<p> This study investigated whether use of the Achieve 3000 differentiated reading internet program correlated with increased incidence of ELL students achieving proficiency and/or with improvement in reading and literacy scores. It also examined attitudes among district ELL teachers. Results supported DI and CALL methods as instructional approaches. Achieve 3000 was most strongly related to improved literacy among students who completed 80 activities or more. Number of activities scoring at least 75% was the strongest predictor of improvement. Lexile score was related, but Lexile growth was not. When not used according to company recommendations, correlations were much weaker. Only 4.2% of district ELL students followed those recommendations. Relationships did not hold true for the lowest, beginning English proficiency students. </p><p>

<p> This study emphasized the instructional input and student uptake of high school students&rsquo; EFL writing process in Taiwan. A multiple-draft writing approach was utilized to meet students&rsquo; need for writing preparation for college admission tests, the General Scholastic Ability Test (GSAT) and the Department Required Test (DRT). Thirty-six 10^th grade students, whose English proficiency ranged from low to intermediate, participated in this study along with their EFL teacher. Students&rsquo; essays were assessed by two high school teachers using five criteria: <i>content, organization, grammar/syntax, vocabulary/spelling, and format awareness,</i> as released by the College Entrance Exam Center in Taiwan. Students wrote two themed essays during the implementation of the multiple-draft approach and two timed essays; one before the implementation of the writing approach (pre-test), and the other after completion of the thirteen writing sessions (posttest). Paired-sample t-tests measured the difference between the pre- and post-test. Results indicated a significant difference in one category, <i>format awareness.</i> A grounded theory approach was used to analyze interview transcript data, the field notes and peer review responses. The results indicate that students felt that the time factor had little to do with their timed writing performance; instead, confusion regarding basic English grammar, insufficient experience with English essay writing, the uncertainty of how to apply vocabulary and doubts regarding meaning of vocabulary were obstacles preventing uptake in their writing process. Students highly valued the input via personalized feedback from the teacher participant and the researcher. Though teacher-student meetings served the purpose of content development and grammar correction, students preferred one-on-one meetings with the teacher. Students benefitted from peer-to-peer discussions and heightened awareness during process writing but doubted the validity of peer review feedback they had received. The teacher participant reported struggling to step out of his teacher-centered approach while attempting to utilize the suggested student-centered instructional approach. Pressured to keep up with the school&rsquo;s strict curriculum and with limited instructional time, he resisted offering basic grammar review based on students&rsquo; observed needs for English basics. These factors mitigated greatly the promised potential of input and uptake in utilizing a process writing approach with EFL high school students.</p><p>

M.A. (Applied Linguistics) / This study seeks to understand the acquisition of English prepositions by second language (L2) speakers of English. Prepositions are notoriously difficult linguistic items to acquire, and the reasons for this are manifold. This study looks into the relationship between the linguistic similarities between prepositions in the first language (L1) and the English prepositions in, on, to and into. The study focuses on two particular groups of L1 speakers: (i) Northern Sotho speakers and (ii) Afrikaans speakers. A group of monolingual English speakers acts as a control group according to which comparisons between L2 and L1 speakers are made. These three groups have been selected based on the manifestations of the selected English prepositions in each language. In Afrikaans, the four prepositions have similar linguistic features to their English counterparts, whereas in Northern Sotho, prepositions have a vastly different linguistic manifestation to English ones. This study therefore seeks to establish whether linguistic similarity in the L1 helps or hinders the acquisition of English prepositions in English as an L2. In order to achieve this aim, 120 participants between the ages of 5;3 (year;month) and 8;11 were selected from 23 primary schools in Gauteng that use English as a language of learning and teaching (LoLT). These participants were then tested in two stages. First, an oral English proficiency test (the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation) was performed. Second, the participants completed an elicited production procedure designed for the purposes of this research to test their understanding and ability to use the English prepositions under investigation. The process of development of this elicited production procedure involved a pilot study to which the Rasch measurement model was applied. The procedure was then adapted and improved. The Rasch measurement model was also applied to the English proficiency test in order to highlight areas or items within the test that may contain cultural bias in a South African context. The Rasch analysis identified various items within the test that were not appropriate within the South African context and these items were removed from the scoring procedure so as not to influence the results in a culturally-biased way. The results of the English proficiency test were then used to group the participants according to English ability (below average, average and above average). These ability groups form the basis upon which comparisons regarding the results of the preposition test are then made. The comparisons revealed some variance, but no significant differences between the Afrikaans and Northern Sotho speakers. There were, however, significant differences between the Afrikaans and Northern Sotho speakers in terms of their performance on the English proficiency test. The Northern Sotho speakers had more speakers in the below average group of English ability than the Afrikaans group, and fewer in the above average group. Another notable finding is the variation in difficulty when considering the type of preposition being acquired. Prepositions of motion (to and into) were more difficult to understand and produce for participants from both the Afrikaans and Northern Sotho groups. Although there was no significant difference between the groups, the Afrikaans speakers performed slightly better on the preposition test than the Northern Sotho group. Additionally, the errors made by the Afrikaans speakers were less varied than those made by the Northern Sotho speakers. The findings support the hypothesis that linguistic similarity between the L1 and L2 aids in learning English prepositions.

No description available.

Masters of Art / Since economic reform started in China in 1978, the educational objectives for English language teaching have undergone many changes. In secondary school, reading and writing abilities have become increasingly important, not only in assisting students to study and work in English language contexts, but also in setting up the foundation for further English learning at university level. Thus, new materials have been devised and new teaching methods have been used. However, in practice, the English reading skills of many learners do not seem to have improved and learners have difficulty in achieving the syllabus goals set for reading. This study investigated the factors which influence the development of reading skills by learners in one Grade 10 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) class in Taiyuan, a city in China. / South Africa

<p> This qualitative single-case study examined the experiences of a post-secondary first-year English composition instructor teaching long-term English learners at an urban, public university in the northeast United States by exploring the instructor&rsquo;s literacy ideologies and the effects of those ideologies on the instructional practices of the instructor within the English learners&rsquo; classroom. The study used in-depth phenomenological interviews, classroom observations, a student diversity survey, and artifacts to achieve its purpose. The results of this study support three thematic findings: (a) Although the instructor was unsure as to what qualifies students to be classified as English learners, she teaches them in the same way she does native English-speaking students; (b) The instructor felt that her job was to help students learn &ldquo;the game&rdquo; of how to write academic text; and (c) The instructor used a variety of instructional practices but lacked professional training and resources.</p><p>

Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.

In this study, I establish that language textbooks are sites of discursive struggle through which nationalist imagined communities are reproduced. I use critical discourse analysis to analyze how these textbooks construct Canadian identities that position students in relation to an imagined community of Canada. I analyze twenty-four textbooks and three Citizenship and Immigration Canada publications used in government-funded language instruction in Ontario. Representations of Canada and Canadianness in the texts examined include and exclude student readers, participate in banal nationalism, and legitimate particular understandings of Canada. The identified textbooks mark nationality through flags, maps, references to nation, and the use of nation as a frame of reference. The textbooks also make claims about how 'Canadians' think and behave. This banal nationalism naturalizes and essentializes imaginings of 'Canada' and 'Canadianness' supporting particular and interested constructions and positive evaluations of 'Canadian' identity. Both government produced publications and identified textbooks legitimate constructions of Canadian identity through repeated positive representations of Canadianness; the marginalising inclusions of 'others'; the subordination of gendered, racialised, and classed social positions to nation; and by maintaining a low level of dialogicality overall.

This dissertation investigates the acquisition of the semantics of telicity by Japanese learners of English with emphasis on a particular grammatical phenomenon, the neutral perfective reading of simple past predicates (Singh, 1991), which is available in Japanese but not in English. Three main points are of interest in this dissertation: First, we examine whether or not Japanese learners of English learn to derive the telicity of a simple past predicate despite lack of explicit classroom instruction. Second, we investigate potential factors that may assist L2 learners in discovering a target-like representation of the predicate telicity in English. Finally, we aim at revealing the L2 learners' developmental profile for the acquisition of the semantics of telicity. Two experimental tasks, a morphological task and a truth-value judgment task, were conducted which included three proficiency levels of L2 learners (beginner, intermediate and advanced), as well as native speakers of English and Japanese. Empirical data from the experimental tasks indicated that Japanese learners of English succeeded in progressing towards target-like representation of telicity. While the beginners directly transferred the L1 Japanese representation of the semantics of predicate telicity onto their target language, the intermediate and advanced levels dissociated the telicity of the English simple past predicates from that of the Japanese past predicates. That is, they learned to invalidate the neutral perfective reading of English predicates. We postulate that L2 learners' progress in the acquisition of the semantics of English predicate telicity can be accounted for by the acquisition of Det/Num morphology and by a Bayesian learning model: This learning model helps learners use L2 input to make form-meaning inferences on the predicate telicity and aids them to gradually acquire the most appropriate representation of English predicate telicity.