The present research examines the importance of time factors as predictors of success in language learning. Time factors are periods of time which students spend on language learning. The research addresses four main questions: (1) what is the nature of the relationship between language learning and time; (2) what is the relative importance of time factors to language learning; (3) to what extent can time factors predict success in language learning; and (4) what do students spend most time on? A group of 118 students of French and EFL at the Universities of Sussex and Brighton completed a questionnaire during the period March to May 1995. This questionnaire collected data on the periods of time students spent on language learning and on student proficiency levels, using self-report instruments. This data was triangulated with similar data collected from 23 interviewees, and 6 case-study students. The results of a correlational analysis indicated that total hours of study and active residence was the best predictor of student proficiency, and that there seemed to be a logarithmic relationship between this predictor and proficiency. The best multiple regression model accounted for 67% of variance in proficiency levels. Students of French spent most time on classwork and homework, whereas the EFL students spent most time chatting to non-native speakers and listening to the radio.

<p> English learners are expected to acquire academic language and content simultaneously. Long Term English Learners (LTELs), a growing English Learner subgroup, struggle academically and do not have the necessary academic vocabulary proficiency to achieve academic success in our current educational system. </p><p> This mixed-methods study examined the implementation of Academic Vocabulary Instructional protocols in the upper grades in a small urban elementary school district. Semistructured interviews, focus group, observation protocol, and data analysis methods were used as primary methods for data collection. Overall, four key themes emerged in this study. First, all 4th- and 5th-grade teachers implemented the new Academic Vocabulary Toolkit and protocol to address the academic language needs of English learner students. Second, teachers consistently used the academic vocabulary and grammatical frames. Third, teachers regularly modeled the use of an academic register. Finally, there was an increase in the use of grammatical sentence frames and academic vocabulary by students across the content areas. Language Acquisition and Sociocultural Theory in Language conceptual frameworks were used.</p>

<p> This study focused on how lesson planning takes place at the college level in contrast to how the process takes place in grades K through 12. The study was conducted through a survey and interviews to English professors at the College of General Studies at the University of Puerto Rico in R&iacute;o Piedras. In order to conduct the research, factors such as academic background, teaching experience, context, age, teaching practices, motivation, and syllabus design were considered.</p><p> Data collected showed that planning does take place at the college level, first in the form of a semester-long syllabus and then in daily/weekly lesson plans that include varying degrees of detail. Lesson planning helps improve teacher performance by providing confidence. It improves student learning outcomes by helping them better understand the materials. Both, teachers and students, benefit from the focus and guidance planning provides.</p><p> Recommendations include creating teacher training programs in institutions of higher educations to provide the support teachers need to perform at their best and conducting further research in other departments, colleges, or campuses to see how planning takes places outside English courses.</p>

<p> Increasing numbers of English-language learners with limited or interrupted formal education are entering schools across the United States. This new trend is affecting school districts with new challenges as high school teachers of English speakers of other languages are not prepared to address the beginning literacy needs of students with limited or interrupted formal education. In addition, students with limited or interrupted formal education are encountering challenges in high school as they are simultaneously learning a new language and academic content in a new culture in addition to learning how to read and write for the first time in their lives. Moreover, additional challenges that arise with this group of students involve addressing their socioemotional and acculturation needs. </p><p> This qualitative study examined how high school teachers of English speakers of other languages in a small urban mid-Atlantic school district integrated social and academic English-development skills for students with limited or interrupted formal education. To accomplish this, the researcher collected data by conducting eight individual teacher interviews and six classroom observations. The researcher also gathered student background information, which included assessment scores that aided during the analysis of classroom observations. </p><p> Five general themes emerged from data analysis: (a) meeting the socioemotional needs of students with limited or interrupted formal education by building relationships, (b) differentiating instruction to meet the academic needs of students with limited or interrupted formal education, (c) meeting the beginning literacy needs of students with limited or interrupted formal education who have limited knowledge of literacy instruction, (d) lack of integration into the school culture and students creating their own community, and (e) the power of students&rsquo; native languages. The findings of this study will assist school districts across the United States to focus on the areas of needs to provide high-quality educational opportunities to students with limited or interrupted formal education. The gathered information will also contribute to enhance teaching practices that benefit the socioemotional, academic, and acculturation needs of this unique student population.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this quantitative descriptive dissertation study was to examine teacher perceptions of instructional issues and delivery and working environments of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) programs. Data were collected from ESP teachers at 12 universities in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam through an online survey. This study was significant since the results might benefit the design, development, and evaluation of ESP curriculums to reduce significant problems and enhance ESP teaching quality. Also, the exploration of teacher perceptions can help school administrators work around the limitations of their contextual conditions and impose a higher level of impact on transformation and development of ESP programs.</p><p> The collected data were analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The questionnaire included 32 items that were rated on a four-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). Descriptive statistics including means and standard deviations were used to answer Research Question 1. Independent samples t-tests and ANOVAs were used for research question 2 to determine how the groups were different from one another. The results pointed out aspects of ESP programs that were perceived similarly and differently by groups of respondents based on the gender, age, educational backgrounds, and ESP teaching experience.</p>

<p> Research on age and second language acquisition (L2A) is vast, but inconclusive. Such research has mainly been motivated by the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH), which postulates that language acquisition becomes extremely difficult after the onset of puberty. Also, there is a lack of research on age and third/additional language (L3/Ln) learning. To fill this gap, this dissertation examines differences in morphosyntactic knowledge between early and late learners of English as a L3/Ln. In this study, `early' and `late' learners are those participants first exposed to English as a medium of instruction (MOI) in 1st and 11th grades, respectively. Participants' morphosyntactic knowledge was assessed based on two tasks: (a) a Grammaticality Judgment Task (GJT) and (b) an editing task, which required participants to correct morphosyntactic errors. Three hundred and thirty five undergraduate and graduate students from two universities in Pakistan voluntarily participated in the research. </p><p> Results of the group comparisons showed no statistically significant differences between early and late learners on the GJT; however, on the editing task, a modest but significant difference was observed between the two groups, with late learners scoring higher. This finding contradicts the predictions of the CPH. </p><p> On individual morphosyntactic features in the GJT, a significant difference was observed between the two groups on past tense and third person singular. The effect sizes supported an edge for late learners. In contrast to the GJT, on the editing task all morphosyntactic features (a total of eight features) except adverb suffix, present progressive, and past tense showed a small but significant difference, again favoring late learners. In terms of task difficulty, both groups attained higher scores on the GJT and lower scores on the editing task. Also, a strong and statistically significant correlation was found between scores for grammatical and ungrammatical stimuli on the GJT, but a very weak and statistically non-significant correlation between the grammatical and ungrammatical halves of the GJT and the editing task. </p><p> Results showed that early L3/Ln learners did not have an edge over late L3/Ln learners in their morphosyntactic proficiency in this English as an additional language context. This dissertation explored L3/Ln learning by predominantly Urdu and Punjabi bilingual speakers, a previously unexplored population. The two measures used provided complementary perspectives on grammatical knowledge. Future research should also examine early and late proficiency differences using a more ecologically valid measure (e.g., a writing task). </p>

<p>This study investigated the longitudinal impact of an extensive reading approach on Korean EFL university students? reading comprehension, reading rate, vocabulary acquisition, and motivation to read over a 15-week semester. The study also examined the relationship between two types of vocabulary tests (i.e., a generalized vocabulary knowledge test and individualized vocabulary knowledge tests) designed for the study. Additionally, students? perceptions of extensive reading throughout the semester were explored. A quasi-experimental research design was employed using four intact classes, two comparison (n = 88) and two experimental (n = 83) classes. The comparison classes received 100-minute intensive reading instruction per week whereas the experimental classes received 70-minute equivalent intensive reading instruction and 30-minute extensive reading instruction per week. A reading comprehension and rate test and a generalized vocabulary test were administered at pre- and post-tests. Sixty-two students in the experimental classes who read consistently throughout the semester also took individualized vocabulary tests to assess learning of the words that appeared in the reading materials read by individual students. Additionally, an extensive reading motivation questionnaire (post-test only) was administered to the experimental classes to determine which factors in the questionnaire would predict students' reading amount. Finally, a semi-structured interview protocol was employed at three different time intervals during the semester. Repeated-measures MANOVA revealed that the experimental classes significantly outperformed the intensive reading classes on the combination of the three dependent variables (i.e., reading comprehension, reading rate, and vocabulary acquisition). Results of the investigation of the relationship between the two types of vocabulary tests revealed that the two tests showed similar patterns in terms of measuring vocabulary knowledge as a result of extensive reading. Finally, in terms of the participants? motivation to read, a multiple regression analysis indicated that one predictor variable (i.e., Reading for Academic Achievement) was able to predict the participants? motivation to read. In addition, qualitative results from interviews with 19 students showed that the participants had positive extensive reading experience over a 15-week semester; their perceptions of extensive reading and extensive reading practices support the findings from the quantitative data. Implications for extensive reading in L2 curricula are discussed.

<p> Studies of thinking-for-speaking (Slobin, 1987) and of linguistic relativity (Gumperz &amp; Levinson, 1996) in multilinguals have been attracting more attention (Ortega, 2015). I propose the incorporation of sociocultural theory and linguistic relativity as a novel research approach in second language acquisition (SLA). Japanese learners of English go through a process in which word meaning develops from a single to binary semantic categorization as they learn to express vertical spatial operations in their second language (L2). Japanese has a nonobligatory distinction between contact and noncontact relationships when expressing vertical space (single semantic categorization), whereas English has an obligatory contrast (binary semantic categorization) (Munnich et al., 2001). The expression of vertical spatial relationships in Japanese and English is further influenced by language typology. Japanese, an SOV language, uses postpositions while English, an SVO language, uses prepositions. </p><p> Vygotsky (1987) argues that verbal thinking (the internalization of speech) is tied with word meaning, and thus, as Japanese EFL high school students learn to express the obligatory contact-noncontact feature of vertical spatial configurations in English, moving from a single to a binary semantic categorization, verbal thinking will also develop. Vygotsky (1987) further claims that verbal thinking has sociocultural origins. In this dissertation, I investigate whether gesture can be instrumental in overcoming the constraints imposed by linguistic relativity. Vygotsky (1998) states, &ldquo;Speech becomes the means for thinking mainly because it reflects an objectively occurring intellectual operation. This is a moment of major importance in the development of speech and thinking, which discloses the secret of the development of verbal thinking as a whole&rdquo; (p. 114). I predict that a distinct worldview and the &ldquo;development of cognitive processes&rdquo; (Matyushkin, 1997b, p. 272) arise together when Japanese EFL students learn vertical spatial structure with the Gesture Listening Higher Concept Approach, which leads to &ldquo;a qualitatively new mental formation that develops according to completely special laws and is subject to completely different patterns&rdquo; (Vygotsky 1998, p. 34). </p><p> The purpose of this study: (1) To pursue the new research path regarding incorporating linguistic relativity into SLA in sociocultural theory; (2) to explore whether the concurrent use of iconic co-speech co-thought gesture (ICSCTG) and listening practice can help Japanese high school students learn to express vertical spatial relationships in English more than they would learn from either treatment alone; (3) to investigate whether teaching ICSCTG and listening practice together will help Japanese EFL learners preserve knowledge of how to express vertical spatial relationships in English for a month after the intervention. I employed quantitative methods to accomplish the goals noted above. Results in this study suggest that the Gesture Listening Higher Concept Approach is an effective, evidence-based theoretical and pedagogical framework, which can facilitate L2 learning and conceptual change at the high school level. The effect of the Gesture Listening Higher Concept Approach on long-term foreign language learning would be a valuable avenue for future research. </p><p> Slobin, D. I. (1987). Thinking for Speaking. Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 13, pp. 435-445.</p><p>

<p> This quasi-phenomenological study identified the common lived classroom experiences of high school (grades 9-12) teachers who used the Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS) method of world language instruction. The study also explained why some teachers who were trained in and had some experience using TPRS abandoned the method, and what they perceived as obstacles to its use. Additionally, the study identified the techniques perceived as effective by traditional teachers for promoting student success in producing and comprehending the target language with the goal of bridging the gap between TPRS and non-TPRS teachers.</p><p> The central phenomenon studied was teachers&rsquo; lived experiences using TPRS, a method of world language teaching for providing a near-immersion classroom learning experience. The TPRS method required no textbook or grammar syllabus and focused on providing students with interesting, repetitive, and comprehensible input of commonly used verb structures and high-frequency vocabulary within the context of a story. For this study, a non-TPRS traditional approach included using a textbook, a grammatical syllabus, and production-based communicative classroom learning activities.</p><p> A purposeful sample of study participants included three groups of ten teachers each. The first two groups constituted the phenomenological part of the study because they had training and experience with TPRS. In the first group, ten participants used TPRS and considered themselves primarily as TPRS teachers. In a second group, ten teachers were selected because they were trained in TPRS and had some experience using the method but discontinued or limited its use when they encountered obstacles and resistance. A third group, not part of the phenomenological portion of the study, consisted of ten teachers who were not trained in TPRS, used a traditional approach, and had no experience using the method. That group provided a perspective outside of TPRS training and experience to discover which teaching techniques they perceived as effective. That input was included in the study to inform the researcher of potential improvements to recommend for the continuously developing TPRS method.</p><p> Data were collected through in depth, face-to-face, in-person, open-ended, semi-structured interviews. The results of the data analysis identified sixteen common lived experiences of TPRS teachers, twelve obstacles encountered by teachers when using or trying out TPRS, and four recommendations to consider incorporating into this changing and evolving method of world language instruction. </p><p>

I have devoted 8 years to prepare for this ethnographic case study. I have analyzed through Bakhtin’s lenses of dialogicality and intertextuality, focusing on exploring an ESL college student, Chen Hua’s online social identity construction through his use of L1 and L2. I have collected multiple layers of data including formal and informal interviews, observational field notes, interactive emails, narratives and online discussion forum contents ever since the focal participant started his 9th grade in a high school, throughout his college and military career. I used ethnographic coding, grounded coding, Gee’s five theoretical tools and critical discourse analysis to analyze the data. The findings indicate that the ESL college student (an ROTC member) constructed his multiple identities through discursive social practices by making use of available resources, making multithreaded social connections from the online texts/discourses to the real world in which he was living. His unique multiple identities constructed through his use of L1 and L2 in computer-mediated communication practices and through other offline social practices, are reflected and embedded within the current macro sociocultural, political, and historical context of the U.S.A., which helped transform and shape him into what he is and how he participates in “serving and sacrificing” for the community and for this country.