<p> This study investigated the correlation between oral English language proficiency, primary language use, and sense of efficacy by Chinese-speaking teachers using English medium of instruction (EMI) in Chinese university courses. Twenty-one Chinese EMI university teachers participated in the study by completing an online survey to find how these variables are correlated and to identify patterns in their perceptions about EMI preparation, student learning, and teaching behaviors. A quantitative method was used to calculate descriptive data and Pearson Correlation using SPSS 24.0, which revealed a moderate correlation between oral language proficiency and sense of efficacy for teaching EMI among Chinese university teachers. A qualitative method was used to analyze data for common themes and provided some support that EMI teachers&rsquo; perception of their oral proficiency levels and concern about their students&rsquo; English proficiency level influence their teaching behaviors and attitudes toward the effectiveness of EMI for learning content. Additional research would further address the gap in existing literature about how to attain, maintain, and develop an appropriate level of oral English proficiency for teachers to feel they are sufficiently capable of teaching EMI effectively.</p><p>

Mastery of idioms in a second language is an important part of learners' lexical and cultural competence. This study provided insights into the processes that partake in interlanguage idiomatics. It also looked at the role of participants' first language in the comprehension and production of idioms in their second language. Participants were 31 Saudi graduate students' who were learners of English. They were tested in receptive and productive knowledge of 15 English idioms of three types of idiomatic expressions: a) English idioms which have their exact equivalents in Arabic; b) English idioms which are similarly expressed in both languages, and c) English idioms which have no counterparts in Arabic. The data were examined through statistical analysis. Results showed that identical idioms were the easiest to comprehend and produce, followed by similar idioms. Different idioms were the most difficult to comprehend and produce and showed the highest interference from the first language. In addition, a rather unexpected negative correlation was found between participants' length of stay in the US and their knowledge of English idioms. These findings offer insightful implications for the teaching and learning of second language idioms. Most importantly language teachers and researchers should be aware that the acquisition of idioms is influenced by the similarities and differences between idioms in learners' L1s and the target L2. This suggests that building learners' idiomatic knowledge in a second language should be done in a systematic and persistent way. In more general terms, the study's results confirm the trends and patterns reported in previous research about the acquisition of second language idiomatic competence and its important role for the effective comprehension and production of the target language.

The retention of engineering students has received an abundance of attention in universities and scholarly literature. The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) reported, "Only 40-60 percent of entering engineering students persist to an engineering degree, and women and minorities are at the low end of that range" (p. 40). The retention of ESL (English as a second language) students in undergraduate engineering programs has not yet been comprehensively examined. The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics, retention rates, and GPAs of ESL students in an undergraduate engineering program. Furthermore, ESL students' retention rates and GPAs were compared to native English speaking students. This study utilized retention data and grade point averages (GPAs) to examine ESL engineering student retention and success. A secondary data analysis examined retention rates and GPAs for ESL students and the comparison group of native English speaking students. Percentages were used to compare retention data from ESL and native English speaking students, and t-tests were utilized to compare their GPAs. The findings of this study revealed that ESL students were retained at a higher rate and maintained higher GPAs compared to native English speaking engineering students. It is anticipated the findings of this study will provide a foundation for future research on ESL students. Based on the findings, researchers can have a basis for comparisons of ESL students' GPAs and retention.

AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OF Jarrah Mohammad Al-Jarrah, for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Curriculum and Instruction, presented on 03/22/2017, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: ESL TEACHER, STUDENT, AND PARENT PERCEPTIONS OF USING EDUCATIONAL MOBILE APPLICATIONS TO DEVELOP THE LANGUAGE SKILLS OF ESL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. John McIntyre The purpose of this mixed-methods sequential explanatory study is to explore the perceptions of ESL teachers, students, and parents regarding the use of educational mobile applications to help ESL elementary school students develop their language skills. It also aims to explore the criteria used by teachers, students, and parents to choose suitable and effective applications for ESL instruction, as well as the barriers that teachers, students, and parents perceive might influence the successful use of such applications to improve ESL elementary school students’ language skills. Quantitative data were collected via surveys taken by a sample of 43 ESL students from 4th to 8th grade and 72 ESL parents from Unity Point Elementary School, Carbondale, Illinois. Later, qualitative data were collected through in-depth interviews from eight ESL students and eight ESL parents from Unity Point and from eight ESL teachers from different schools in Carbondale. Participants reported positive perceptions of using educational mobile applications to develop the language skills of students. However, they identified some obstacles to their effective use, including a general lack of mobile devices and effective applications, a lack of technical support, inadequate professional development, and negative attitudes. In addition, participants identified some criteria for choosing applications. These criteria were organized under four main themes: user feedback and reputation, content and focus, theoretical and pedagogical features, and technological features. This study provides some recommendations for the successful integration of technology in English learning and teaching for overcoming the obstacles that ESL teachers, students, and parents might encounter. Furthermore, identifying the criteria for choosing educational mobile applications could provide a framework for evaluating them, especially those used for learning English. These criteria could be used to help teachers choose appropriate applications to improve their teaching practices and performance and help decision makers assess applications and reflect upon their educational value. They may also be used to inform the design of these applications in a way that supports the effective integration of mobile technology in ESL learning and teaching.

Prosodic focus is phonetically realized by increasing duration, F0 and intensity on the focused constituents in a sentence. In some languages, there is a concomitant compression of F0 and intensity after the focused item, referred to as post-focus compression (PFC). Southern Min is a tone language that does not have PFC, while Beijing Mandarin is a tone language that does. Like Mandarin, American English has PFC; unlike Mandarin, American English has lexical stress rather than lexical tone. The current dissertation investigated the phonetic realization of focus in second language Mandarin by Southern Min and English learners and its realization in English by Mandarin learners. Second language experience was also manipulated in each of the investigations. The findings were that younger Southern Min speakers, who used more L2 Mandarin than the mid-age and older speakers, produced substantial PFC in Mandarin. Chinese-heritage American learners, who were exposed to Mandarin earlier than non-Chinese-heritage learners, produced some PFC in Mandarin while non-Chinese-heritage learners did not produce any. Finally, Chinese students in college with longer residencies in the United States produced more PFC in English than those with shorter residencies. American English speakers were also found to have more difficulties producing contour tones compared to the high-level tone on target focused items in L2 Mandarin while Mandarin Chinese speakers had more difficulties in producing unstressed syllables compared to stressed syllables on target focused items in L2 English. Overall, the results support the Speech Learning Model prediction that similarities in L1 and L2 sound system result in difficulty acquiring L2 sounds. This may be especially true for prosody because there are interactions between word- and sentence-level patterns. The results also confirm that age of learning is especially important for native-like acquisition of an L2; however, for early learners, the amount of L2 use and length of residence in the L2-speaking environment also clearly impact the acquisition of L2 prosody. Finally, the results suggest that production of PFC in a language that requires it provides a good index of second language speech proficiency. / 2015-10-17

The Japanese imperfective aspect marker –teiru is one of the most widely researched tense/aspect markers because of its multiple semantic functions. It has been claimed that the –teiru form can describe two main aspectual meanings, progressive and resultative, depending on the lexical aspect of the attached verb. The present study aims to empirically investigate native speakers’ interpretations of the –teiru meaning with different verb and sentence types through a judgment test. It compares them with the predicted semantic categories from the previous studies, which based their conclusion upon introspective analysis, as well as perceptions of L2 Japanese learners. The results suggest that overall perceptional patterns are consistent with predicted descriptions but also that interpretations of the meaning are flexible to some extent. As for learners’ perceptions, the results indicate that L2 learners develop progressive semantic processing in Japanese faster than resultative semantic processing in Japanese.

<p> This study investigated the efficacy of the Read 180 program and its impact on upper secondary ELL students participating in the Read 180 program. The targeted population consisted of four 11^th and 12^th grade ELL READ 180 students attending a rural school with a school population of 884 students. To assess the effects of the Read 180 program, data was collected in regards to student reading, writing, speaking, and listening abilities from the beginning and the end of the 2017&ndash;2018 academic school year. Although this study was limited in duration and scope, it clearly shows that the Read 180 program had limited success in regards to student achievement in the areas of reading and writing. In addition, the data shows little to no progress for the target students in regards to listening and speaking. In addition, the study revealed that the students&rsquo; lack of a positive attitude in regards to the Read 180 program may have hindered student progress. Based on these findings, some pedagogical and teacher training recommendations are discussed, and a suggestion is included for future research. </p><p>

Reading is an important skill for all languages and all language learning. It is a skill complex to understand, complex to teach and complex to learn. This thesis addresses the issue of reading from the reader's point of view. It provides a detailed analysis of the reading strategies used by the Yemeni learners of English at the tertiary level as they read textbooks. In doing so it draws from two domains of second/foreign language learning, viz reading and strategies. Within the framework of these two domains it focuses on readin g strategies, depending on the first part (reading) on the reader-text interaction view of reading and for the second part (strategies) on the conscious effort involved in solving a reading problem. It investigates two related aspects of the reading process: reading problems arising in the creation of meaning as far as the systemic and schematic knowledge is concerned and reading solutions as given by the reader. The concept of 'strategy' is first examined as it is found in learning and communication studies. It is then presented in reading and reading models. Studies that have addressed the issue are then reviewed. Reading strategies are investigated through a five-stage design where a different instrument is used in each stage. Subjects in each of the five stages (questionnaires, interviews, classroom observations, doze/recall tasks and verbal protocols in Li and L2) range from 60 to 100 in number, coming from two different disciplines, viz Education and Engineering. The data of the study are analysed using quantitative and qualitative techniques. The results present a picture of the strategies the readers used in reading texts in Arabic and in English in the form of some twenty-four different strategies, which are categorised as problem identifying and problem-solving ones. These strategies are then discussed with reference to the reading models presented earlier. On the basis of this, implications for theory and pedagogy are made.

While much is written about the need for literacy and particularly functional literacy, the terms are rarely clearly defined from a linguistic perspective. This dissertation develops a concept of literacy consisting of graphological literacy, functional literacy, and the literacy of thoughtfulness. These three aspects are considered with reference to the US adult educational mandates of Americanization and empowerment. Theory is related to practice through the development of educational objectives for English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction with reference to the literacy neetiq (particularly writing skills) of intermediate level ESL adult students, primarily Mexican immigr-ants to Southern California. These ESL students, who may be seen as representative of other immigrants from developing nations to technologically advanced societies, often have limited first language [Ll] and second language UL21 literacy, but develop fairly high L2 oral communicative competence. The research considers the students' Ll literacy levels and uses, which of these can be transferred to L2, and what must be taught in L2. Furthermore how students' higher L2 verbal sIdIls interrelate with and can be exploited in the attainment of L2 literacy at all three levels is discusse4i The extent to which theory has been realized in practice (and practice has been informed by theory) is analyzed with reference to an experimental adult ESL literacy course taught to young adult Mexican immigrants in Santa Barbara, California. The final evaluation reviews the basic premises and the extent to which these have been substantiated, followed by implications of the project and possible areas for future research.

abstract: This thesis examines the narratives and meta-commentary of Indonesian users of English about their English as a Second Language (ESL) experiences. It approaches interview data with ten Indonesian second language (L2) speakers of English from a narrative analysis/inquiry perspective. Each interview was transcribed according to a modified set of discourse analysis (DA) transcription conventions, then coded by the researcher. The first research question addressed what linguistic devices members of this population used to achieve cohesion and coherence in their narratives, and the second research question examined how members of this population portrayed their L2 selves in their narratives. The data yielded 21 linguistic devices that fell into three levels of frequency. Connectives, discourse markers, and repetition were by far the most common linguistic devices, followed by adverbials, embedded clauses, intensifiers, and the word like (non-comparison uses), which were somewhat frequent linguistic devices. The data also showed that participants constructed their L2 selves using three main categories: agency, identity, and perceptions of English and the U.S.. In regard to identity, participants invoked membership categorization, where they portrayed their identities in relation to other individuals. The study concludes with suggestions for future research, especially relating to Indonesian L2 users of English. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis English 2015