Recent work has shown the importance of identity in language learning and how the desire to belong to an imagined community drives individuals to invest in their learning (Norton, 2000). This work has documented that a mismatch between students' imagined community and the community envisioned by the teacher can have negative outcomes on students' learning trajectories. Other research has explored how institutional policies and their linked educational practices reflect differences in the imagined communities each institution sees their students potentially joining in the future (Kanno, 2003) and how reading materials and the discourses reflected in them can affect learners' visions of themselves(Pavlenko, 2003). However few studies have tried to document how an `imagined community' might be collectively constructed for others through a complex interaction of social and cultural structures, circulating discourses, institutional discourses, educational practices, group dynamics and personal histories that produce visions of potential identities (I) and their respective imagined communities (IC's) in which newcomers get socialized. There is a gap in current research on how `imagined communities' and `identities' for second language learners get constructed, circulated and made available to learners within institutional contexts.Through this qualitative study involving questionnaires and autobiographical research I studied the construction of imagined communities in an English language major in Mexico. I explored how professional identities and their related imagined communities are collectively constructed and made available to students in order to understand how institutions, programs administrators and faculty members could enhance the spread of successful professional identities and inspire/stimulate L2 speakers in their educational and professional trajectories.

In general, L2 learners have great difficulty mastering aspects of grammar in the second language. For example, Chinese-speaking ESL learners often fail to mark past tense in their speaking and writing (Aaronson & Ferres, 1987; Bayley, 1991; Bean & Gergen, 1990; Jia & Fuse, 2007; Krashen & Pon, 1975; Lardiere, 1998; Wei, 2000), and there are some suggestions in the literature that Chinese learners of English never master English tense (Lardiere, 1998). One question that arises is whether the failure to learn to use the past tense is due to a failure of competence or a failure of performance. If the former, then Chinese-speaking ESL learners should show such failures in all tasks including comprehension tasks.However, little research has investigated L2 comprehension of tense marking in reading. The studies (Gass, 2001; Guillelmon & Grosjean, 2001; Jiang, 2004, 2007) have showed that late L2 learners are not sensitive to certain types of grammatical marking. They have poor inflectional comprehension. It is possible that Chinese English-language learners are insensitive to grammatical violation involving tense during reading. This dissertation tests this idea.A group of English-proficient college students from Fu-Jen University in Taiwan was tested in a number of tasks. In paper-and-pencil tests, Chinese English-language learners showed knowledge of the past tense forms and the appropriate contexts for their usage. This suggests that past tense marking is learnable. Chinese English-language learners can acquire this knowledge. Does the relative mastery of past tense show up in comprehension in a similar L2 population? A reading comprehension test that measured reading time to sequential segments of a sentence indicated that unlike native speakers of English who were tested, Chinese English-language learners were insensitive to grammatical violation involving tense. This finding is consistent with the other studies, indicating that L2 learners are insensitive to grammatical marking during reading.Overall, it appears that high-functioning Chinese English-language learners can learn almost the proper way to use tense, but fail to do so during performance.

Abstract It is unclear how L2 students acquire vocabulary – how is it taught – or wheather it can even be taught. In an SSL (Swedish as second language) program for young adults the ambition has been to integrate the L2 students’ into the national high school (gymnasium) courses as quickly as possible, in order to meet the students’ demands for subject education and to challenge them on an appropriate knowledge level. Teachers noticed quite early that the course – integrated L2 students seemed to have a deeper understanding of words and an easier flow in their speech. The study was conducted to map and learn more about the differences in vocabulary with L2 students who were integrated in the national L1 programs in several subjects and L2 students who have chosen to focus, in an isolated group, on SSL only. How does the students’ vocabulary evolve in relation to time? The study is based on the vocabulary knowledge scale as the methodological tool and Stephen Krashen’s monitor model as the theoretical practice, and in particular the input hypothesis and the hypothesis of acquisition and learning in combination with Pauline Gibbons’s methodologies in scaffolding. In the study the test results of eight SSL students are compared; four of the students have chosen to integrate with the L1 classes and four of them have chosen not to integrate with the L1 students. We will show that students that participate in national “high school” courses on the same premises as the L1 students will, through exposure to vocabulary in text books, lectures and post scaffolding, learn their vocabulary at a faster and higher rate than students who focus on the structural functions and, often non-contextual, vocabulary training alone.

This thesis studies the problem of language learnability in relation to two different but related sets of structures in Spanish, both involving multifunctional clitic pronouns. The first of these is the reflexive clitic se which is used in impersonal and inchoative constructions. The second is the dative clitic le which appears in certain clitic doubling constructions. In both cases the structures exhibit subtle properties which cannot be readily inferred from the input. / In the first place, this study provides a syntactic analysis of the structures related to each of these clitics. Regarding the first of these, the reflexive se, it is suggested that it can be generated in at least two functional positions: as the head of AgrO in impersonal constructions, and as the head of Inner Aspect in the case of inchoatives. In the impersonal construction the theme argument NP moves to check case and &phis; features with se in AgrO, thus triggering agreement on the verb. In the case of the inchoative, the NP moves into the specifier of AgrS. Thus, the NP in the impersonal construction is an object with some subject-like properties, which derive from agreement with the verb. The NP in the inchoative construction is a subject. / Regarding the dative clitic le, it is generated as the head of Inner Aspect. The NP which is stranded after a preposition incorporates into the verb must move to Inner Aspect to check case and &phis; features with le. As a result, the NP is interpreted as affected. The process of incorporation in Spanish is subject to several constraints which fall out naturally from this account. / In the second place, the problem of learnability is investigated empirically in relation to second language acquisition (SLA) with two empirical studies which look at the grammar of speakers who appear to have reached an end state in their second language. The tasks used in these studies were designed to test the speakers' knowledge of the properties related to the two multifunctional clitics. The subjects included two groups of near-native Spanish speakers, that is, speakers who can pass or almost pass for native speakers, but who learned Spanish as a second language after puberty. One group was made up of English speakers, the other of French speakers. The reason for choosing near-natives is that data from learners who appear to have reached a very high level of proficiency are crucial in determining whether adult learners can in fact acquire a grammar which is indistinguishable from a native speaker grammar. It has been suggested [Bley-Vroman, 1990] that L2 learning is fundamentally different from L1 acquisition and that, as a result, the final state L2 grammar differs in important ways from native speaker grammars. This thesis argues against this position. Results show that L2 learners are able to acquire subtle properties not evident in the input. This suggests that L2 acquisition is constrained by Universal Grammar in the same way as L1 acquisition is.

A student's proficiency in a language is usually assessed by measuring his competence in understanding, speaking, reading, and writing. Foreign language training programs differ in the emphases placed on the development of each of these four basic language skills. Some of these differences are directly related to the specific needs of particular student populations while others are related to the method of instruction the teacher has adopted. [...]

Recent years have seen a growing interest in the relationship between second language (L2) writing development and the ways we can help growing populations of L2 writers successfully integrate within academic communities. Much of this interest stems from increasingly diverse local populations and the continued internationalization of higher education. This dissertation explored the implications for curriculum resulting from this growing presence of L2 writers in academic content areas. To achieve this goal, this research reports on an eight-month longitudinal ethnographic case study of five international Japanese undergraduate students at a large Canadian university. Focusing on the central role of writing in university courses as the dominant mode of knowledge construction and dissemination, as well as student assessment, the study documents focal students’ and focal instructors’ perspectives of the various factors affecting their writing in ‘regular’ content courses, with particular attention paid to the impact of feedback practices and their role in both the short-term and long-term development of students’ skills and their investments in different types of writing. Drawing on a language socialization framework, data analysis focused on expectations and practices with respect to feedback, and explored the impact of these practices on conveying both explicit and implicit norms linked to students’ access to, and successful participation in, their chosen content areas. Drawing on both students’ and instructors’ perspectives of this literacy event and discourse analysis of relevant documents, findings offer unique insights into the role of feedback practices not only for students’ writing development but also in indexing complex negotiations of positions, identities, and institutional forces. The dissertation concludes by highlighting the need to play closer attention to the multidimensional functions of feedback practices in order to understand their power to shape the socialization trajectories of L2 writers and universities’ responses to multilingual students who no longer fit traditional profiles.

This thesis will generate new insight into the study of classroom language anxiety and its method of analysis in current SLA discourse. Drawing heavily from Horcoff, Horcoff and Cope’s seminal paper “Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety” (1986), the conceptualization of analysis proposed and its accompanying instrument of analysis, the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), will be reevaluated. The conceptualization of anxiety presented by Horwitz et al. defines foreign language (FL) anxiety as being unique to the FL learning classroom and being distinct in its emphasis on the self-perceptions and beliefs associated with this setting. Furthermore, the learners who experience anxiety are argued to be identifiable through their degree of anxiety and share similar characteristics. This conceptualization has been well received in SLA and has been widely employed in much of the FL learning research in the past two decades. Due to identity theory advancements in SLA however, this conceptualization of FL anxiety deserves to be reexamined. Employing poststructuralist identity theories (see Norton, 2000; Blackledge & Pavlenko, 2001; Block, 2007), FL learning anxiety will be reconceptualized to consider the dynamic nature of the learner’s unique identity and views of other languages. A paradigm will be proposed, linking FL anxiety, identity and language belief together in a mutually constitutive relationship. A qualitative meta-analysis (Schmenk, 2002) will be conducted, examining current FL anxiety research in an effort to determine the assumptions, both implicit and explicit, made concerning notions of FL learning anxiety and identity. Implications of the proposed paradigm for the learner and instructor will finally be presented in an effort to introduce a discussion of the benefits of reconceptualizing FL learning.

The principal aim of this study was to investigate what grammar is taught by Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) in both Swedish compulsory school (years 6-9) and upper secondary school (gymnasiet), how it is taught and why. Further questions investigated what research TESOL base their teaching on, what their attitudes are in relation to the relevant curriculum, and what research into grammar teaching (e.g. approaches and methods) has revealed. The study also examined the Swedish National Agency of Education’s views on grammar teaching. Six interviews were conducted with five teachers of English to speakers of other languages working in Swedish schools, and one Czech teacher of English to speakers of other languages working at an international school. The findings were evaluated against research into grammar teaching. Although the Swedish National Agency of Education recommends that school years 6-9 should include an explicit focus on grammar, it does not specify exactly what should be taught. At upper secondary level, teaching grammar is not mentioned at all in the main syllabus. As the only reference to it is buried in the accompanying detailed explanatory notes, teachers tend to interpret the English syllabus differently. Consequently, the syllabus does not encourage equal educational opportunities. Despite the Agency’s vague recommendations, five out of the six teachers in this study do teach grammar and believe it to be a key to language learning. However, the methods used by the five Swedish teachers in this study do not appear to be research informed, and three of them rely heavily on the textbook producers’ choice of grammatical items to focus on. On the other hand, the teacher in the international school clearly uses methods that are research informed. One of the problems appears to be that the teachers in Sweden do not have easy access to current research findings that are comprehensive and non-conflicting, neither during their time at university nor in their working life.

<p> As a result of the expanding interest in the cognitive and social dimensions of language use beyond single sentences, a great number of research studies have been conducted in order to examine nonnative speakers&rsquo; ability to use language appropriately in a social context. Recently, with a growing understanding of the key role pragmatic competence plays in second language development, researchers have also investigated the benefits of direct instruction in helping language learners become aware of the pragmatic conditions governing the uses of grammatical structures. This thesis reports on the design and administration of a study that investigated language learners&rsquo; knowledge of pragmatics and how instruction can help them develop this knowledge in an environment where English is taught as a second language. Specifically, this project had two aims: (1) to observe the relationship between language proficiency and pragmatic competence of learners of English as a Second Language (ESL), and (2) to examine whether instruction was effective in improving those learners&rsquo; pragmatic knowledge. Pragmatic competence was measured quantitatively, through discourse judgment tasks, multiple-choice discourse completion tasks (MDCTs) and written discourse completion tasks (WDCTs) in a pre-, post-, and delayed post-test, designed specifically for this study. The participants in this research, thirty-nine adult ESL learners with a range of proficiency studying in the Intensive English Program (IEP) and in a university-level English course at West Virginia University, first took a language proficiency test and a pre-test on pragmatic knowledge. The participants were then assigned into two groups, experimental and comparison. The experimental group received four hours of direct instruction in five types of speech acts (requests, refusals, apologies, compliments, suggestions) and other aspects of pragmatic knowledge over a period of two weeks, while the comparison group was taught lessons on other topics without intervention during the same amount of time. An immediate post-test on pragmatic knowledge and a delayed post-test were given to both groups. The results showed that language proficiency and pragmatic knowledge were positively correlated with a moderate strength (<i>r</i> = .71, <i>p</i> &lt; .001). Analysis of covariance and further analysis showed that the experimental group significantly outperformed the comparison group in both the post-test and delayed post-test. The experimental group benefited from the instruction, which used a blended methodological approach, and the instructional effect was retained after a one-week delay. The results of this research helped understand the communicative skills and intercultural competence of ESL learners and demonstrated that instruction in the area of pragmatics is not only important but it can be beneficial at all levels of language proficiency. It is hoped that the topics reported and discussed here and the findings may help both English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and ESL teachers gain a better understanding of second language learners&rsquo; pragmatic competence and development through instruction, so that when they incorporate pragmatics instruction into their teaching, they will be in a better position to adapt their practices to facilitate pragmatic development.</p>

<p> This qualitative study aims to attain a practical understanding of L2 English speakers' perceptions and understanding of their own English accents and to explore the relationship between their perceptions of accents and their perceived social identities. </p><p> Data were collected through interviews with 14 participants. The individual analysis on each participant was reported as a form of narrative. The group analysis across all the participants' narratives demonstrated the complexity of their perceptions and understanding of accents, and the complex and context-dependent nature of the relationship between accents and perceived social identities. Five themes that respond to the research questions emerged from the results and findings. From the discussion of the themes, a heuristic model of identity construction was developed. The model is grounded in three cases of the participants as an explanatory tool for identity construction. </p><p> The study provides pedagogical implications for language teachers, and provides some suggestions for future research.</p>