<p> This quantitative, quasi-experimental, <i>ex post facto</i> analysis examined the relationship between the English proficiency level (ELP) attained by English Learners in the state of Georgia in 2016 and 2017 and their performance on standardized core content assessments administered entirely in English. From the theoretical perspective of validity theory, the researcher investigated the alternative hypothesis that the results of standardized content assessments administered in English to English Learner students yield little meaningful data that can be interpreted and used with validity in and of themselves. To investigate this interpretation, the researcher analyzed 176,941 individual 2016 and 2017 Georgia Milestones Assessment System (GMAS) assessment records (N = 102,312 for 2016; 74,649 for 2017) matched to the corresponding ACCESS for ELLs scores (N = 34,420 for 2016; 35,805 for 2017), employing linear regression to quantify the degree to which ELP influenced English Learner students&rsquo; performance on standardized assessments in English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies and to define the threshold proficiency level at which the preponderance of English Learners were able to score at the Developing and Proficient levels on the content assessments. </p><p>

<p> This quantitative study investigated the effects of one school district&rsquo;s use of the Systematic Instruction in Phonological Awareness, Phonics, and Sight Words (SIPPS) program and professional development (PD) and coaching on ELL and non-ELL students&rsquo; literacy skills. The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) data of two cohorts of students from 12 elementary schools in a large Southern California district were examined. The teachers of one cohort taught the SIPPS program and received PD and coaching for two school years, while the second cohort served as a waitlist control group and only participated in one year of SIPPS instruction, PD, and coaching. Results indicated that students who received two years of SIPPS instruction had higher reading fluency scores than students who received one year of SIPPS instruction. Despite convergent research on the contrary, no significant findings were found for the effects of PD and coaching on student achievement. </p><p>

Master of Arts / Department of Modern Languages / Melinda Cro / Many recent video games feature complex narratives that contain increasing amounts of written and spoken language. There has thus been growing need for them to be localized into other languages; that is, translated and adapted for markets where languages other than the video game’s language of development are spoken. While the localization process shares many similarities with other projects of translation, because the primary goal of a video game is to be entertaining, video game localization teams are allowed certain creative liberties in translating video games in order to maximize entertainment for players in target markets. Non-literal translation techniques, including transposition, modulation, equivalence, and adaptation, are used to avoid mistranslating in-game language. However, Mangiron and O’Hagan identify in their 2006 analysis of the English localization of Final Fantasy X certain “transcreation” techniques that are used by localization teams in order to make video games more entertaining for players in other markets. These transcreation techniques include the addition of linguistic variation, the re-naming of in-game terminology, the re-creation of wordplay, “contextualization by addition”, and the deliberate use of regional expressions. These transcreation techniques not only serve to make the localized version of a video game more entertaining for a target market, but also make the gameplay experience more original for players in these markets. This study will analyze non-literal translation techniques and “transcreation” techniques in the French localization of BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea Episode 2 to determine how these translation techniques may be used to maximize entertainment and to create a more original gameplay experience for francophone players, followed by a discussion of how video game localizations may be implemented in second language acquisition contexts for the purposes of exploring certain L2 linguistic and cultural phenomena.

<p> The language and communication skills of foreign students have long been a concern in U.S. universities. The majority of U.S. universities require foreign students for whom English is not their native language to take English language proficiency tests such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) as part of admission requirements. Some universities have included interventions to increase the success of Chinese students against their struggle to understand English course content. One such program is the Gateway to Successful Tomorrow Bilingual Degree Program (GST). The gap to be addressed on this study was that the effectiveness of GST has not been formally evaluated among foreign students particularly overseas Chinese students studying at U.S. universities. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the GST among overseas Chinese students studying at U.S. universities as measured through students&rsquo; grade point averages (GPA) and TOEFL scores. The theoretical framework that guided this study was the Vygotsky&rsquo;s sociocultural theory. The quantitative study used a causal comparative design to gather quantitative data from student achievement records and TOEFL scores. Pearson&rsquo;s correlation analysis and analysis of variance were conducted to predict if underlying relationships exist among variables. Key findings of the analyses showed that GST students had a significantly higher GPA than non-GST student. However, results also indicated that there was no evidence that the GST program significantly improved TOEFL scores. The GST program had an overall positive impact on the international Chinese students&rsquo; academic performance and with continued research international students stand to gain even more from this program. </p><p>

abstract: The present study investigates the role lexical access plays in the oral fluency of intermediate second language (L2) learners. In order to do this, I utilized a picture-naming task (PNT) in the target language to assess lexical access and generated spontaneous L2 speech through two narration tasks to assess oral fluency. The response times from the PNT were correlated with the two fluency measures analyzed from the narration tasks, the frequency of filled pauses and the overall rate of speech. The results revealed that intermediate learners with faster PNT response times used fewer filled pauses in spontaneous L2 speech but did not reveal a significant relationship between intermediate learners' PNT response times and their rate of speech. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Spanish 2017

abstract: This mixed methods classroom research examined if accountability groups in the lower proficiency levels of a university intensive English program would improve students’ language acquisition. Students were assigned partners for the study period with whom they completed assignments inside and outside of class, as well as set goals for use of language in their own context. Based in the ecological perspective and socio- cultural theory, activities reinforced social bonds, scaffolded the learning objectives in a communicative way, modeled the transfer of knowledge to the world outside the classroom, and allowed students to create new affordances in which to practice and use the language. Analysis of qualitative data from interviews, text messages, exit slips, and field notes, as well as quantitative data from student academic records, pre and post tests of curricular objectives, and pre and post attitudinal surveys, showed that students were developing a stronger sense of autonomy in their language learning. They viewed their peers and themselves as knowledgeable others, helping one another to learn vocabulary and structures in each student’s zone of proximal development. Learner engagement in the treatment groups, as measured by classroom attendance, increased over a control group, as did overall grade averages in all courses. Students with no previous time in the program showed more improvement than those who had been in the program for at least one session prior. Students also showed increased fluency, as measured by the word count on a constructive task in the pre- and post-test of curricular objectives. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2017

abstract: ABSTRACT This research is a study of the relationship between language acquisition and the status of equity. The history of the Maya people in Guatemala gives strong evidence that their failure to acquire competence in Spanish, which is the national language of their nation, has resulted in their failure to compete in the social, economic, and political components of their society. It also shows that they have failed to maintain their competence in Mayan, their own language, as a result of mistreatment from their conquerors who have shown a determination to eliminate their use of Mayan. Many Maya have left Guatemala and entered the United States in hope of finding the status of equity which has evaded them for hundreds of years. The key to overcoming their poverty and loss of civil rights can be found in the US through compensatory programs offering them the opportunity of competency in English along with the opportunity to maintain their Mayan language. The US legal system guarantees equal rights for a quality educations for students who are learning English. This study offers some suggestions for integrating the Guatemalan Maya into mainstream activities of the economy and social life of this country. It offers the idea of sustaining and increasing their competency in Mayan as a long-range possibility. The status of equity is available for the children of the Guatemalan refugees who enter the United States as they exercise their rights to a quality education. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Linguistics and Applied Linguistics 2017

Adaptation to Canadian graduate studies from a Chinese background is both culturally and linguistically challenging. This study reported how the traditional and contemporary methods of instruction used in teaching English as a second language in some Chinese universities prepared students adequately to study at a Canadian university in order to see what initial difficulties and coping strategies that students had. Twenty-four Chinese graduate students and six Canadian professors in the five engineering departments at the University of Calgary were randomly and proportionately selected for the study. In the first stage twenty students who had been in Canada for some time were interviewed using an interview guide about (1) their language preparation in China; (2) their initial language difficulties in their study; and (3) their compensatory strategies used to overcome the difficulties in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Six Canadian professors were then interviewed about Chinese students' actual English abilities in the four aspects of the language arts. Both sets of the interview data were subject to content analysis to perceive the emerging themes in the students' and professors' opinions. In the second stage, case studies of four newly-arrived Chinese students in engineering were done over a four month period to record monthly their adaptation process to academic language tasks in listening, speaking, reading, and writing through interviews and classroom observations. Meanwhile, students kept a weekly journal based on the findings of the first stage of the data analysis. The results indicated that prior preparation in reading skills was good, listening was mediocre, and speaking and writing were poor due to the massively used traditional methods of instruction which focused on grammar, exercises on sentence patterns, and reading in general English. Students had difficulty in understanding conversations among native speakers and professors with a strong accent, in making contribution to classroom discussion and in-depth conversations, and in expressing succinctly and linearly their research ideas and opinions in writing. They coped very well by excessive reading, strenuous preparation procedures, help from experts in English in their disciplines, and conscientious effort to improve their listening, speaking, and writing. The findings support the position that teaching English in the content area and study skills using simulations better prepare students for their communicative functional competency in their real educational life in Canada. / Graduate

The Mandarin potential complement construction is a language specific structure. This is different from most of the languages in the world including English where modal notions are expressed by modal verbs and auxiliaries. It is a syntactic construction used to convey potential possibility in Mandarin and Cantonese. The various behaviors of the modal expressions in these three languag，i.e., English, Cantonese and Mandarin, raise interesting questions in second language acquisition research. The present study aims to explore how Cantonese speaking learners and English speaking learners process the Mandarin potential complement construction. Acceptability judgment test and corpus study were conducted to examine typical learning difficulties and essential acqu isition patterns in the course of acquiring the Mandarin potential complement construction. Given that the Mandarin potential complement construction is less marked than the Cantonese counterpart but more marked than English modal expressions, I hypothesized that Cantonese speaking learners wou ld have more native-like performance than English speaking learners. Surprisingly, this hypothesis was not completely confirmed in the present study. I will spell out the subjects, performance from the perspectives of language transfer theory, markedness theory and subset principle theory.

<p> My study asks the questions: What criteria do teachers take into consideration when they determine the placement of bilingual students with learning disabilities and do they feel competent to make that decision. Current research provides information the important need to focus on bilingual students with learning disabilities. It also provides information about teacher readiness to teach this subgroup and what is being done to help meet their needs. The researcher conducted interviews of two middle school boys and their bilingual and learning resource teachers. Participant teachers and students were observed in a three-month window and interviewed. Due to their difference in English proficiency their classroom placement varied through this year and which may affect their classroom placement in the future. My study answers my questions because we hear firsthand from seasoned teachers in the field and share how they feel about teaching bilingual students with learning disabilities. The question concerning their best classroom placement is also answered by examining and analyzing students' collected data of their academic histories. After various classroom observations, teacher and student interviews and collection of data, the study found that the two boys had similar learning disabilities yet their academic achievements were different. Both learning resource teachers explain that there is a language barrier between them and their bilingual students with learning disabilities. Whereas, the bilingual teacher finds it difficult to detect a learning disability in her students because she is unsure if the student's difficulty in reading stems from a lack of English proficiency or a masked learning disability. The most practical way to find the correct placement for a bilingual student with a learning disability is when a team of educational professionals meet and discuss the particular student's strengths and weaknesses using their field of expertise. Final thoughts are shared of what further research needs to be done and why it is important. </p><p>