Second language (L2) learning has begun recognizing that intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness influence how nonnative speakers of English are perceived by others. As such, pronunciation instruction is becoming more common in L2 curriculum around the world. Corrective Feedback (CF) is commonly given in the pronunciation classroom to draw attention to and correct learners’ errors. Research has tried to understand what forms of CF are most effective for language learning, how CF affects pronunciation, and what learners believe about CF. What is lesser known is if the frequency or rate of CF affects learner’s uptake and pronunciation error repair. Participants in this study were nonnative English speakers who were placed in the high frequency feedback group (HFFG) or the low frequency feedback group (LFFG). After an initial demographic and language beliefs survey, participants experienced a one-on-one pronunciation session with a pronunciation researcher. In the pronunciation session, participants received either high frequency feedback (100% of errors corrected) or low frequency feedback (50% of errors corrected defined as every other error corrected). An immediate follow up survey asked learners about their frequency preference for feedback and their emotional reactions to the feedback. After a nonparametric statistical analysis, results indicated that there were no statistically significant differences between the uptake rates of the HFFG and LFFG. Marginal significance was found in the repair rates between the HFFG and LFFG with the LFFG performing marginally better, but not to a statistically significant level. Frequency of CF may affect learners’ error repair rates. The immediate follow up survey indicated that most participants were inaccurate in their perception of the frequency of CF they received during the lesson. Only two participants changed their preference for frequency of CF after the lesson. These two wanted more feedback and no learner wanted less feedback. Finally, the same survey indicated that learners felt mostly positive emotions when receiving feedback, while only two experienced nervousness/anxiousness. Conclusions are that feedback frequency does not seem to affect learner uptake, but that frequency may affect pronunciation error repair.

AbstractDenna uppsats handlar om att undersöka hur andraspråkselever som misstänks ha läs- och skrivsvårigheter/dyslexi utreds på en skola. I en empirisk studie intervjuas sex stycken pedagoger som arbetar med att göra de inledande testerna/kartläggningarna på elever med misstänkt dyslexi/läs- och skrivsvårigheter. Lärarna i undersökningen arbetar inom samma upptagningsområde som speciallärare/pedagoger. Uppsatsens resultat visar på att tillängliga diagnosverktyg på undersökt skola inte är anpassade för att kunna säkerställa en eventuell diagnos hos elever med ett annat modersmål än svenska.

I detta arbete har jag valt att undersöka hur tre pedagoger använder sig av skönlitteratur i undervisningen i Svenska som Andraspråk och vilken betydelse de menar att skönlitteraturen har för dessa elever men också hur pedagogerna väljer de skönlitterära texter de använder i klassrummet.Med hjälp av olika teoretiska utgångspunkter och tre kvlitativa intervjuundersökningar har jag försökt besvara min frågeställning.Min undersökning har inte gett mig någon generell bild av hur pedagoger i allmänhet arbetar med skönlitteratur i andraspråksundervisningen, men jag har insett att det inte finns ett sätt som är bättre eller sämre än det andra. Man måste jobba utifrån sig själv och sina förutsättningar. Pedagogerna menar att genom skönlitteraturen får eleverna det innehåll som de behöver kognitivt, men på ett mindre komplext språk än i traditionella läromedel. Pedagogernas huvudmål med allt arbete de gör med skönlitteratur är förståelse. / In this essay I have choosen to examine how three educationalists use fiction in their teaching of students with swedish as a second language and what meaning they understand fiction has for these students, but also how the educationalists choose the fiction they use in the classroom. With different theoretical starting points and three qualitative interwiews I have tried to answer my question at issue. My investigation have not given me any general picture of how educationalist work with fiction when teaching swedish as a second language, but it has made me realize that one way is not better or worse than the other. You need to find your own way of teaching on the basis of your own experience and knowledge. The educationalists I have interviewed wants to give the students the contents they need cognitiveley, but with a less complex language then what they would get from traditional textbooks. The main goal of working with fiction for the educationalists is understanding. That the students understand

The purpose of this study is to find out whether pupils English language learning benefits from using Swedish during the English lessons. I decided to collect my material from interviews in combination with classroom observations. I chose to start with the observation of the class and the teacher during one lesson before I did my interview. It is difficult to draw any conclusions of this with only the two schools I visited. If I were to do it again I would have chosen two schools that both start teaching English at the same age and devote the same amount of time each week to learning English. I did not discover any findings to support my theory that it would be beneficial to exclude Swedish during English lessons, nor did I find the opposite. The teachers from the observations felt it was necessary to use Swedish during the English lessons with the argument that it helped them learn Swedish better. Since that was not exactly my question I felt that my findings were inconclusive.

The purpose of this research was to replicate previous studies (Foote et al., 2017; Martinsen et al., 2017) investigating the technique of shadowing and its impact on English language learners’ oral fluency and intelligibility. The target population for this study was intermediate-level English language learners as prior shadowing research has focused on advanced learners (Foote et al., 2017) and beginner learners (Lu, 2021). The study involved both a control group (n=10) and a treatment group (n=10), with each group participating in a semester-long class at Brigham Young University’s English Language Center (ELC). Both groups participated in pre and post testing during the second and second to last week of instruction. The experimental group then received 10-weeks of shadowing treatment with transcripts as part of their curriculum of instruction in their listening/speaking class. The control group did not. Speech samples from the pre and post tests were rated for fluency, comprehensibility, accentedness, and the quality of imitative speech with each of the criteria rated by naïve native English speaking raters on a nine-point Likert scale as has been used in other pronunciation studies (Derwing & Munro, 2013). A repeated-measures ANOVA was used to evaluate the results. The data showed that all participants improved significantly from the pre-test to post-test in fluency and comprehensibility, while reducing their accentedness. For the criteria of imitation, the ratings were not significant for the control group and treatment group, although the treatment group showed a trend upward in their improvement. Previous studies investigating shadowing have largely indicated significant improvement in the treatment group’s ability to shadow as well as its influence on changing raters’ perceptions of the speakers’ fluency and comprehensibility. Several of these previous studies, however, did not include control groups, which calls into question the validity of their results if all students can improve in these criteria over the course of a semester, as shown in this study. Qualitative feedback from this study’s participants suggests that overall, students enjoy the technique of shadowing and believe it should be incorporated into an oral communication curriculum.

Translation is an important language skill in multilingual societies and the globalized world. Some scholars even claim that translation skill should be the fifth language skill in addition to the conventional four basic skills of second language competence - listening, speaking, reading, and writing (Newmark, 1991; Naimushin, 2002; Leonardi, 2011). However, the current mainstream communicative teaching approach tries to avoid the use of translation in language classrooms, mainly because of the possible negative transfer of the first language and low priority given to writing. This study aims to identify the pedagogical role of translation in language teaching through the exploration of the relationships between learners’ second language competence and translation ability, in the hope of providing empirical evidence to support the application of translation in language teaching. A total of 48 participants learning Chinese as a second language participated in this study. The participants’ translation ability was measured by a translation task and their language competence was measured by the course final oral and written test. We found that translation can expose learners to their weaknesses in the following aspects including word order, word choice, omission, and featured grammar structures like descriptive complements. The expanding gap between Chinese to English and English to Chinese translation, as well as the gap between accuracy and expression, show that learners’ translation ability cannot be developed in a balanced way without interruption. In addition, we found that participants’ translation ability is positively correlated with their second language competence, which shows that students’ translation ability potentially has a positive effect on second language competence. Moreover, we observed a strong correlation between translation and speaking at the intermediate level, which supports that utilizing translation in second language teaching could be beneficial to second language competence, especially for speaking competence. Moreover, a relatively loose correlation between translation ability and reading and writing competence shows that we cannot expect a person who can read and write to be a natural translator. Therefore, proper training in translation is necessary if we believe translation is an important skill that students need to acquire.

Many intensive English language students take pretests and posttests at the beginning and end of each semester to determine proficiency gains. Nevertheless, it may not be clear what kinds of gains should be expected over the course of a single semester or how those gains might be influenced by factors such as the learner's first language (L1) or prior proficiency. This study used repeated measures ANOVA and nonparametric tests to examine the speaking and writing pretest and posttest scores of 2331 Novice Mid to Advanced Mid ESL learners over a 15-week semester. Results show that while students on average progressed in speaking and writing, they did not meet the curricular goal of advancing a full proficiency sublevel in these skills. Results suggest that though L1 may have a slight impact on language development over one semester, the effect of prior language proficiency was much more dramatic, with large gains for lower-proficiency learners compared to higher-proficiency learners who slowed or regressed in their proficiency, F(1,756) = 367.5, p < .001, ηp2 = .327. Findings have important implications for pedagogical expectations, especially for learners with a more advanced proficiency who may have different needs compared to lower-proficiency learners.

English learners (ELs) represent one of the fastest growing student populations in the United States. Given that language can serve as a barrier in EL performance, test accommodations are provided to help level the playing field and allow ELs to better demonstrate their true performance level. Test accommodations on the computer offer the ability to collect new types of data difficult to obtain via paper-and-pencil tests. Specifically, these data can be used as additional sources of validity evidence when examining test accommodations. To date, limited research has examined computer-based accommodations, thus limiting these additional sources of validity evidence. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the validity of computer-based test accommodations on high school History and Math assessments using evidence based on response processes, specifically accommodation use and response time. Two direct linguistic accommodations, non-ELs, two EL groups, and five research questions were investigated in this study. Accommodation use results indicated significant differences in use across the three student groups, with ELs using accommodations more frequently than non-ELs. However, there were still high percentages of all three groups not accessing any accommodations on individual items. Accommodation use was more common on History than on Math, and decreased as the assessment progressed. Results suggest future research focus on students actually using the accommodations when conducting research on the effectiveness of accommodations. Response time results showed ELs taking longer to process test items as compared to non-ELs regardless of receiving test accommodations. Receiving accommodations significantly impacted processing time for some of the items on History, but not on Math. Similarly, History showed a relationship between the number of accommodations on test items and response time, but Math did not. These results suggested that the Math content knowledge may have played a larger role in response time than the accommodations. Positive relationships between test performance and response time were found in both subject areas. The most common predictors of both accommodation use and response time across both subject areas were sex, Hispanic status, and socioeconomic status. Implications of the results and suggestions for future research are discussed.

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