This phenomenological study examines Saudi students’ perceptions of writing difficulties in U.S. universities as they have experiencing EFL and ESL contexts. The reason for focusing on Saudi students as participants is to limit linguistic, educational, cultural, and social factors that may affect the findings. The participants are seven Saudi graduate students at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC). Interview is used as a research instrument to provide a space for each participant to recall as many memories and perceptions as possible in order to manifest comprehensive presentations of their experiences in the Saudi and U.S. contexts. The two research goals are: (1) exploring the similarities and differences between the two contexts based on the participants’ perceptions; and (2) identifying potential effects of these similarities and differences on the participants’ writing during graduate studies in the U.S. Participants’ perceptions focus on the differences between the Saudi and U.S. contexts, rather than similarities, and their comparisons of the two contexts are discussed based on eight key factors: student’s role, students’ expectations, teacher’s role, relationship with instructors, writing process, feedback and grading, off-campus social life, and educational policies. The potential effects of these differences on Saudi students’ writing in the U.S. context are classified into three domains: educational procedures and academic standards; pedagogies; and writing processes. I conclude this study by offering recommendations for U.S. professors and instructors who may teach Saudi students and future Saudi students who plan to come to the U.S. universities.

Bibliography: pages 333-356. / This investigation is concerned with what three children remembered or had forgotten of a second language after an interval of two years. An in-depth study, consisting of recognition and recall tests, was made of 13-year-old identical twin girls and their 9-year-old brother, who previously had been English/French bilinguals. A phenomenological approach was taken, which included the children's reaction to the tests, and their description of the personal framework within which the learning and forgetting had taken place. The findings, which are suggestive due to limited data, are: first, cognitive and maturational differences between the children caused the twins to retain more recognition and active recall of French than their brother; second, the twins showed a surprising difference in their recognition of French, pos9ibly caused by affective factors; third, all three children showed strongest recognition in the area of semantics, while in recall they retained phonology best; fourth, in the tests, habit memory and episodic memory were more durable than semantic memory. The investigation is a first step towards understanding how children forget a language in which they have been submersed.

In L2 performance assessment, raters can significantly affect test validity due to rater variability, a source of construct-irrelevant variance in scores caused by differences in raters’ characteristics rather than test takers’ ability. To improve scoring validity, we must investigate what rater characteristics are likely to contribute to rater variability. The current study thus investigated the combined effects of three major rater characteristics, i.e., rater expertise, working memory capacity (WMC), and cognitive functionality, on raters’ scoring performance in L2 speaking assessment. Exploring these questions may increase our understanding of what rater-associated factors contribute to rater variability, thereby shedding light on rater selection, training, and scoring practices. To this end, 90 raters from the US and the UK participated in two parts of the study. In Part I, the 90 raters completed a rater background survey designed to measure their L2 performance assessment-related experience, scored 27 responses from the Aptis speaking test, and completed one verbal working memory task. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to explore: 1) the relative contributions of rater expertise and WMC to scoring performance, and 2) any possible interaction between the two characteristics in their joint influences on scoring performance. Results from the analysis indicate that rater expertise had a significant effect on raters’ scoring accuracy. However, WMC was not found to significantly influence raters’ scoring performance. In addition, no significant interaction was found between rater expertise and WMC, which suggests independent influences of these two characteristics on scoring performance. In Part II, six out of the 90 raters were randomly selected to participate in a cognitive lab session, where they scored three Aptis spoken responses and verbally reported their thinking process during scoring. The raters’ reports were coded and analyzed based on a hypothesized taxonomy of rater strategies invoked in the L2 scoring process. Fourteen major strategies were identified from the raters’ verbal reports. Differences were also found in the expert and novice raters’ quantity and quality of strategy use. These findings have revealed the mental mechanisms underlying raters’ scoring performance and associated differences in the raters’ strategy use to different levels of rater expertise.

Learning a language can induce anxiety among students. In addition, students can feel anxious when it comes to being tested on their language skills. Studies of goal attainment among health patients, students, and others have shown that self regulation through the model of Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions (MCII) can help participants reach their goals. In the current study, we sought to determine whether MCII could help learners better cope with anxiety when being orally examined in a second language. Specifically, we examined whether practicing MCII would lead to reductions in language test taking anxiety over time. We compared the levels of test anxiety in students before and after a six-week period where one group was taught MCII and another was not. MCII participants were instructed on MCII in weekly sessions and encouraged to apply it in testing and other situations in their daily lives. Both the MCII group and the control group were given speaking tests at the beginning and end of the six weeks, and anxiety levels were tested at each of these speaking tests. Anxiety was measured using two methods: a self-assessment, the Foreign Language Anxiety Scale, and a physiological measure of anxiety, saliva cortisol level. All students were interviewed by a trained speaking rater, and their cortisol levels were tested before and after the testing experiences at the beginning and end of the study period. We compared anxiety levels for the treatment (MCII) and control groups. Results showed that cortisol levels among treatment and control groups did not have a significant difference. However, the experiment group that had received MCII treatment reported lower levels of anxiety than the control. This suggests that MCII can lower the level of test anxiety perceived by students.

The importance of accent reduction to those who are learning English as a second language cannot be understated as it has direct and indirect impacts on credibility and income. This study is an evaluation of an instructional technique involving visual feedback through an electropalatography device to assist speakers in acquiring the /r/ and /l/ sound contrast in American English and whether or not that progress varied across speech task type or word position. This study involved four native Japanese participants in their first semester at the English Language Center located at Brigham Young University. Each subject participated in 7 45-minute sessions over the course of 4 weeks. The sessions used a hybrid instructional approach which included traditional auditory feedback combined with intermittent, real-time visual feedback provided by the EPG sensor. Measurements of the third formant of each target sound was extracted from baseline, posttreatment, and follow-up recordings using Praat acoustic analysis software. Overall, all subjects showed a greater contrast in F3 from the baseline assessment to the posttreatment assessment. The subjects demonstrated a greater contrast in F3 during the word task type and also when the phonemes were in the final position of words.

This study aims to investigate, describe and discuss the views of group new arrived pupils from the preparatory training to the compulsory school level. They all came to Sweden and started in the preparatory training there they also started studying Swedish as a second language. This study aims to investigate the creation of identities and how the pupils socialize in the Swedish school. The study has been conducted with respect to the pupil´s own perspectives and what they consider important. The methods used are interviews together with an interpreter. Their voices are used and described in this paper. Their names and the school´s name have been used anonymous. One must take into consideration that there is no objective of being neutral or to generalize the results to any other group. The pupils are convinced that second language acquisition is the key to success although their first language - the Arabic language is still symbolized as their identity. They are still working on their identities, their language acquisition and adaptation to expectations in different situations. They always will be seen as multidimensional personalities.

This paper is a study of a class of newly immigrated students, age 13–15, that currently is learning sufficient Swedish to be able to attend the regular education in secondary school, and how they perceive different methods of learning language through music – specifically singing. By teaching four different songs in four different ways, I have tried to establish if it is possible to distinguish a superiour method for teaching a second language by singing. The survey can see no such method, although some ways of teaching was more popular with the students. They also stated that – even if they disliked the method for learning – they considered it easier to sing than to use spoken word to pronounce correctly, and that most of them learned one or several new words with each song. They remembered the lyrics from one occasion to another. Research and experience shows that music can be a powerful tool if used correctly when learning foreign languages, and my conclusion is that it would benefit the immigrated students if it could manifest itself more in the Swedish educational system.

Denna studie undersöker diskurser kring kultur och språkinlärning i Läroplanen för grundskolan, förskolan och fritidshemmet (Lgr11) i alla delar som rör grundskolans senare år och i alla ämnen utom språkämnen. Studiens bakgrund fokuserar på diskurser om ämnet Svenska som andraspråk (sva) och använder teorier om kritisk diskursanalys, kulturella erbjudanden från Torpsten (2008) för att fokusera diskursanalysen som används för att analysera materialet (Lgr11). Resultatet visar att Lgr11 har motsägelsefulla diskurser rörande kultur, och att den är öppen för tolkning, detta speglar Torpstens analys av tidigare kursplaner. Vikten av språkutveckling i alla ämnen är, med några undantag, en tydlig diskurs genom hela Lgr11. / The aim of this study is to find discourses about culture and language learning in the Swedish Curriculum for the compulsory school, preschool class and school-age educare (abbreviated Lgr11) in all parts that is aimed for the later ages of compulsory school except the curricula for language courses. The background of the study focuses on discourses about the subject Swedish as a second language (abbreviated sva) and uses critical discourse theory and theory about cultural possibilities from Torpsten (2008) to focus the discourse analysis used to analyze the material (Lgr11). The results show that the discourses about views on culture in Lgr11 are contradictory and open for interpretation, which reflects the findings in earlier curricula from Torpsten. The need for teaching language in all subjects is, with some exceptions, a clear discourse throughout the whole of Lgr11.

This degree project aims to investigate which methods five school teachers, in compulsory education, integrate into their practice when teaching ESL learners vocabulary through reading. Moreover, it aims to find out if the reported teacher practices reflect what is currently viewed as effective vocabulary instructions. The research question that guided this study was, what methods or underlying theories do ESL teachers, in South Sweden, find useful when teaching vocabulary through reading? The research used classroom observations, individual interviews, together with a thorough analysis of relevant research on the subject of SLA. Moreover, despite the vast research in this area regarding effective practices of vocabulary acquisition, teachers tend to use old fashioned, and simple methods when teaching and assessing vocabulary acquisition. Underlying reasoning is said to be lack of time, or knowledge of how to incorporate efficient practices in their teaching. To conclude, we believe that teachers would benefit from receiving further education on how to incorporate potent practices, so that they are able to more efficiently integrate them into their current language learning activities.

Magister Artium - MA / Chapter 1 deals with the theoretical issues involved in the study of language as a social phenomenon. It traces the development of the sub-discipline of sociolinguistics and the contribution of sociologists and anthropologists to the study of the relation between society and language.