Based on an interpretive paradigm, this study aimed at probing into the perceptions of Egyptian EFL pre-service teachers and their lecturers of the new microteaching course. It investigated a) pre-service teachers and lecturers' perceptions about the course focuses; b) pre-service teachers' and lecturers’ perceptions of the difficulties encountered during course application, and finally c) pre-service teachers' perceptions about the helpfulness of the microteaching course in enhancing their teaching performance during practicum. Moreover, the study aimed at utilising this investigation for developing a framework for microteaching curricula planning and design. Data collection was based on a sequential mixed methods approach, thus in the first phase of the study, the researcher administered a questionnaire to 10 lecturers and 125 EFL pre-service teachers in the third year English department at the Faculty of Education of Menoufia University in Egypt. In Phase Two the researcher conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with 7 lecturers and 15 pre-service teachers, who also completed a reflective journal. Data were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. The findings of the current study indicated that that there are nineteen focuses of the microteaching course at Shebin Elkom Faculty of Education. These focuses have been classified into three main themes: lesson planning skills, lesson implementation skills, and lesson evaluation skills. As revealed by data analysis, lecturers devoted less time to practising lesson evaluation skills. Findings also revealed that EFL pre-service teachers and their lecturers encountered the following difficulties during peer group work: modelling the skills, planning a micro-lesson, teaching a micro-lesson, and when giving and receiving feedback. Furthermore, it was found that the course was helpful in enhancing pre-service teachers’ teaching performance at practicum concerning their professional skills rather than their personal qualities. Psychological, socio-cultural, and socio-political factors that affect the implementation of the microteaching course are discussed. Implications and suggestions for further research are provided.

Bilingual education is a subject of debate in education. Some claim that bilingual education programs are detrimental to students, but decades of research supports the benefits of bilingualism and bilingual education for both English Language Learners and monolingual English speakers. The U.S. does not have bilingual education programs in proportion to the needs that these programs could meet for students in public schools. If bilingualism is beneficial, then why do we not have more bilingual education programs? Research extensively covers the internal components of bilingual education programs but only touches on the effect of the external conditions necessary for program success. In order to study one piece of this large question, this thesis considered the external conditions. In order to determine which conditions and which programs/cities/states to research, I compared the case studies of bilingual education programs to determine patterns in the conditions surrounding them. The case studies were selected because they addressed success factors of these programs. Demographics, university relationships, and legislation were three conditions that the research addressed. Minneapolis-St. Paul; San Francisco; Westminster, CA; New York City; and Detroit are the cities considered because they have large ELL populations but are different in their demographic composition and in how they approach bilingual education. I compared the state and number of bilingual programs to the demographics, university relationships, and legislation in each community and drew conclusions from the resulting patterns. The data showed that the existence of bilingual programs correlated positively to the demographics, university relationships, and legislation in each city, although not always to the degree expected. By analyzing the effects of the conditions on the chosen communities, I concluded that one, states and education leaders need to recognize student needs based on student demographics, two, universities need to conduct research for and advocate for local bilingual programs, and finally, legislation needs to support bilingual programs. The most important condition was individuals from universities advocating for bilingual programs by conducting research that provides a source of reliable information about bilingual education for the lawmakers who create educational policy.

Studies about native and non-native language teachers have found that these two groups are perceived as different from each other in language abilities and teaching styles. However, most of the existing research has investigated the perspective of teachers or students separately and has rarely triangulated their opinions. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to contribute to the body of literature related to the native and non-native teacher dichotomy by triangulating perceptions from native and non-native teacher samples and a student sample. Particularly, this study set out to examine the problem in the context of the English language teaching and learning system in Vietnam. This study involved three participant groups: 30 native English teachers (NETs), 30 Vietnamese teachers (VETs), and 30 Vietnamese EFL students in Vietnam. The instrument included two versions of an online Likert scale survey, one for the students and the other for the teachers (both NETs and VETs). The questions covered 4 areas of teaching efficacy: teaching language skills, teaching language aspects, teaching methodology, and assessment. The data were analyzed through statistical analyses, including Cronbach alpha, two MANOVAs, and 16 dependent t-tests. The results of this study revealed that NETs, VETs, and students did not differ significantly in how they perceived the teaching efficacy of NETs and VETs. Instead, they had similar judgments which overall were in the upper part of the scale, showing rather positive perceptions of the teaching efficacy of both NETs and VETs. NETs were favored in teaching pronunciation; teaching culture; teaching speaking; involving students; balancing lecture, pair work, and group work; organizing classes; measuring students' progress; and grading. VETs were found more effective in teaching grammar and giving feedback. Both NETs and VETs were perceived as equally effective in teaching listening, teaching reading, teaching writing, teaching vocabulary, preparing classes, and giving an appropriate number of tests.

This thesis is directed towards investigating the nature of English language learning in a foundation-year programme in one public university in the United Arab Emirates. The aims of the thesis were based on the need to provide a possible explanation for the significant number of learners achieving low results, or failing their English language courses, in this programme. It was felt that a critical Jungian perspective could help uncover the existence in the Emirati tertiary system of both conscious and unconscious student resistance to English and of, synchronous, discursive forms of linguistic imperialism. This notion was based on findings in the literature, principally in Analytical Psychology, which suggest that the individual psyche is composed of profound and powerful personal and collective unconscious elements as well as critical theory, which maintains that the language classroom cannot be extricated from the influence of surrounding political, or even geopolitical, forces. The thesis sought, through the use of both a critical discourse analysis and critically-oriented case studies, to provide insight into the nature of the dialectical tension believed to exist, in this milieu, between the propagators of the language and those adopting it. The findings provided considerable evidence of a tension operating both at the discursive level and at the psychological level in the use of English in the foundation-year programme. The findings suggested that the discourse presented to learners, from western textbook writers and editors, is heavily Anglo-Saxon in its use of motifs and topics and that there is room, at least on a macrostructural level, to offset this tendency and reconsider the cultural weighting of topical content so as to more appropriately cater to an Arabic and Muslim audience. Also, the primary data revealed that the study’s participants were critical of the use of English as the university’s medium of instruction and there was consensus among them that a significant number of Emirati students, as well as some members of the public, were not receptive to the intrusion of this foreign language into their lives. Critical Discourse Analysis and critical case studies were combined in the shaping of the research methodology and this enabled the researcher to gain an in-depth and qualitative insight into the nature of English propagation and adoption. Key data collected from the research interviews was placed into a Jungian taxonomy and combined with the critical discourse analysis. Upon examination, it provided the researcher with information, supported by relevant literature, that led to a number of recommendations directed, in particular, to language teachers (and publishers) regarding the need to shape discourse to cater to the cultural needs of the learners and to consider the psychological impact that the tertiary English language policy was having on the Arab student body. The thesis strongly maintains that the discursive content of the language materials delivered to such students needs to be more extensively adapted in order to cater to the student body so as to minimize, as much as possible, potential cultural alienation. It also advocates the provision of Jungian psychological counseling in English language programmes because it would encourage policy makers to acknowledge the role of the unconscious in learning as well as provide invaluable support to language learners who are experiencing conscious or unconscious resistance to the English language in such a setting.

abstract: Using a sociocultural framework, this dissertation investigated the writing processes of 31 ESL learners in an EAP context at a large North American university. The qualitative case study involved one of the four major writing assignments in a required first-year composition course for ESL students. Data were collected from four different sources: (a) A semi-structured interview with each participant, (b) process logs kept by participants for the entire duration of the writing assignment, (c) classroom observation notes, and (d) class materials. Findings that emerged through analyses of activity systems, an analytical framework within Vygotskian activity theory, indicate that L2 writers used various context-specific, social, and cultural affordances to accomplish the writing tasks. The study arrived at these findings by creating taxonomies of the six activity system elements - subject, tools, goals, division of labor, community, and rules - as they were realized by L2 writers, and examining the influence that these elements had in the process of composing. The analysis of data helped create categories of each of the six activity system elements. To illustrate with an example, the categories that emerged within the element division of labor were as follows: (a) Instructor, (b) friends and classmates, (c) writing center tutors, (d) family members, and (e) people in the world. The emergent categories for each of the six activity system elements were then examined to determine if their effects on L2 writing were positive or negative. Overall, the findings of the present study validate arguments related to the post-process views that an explanation of L2 writing processes solely based on cognitive perspectives provides but only a partial picture of how second language writing takes place. In order for a more comprehensive understanding of L2 writing one must also account for the various social and cultural factors that play critical roles in the production of L2 texts. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. English 2012

This study examined issues related to the development of English as a major for gifted students in Vietnam and current and former students' perceptions of the program. The data were collected through an online survey and analyzed through descriptive statistics in order to identify patterns of agreement and disagreement between two groups of 60 current and 30 former gifted students. The results showed that the majority of the participants came from well-educated families and that family influences and traditions had a great impact on their choice of the program. The major reasons for the program selection were identified as its high prestige and students' interest in learning English as a tool for career advancement. Based on current and former students' evaluations, their initial expectations were met as the majority of them expressed satisfaction with the quality of the English education at the school and appreciated its usefulness for their further study and career. The only area of slight dissatisfaction concerned the lack of opportunities to acquire native like pronunciation. The findings were interpreted in view of their implications for the maintenance and further development of the specialized English major program in Vietnam.

This thesis is a complexity-informed case study of a language school in Greece, which provides a rich description of how language pedagogy develops in the periphery of the English-using world. In addition, this study demonstrates the feasibility and potential of using Complex Systems Theory (CST) in the study of educational settings. The thesis begins by describing English Language Teaching (ELT) in Greece, thus setting the scene for the empirical investigation. This is followed by a review of ELT literature, with particular reference to theories of language, pedagogy and society, and by an overview of CST, which pragmatically synthesises complex realism and post-modern ways of knowing, and defines a set of principles to guide complexity-informed empirical inquiry. Having conceptualised the language school as a complex system, it is suggested that activity in the school was sustained by multiple intentionalities, i.e., collective, emergent, nested and generative drivers of activity. These included: (a) an imperative to provide certification to learners, (b) some learners’ desire to integrate in transnational discourse communities, (c) the expectation that language learning should lead to increased awareness of ‘English’ culture, (d) competition against the state school system, and (e) the unstated aim of protecting the professional interests of the school’s staff and stakeholders. Intentionalities were associated with specific pedagogical outcomes and cultural outlooks, and their synthesis is defined as a dynamic of intentions. Next, the thesis looks into the learning materials used at the language school, and it is suggested that these generate affordances which impacted pedagogy. The distribution of learning activities in the books was associated with synchronic and diachronic changes in the dynamics of intentions underpinning activity in the school. Complexity-inspired conceptual instruments, such as an ‘affordance landscape’ and ‘attractors’, are developed to describe the influence of the learning materials, and it is suggested that the learning resources used at the language school made transmissive and communicative pedagogy more likely. The empirical component of the study concludes by describing prototypical instruction sequences that typified ELT in the language school, which evidenced traces of transmissive and communicative pedagogy. Some sequences (e.g., Reading and Vocabulary, and Transmissive Grammar) evidenced transmissive influences, which were associated with local pedagogical traditions, whereas others, such as Process-Based Writing, were more closely aligned with the communicative ideology that is mainstream in ELT. The thesis concludes by synthesising the findings with insights from the CST literature. In doing so, it demonstrates the theoretically generative potential of a complexity-informed inquiry, which can help to formulate understandings of ELT that are sensitive to the interface between systems and their environments, while providing ontologically coherent accounts of structure and agency, and of behaviours that are neither completely random nor entirely predictable.

For this dissertation, I had the opportunity to investigate a well-established university-based intensive English program in the northeastern United States as it transitioned from an integrated-skills to a paired-skills approach. My goal as a researcher was to investigate in what ways listening, the second language (L2) skill researchers view as the least understood and the least practiced (Field, 2019; Graham, 2017; Graham, Santos, & Francis-Brophy, 2013; Siegel, 2018; Vandergrift & Goh, 2012), was receiving attention, programmatically as well as pedagogically, in the new paired-skills approach, and how that attention manifested in the classroom. Toward this goal, through interviews with program leaders and experienced instructors, I explored what they considered as key pedagogical challenges and opportunities in L2 listening in the earlier integrated skills program and in the new paired skills program. Through classroom observation, I documented how instructors approached L2 listening pedagogy in the new paired-skills program.  Analysis of instructor interviews showed that instructors described using a wide variety of content-based approaches when teaching L2 listening in the integrated skills approach.  In the new paired-skills approach, they described encountering many challenges with L2 listening pedagogy they had yet to resolve. Analysis of classroom observations in the paired skills program revealed that instructors mostly structured lessons with before-listening activities, with a preference for activating background knowledge via vocabulary preview and discussion based on textbook themes. A synthesis of case study findings across program leaders and instructors revealed that teachers structured different kinds of listening experiences for students but did not engage in explicit instruction in L2 listening focused on specific features of bi- and multi-directional spoken language nor did they offer much during listening instruction. Overall, the findings suggest the need to develop more curricular and professional development materials to assist instructors in further developing L2 listening pedagogy, curriculum and assessment in their classroom instruction.

This dissertation investigates how L2 speakers’ assessment of their own pronunciation compares to the assessment of these speakers’ pronunciation by different types of listeners. Study 1 investigated the associations between L2 speakers’ pronunciation self-assessment and the assessment by L1 listeners. Eighty-two L2 English speakers performed a picture narrative task and rated their own speech. These speech samples were also rated by eight inexperienced L1 English listeners. Pearson correlation and paired t-test analyses revealed that the speakers’ self-assessment was significantly different from L1 English listeners’ assessment, and that poor performers overestimated their performance while top performers underestimated it. Study 2 investigated the associations between L2 speakers’ pronunciation self-assessment and the assessment by L1 listeners, L2 listeners who shared an L1 with the speakers, and L2 listeners who did not share an L1 with the speakers. Forty-one L1 Mandarin speakers performed a picture narrative task in English and rated their own pronunciation. These speech samples were also rated by L1 English listeners, L1 Mandarin listeners, and L1 mixed listeners. Pearson correlation and paired t-test analyses revealed that the alignment between self- and other-assessment varied according to the L1 background of the listeners and the construct under evaluation. Study 3 investigated if L2 listeners had an advantage over L1 listeners at comprehending L2 speech, and if the L1 background and proficiency level of the L2 speakers and listeners affected this potential advantage. Forty-one Mandarin-accented English speech samples from a picture narrative task were rated for comprehensibility by three groups of listeners – L1 English listeners, L1 Mandarin listeners, and L1 mixed listeners. Paired t-test analyses revealed that L1 Mandarin listeners perceived the Mandarin-accented speech to be more comprehensible than the L1 English listeners did, and this benefit was observed with three different proficiency combinations when proficiency was taken into consideration. Although overall the L1 mixed listeners did not perceive the Mandarin-accented speech to be more comprehensible than the L1 English listeners did, when proficiency was taken into consideration, the picture was more complex – while a comprehensibility benefit was observed with one specific proficiency combination, a comprehensibility detriment was observed with a different proficiency pairing.

<p>The writing centers created to serve predominately white institutions (PWIs) are not designed to meet the needs of Indigenous writers. Despite ostensible moves towards equity and social justice, Indigenous peoples often remained overlooked in writing center studies, partly due to the lack of attention paid to centers in Indigenous-serving institutions. <em>Weaving Centers of Resistance</em> responds to this gap by mapping the writing centers and tutoring centers at Indigenous serving institutions, investigating how tutoring pedagogy for writing is adapted in these contexts, and developing recommendations for culturally relevant writing center pedagogy. The research was conducted in three stages: A survey designed to collect basic demographic information was sent to 33 Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs),  35 Native American-serving, Non-Tribal Institutions (NASNTIs), and 13 Native Hawaiian-serving Institutions (NHSIs). From participants in the survey, 10 writing and tutoring center practitioners were recruited for two rounds of virtual interviews. Finally, two interview participants were recruited for virtual case study interviews. This dissertation is divided into seven chapters. The first chapter contextualizes this project in Indigenous movements towards rhetorical sovereignty set against composition’s implication in racist ideologies. The second chapter lays out the history of western colonial education, surveys Indigenous topics in writing center studies, and argues for decolonizing the writing center movement towards just pedagogies. The third chapter troubles empirical methodologies within writing center studies and discusses the methodologies and methods used for this study. The fourth chapter offers findings from the survey sent to Indigenous-serving institutions. The fifth chapter introduces the ten writing and tutoring center practitioners interviewed for this study. The sixth chapter reports on themes developed in qualitative coding of interviews. The final chapter synthesizes the findings, discusses limitations, and offers a path forward for writing center practitioners working with Indigenous peoples. A few of the key findings of this project are the prevalence of learning centers in Indigenous-serving institutions, the deeply intersectional challenges faced by Indigenous writers, and the importance of relationship for tutoring in Indigenous contexts. This work attempts to offer practitioners in Native educational contexts better tools to teach writing from Indigenous perspectives and provides scholars across humanities strategies for rethinking resistance to linguistic colonialism.</p>