain very sophisticated academic skills. To a great extent, their academic success hinges on their ability to read a second language. This multiplecase study investigated first language (LI) and second language (L2) reading strategies in academic settings. The study drew on Bernhardt's (2000) socio-cognitive model of second language reading. Five Chinese students in a graduate program in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) volunteered to participate in the study. A combination of data collection techniques was employed including think-alouds, interviews, learning logs, classroom observations, course materials, and the participants' reading samples. The results showed that there were similarities and differences between LI and L2 reading strategies. Although evidence was found supporting the view of cognitive universals and socio-cultural constraints, individual differences at the cognitive level and similarities across cultures were also identified. The findings of this study indicate that the comparison between LI and L2 academic reading should take into consideration the similarities and differences at both cognitive and cultural levels. Implications are discussed in relation to the construction of an L2 transfer model as well as the delivery of L2 reading instruction.

This dissertation investigates the effects and value of instructional activities for improving second language use of English articles. After reviewing a number of issues concerning pedagogical, linguistic, psycholinguistic, and internal validity, this study presents the results of eight longitudinal time-series case studies of adult Japanese learners of English residing in Vancouver, Canada, four of whom received grammatical explanations, input processing activities, and output practice activities regarding English article use. Learner development was assessed on three different narrative retelling tasks (spoken, written, and cloze) and the production was analysed with reference to specific contexts of use, indicating the form-function mappings that comprised the learners' interlanguage knowledge. The results indicated that the learners' interlanguage production exhibited (a) the anticipated task variation, with greater suppliance of the on tasks that allowed greater attention to form, and (b) the anticipated discoursal variation, with the supplied more consistently when it was primed as a redundant element on the written task and with the supplied less consistently when it was efficiently deleted as a redundant element on the spoken task. The results also indicated the variable nature of individual development and the value of assessing development longitudinally on different tasks. Importantly, the results indicated that the learners improved or continued improving after instruction, and strongly suggested that instruction can cause automatization of interlanguage knowledge. This finding suggests that form-focused instruction may be valuable for second language learning, and that pedagogical positions opposing form-focused instruction may need to be revised or abandoned.

This thesis considers the problem of how to bring foreign language students with a limited vocabulary knowledge, consisting mainly of high-frequency words, to the point where they are able to adequately comprehend authentic texts in a target domain or genre. It proposes bridging the vocabulary gap by first determining which word families account for 95% of the target domain's running words, and then having students learn these word families by reading texts in an order that allows for the incremental introduction of target vocabulary. This is made possible by a recently developed computer program that sorts through a collection of texts and (a) finds texts with a suitably high proportion of target words, (b) ensures that over the course of these texts, most or all target words are encountered five or more times, and (c) creates an order for reading these texts, such that each new text contains a reasonably small number of new target words and a maximum number of familiar words. A computer-based study, involving the sorting of 293 news texts, resulted in the finding that all three of these conditions could be met for the majority of texts tested, provided two key changes were first made to the sorting algorithm. A potential problem with the computerized approach is also addressed. The approach takes for granted that a reader must be familiar with 95% of a text's tokens in order to adequately comprehend the text, but a recently published study challenges this assumption by claiming that 98% is a more accurate figure. A close analysis of the study, however, points out a serious methodological flaw which undermines this result.

This study replicates VanPatten's research (1990) in order to determine whether learners of Spanish as a second language (L2) can simultaneously attend to meaning and form when processing input. My research furthers VanPatten's work through an investigation of more advanced students of Spanish L2. / The participants for this study were 60 advanced Spanish L2 students at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. To investigate whether advanced L2 learners can focus on form while listening for meaning, participants were randomly assigned to complete one of four listening tasks: Task I (control task): listening to the passage for content only, Task II: listening to the passage for content and simultaneously noting the key lexical item, inflacion, Task III: listening to the passage for content and simultaneously noting the article la, and Task IV: listening for content and simultaneously noting the verb morpheme -n. Comprehension of the passage was assessed by a written recall protocol. / Results revealed that comprehension scores were higher among learners listening only for meaning than those of learners attending to meaning and one of the formal features. The findings of the present study are in agreement with VanPatten (1990). Learners' attention to form while listening for meaning appears to affect comprehension.

Several current studies in language acquisition have focussed on the emergence of functional categories in first and second languages. The properties of functional categories can be exhibited through movement, inflections, case marking and the use of functional elements such as determiners and complementizers. / This pilot study investigated the English second language of two groups of Inuktitut speaking schoolchildren at the beginning of the school year to see whether the properties of functional categories in English emerged in the same way as they do for first language speakers. While some of the Kindergarten children showed no access to these properties, others showed partial or complete access to them. Those children who had been in school one year demonstrated access to all of the properties under investigation. The results are discussed with respect to future research methodologies and studies of acquisition.

This study investigated whether English second language learners learn the senses of polysemous vocabulary items in an order from a core sense to more extended senses. Polysemous words have one form but many interrelated meanings. It was hypothesised that such an order could be explained by way of the theory of prototypicality. / 48 ESL learners from three language groups, French, Japanese and Chinese, took part in the study. The participants translated into their first language 29 English sentences using different senses of the word over. Translations were coded for correct translations of the sense of over and for variation in the correct translations. A MANOVA analysis showed that core senses were translated significantly more correctly than extended senses. A negative correlation was shown between variation in translation and correctness of translation. Following Krzeszowski, T. (1990), the study confirms that the theory of prototypicality offers an effective way of explaining language transfer.