The purposes of this study were to 1) explore student attitudes toward the English-only environment in an intensive English program, and 2) find factors that either promote or inhibit students' desire to use English in their communication with compatriots in school. Qualitative research methods employed were a) a student questionnaire (with a total of 158 participants), b) semi-structured interviews with students (total 6 participants), and c) four student focus groups (with a total of 62 participants). The study was conducted at the English Language Center (ELC) at Brigham Young University. The participants were students of four native language groups (Spanish, Korean, Portuguese, Chinese) and varied levels of proficiency. The findings indicate that the majority of the students acknowledged the helpfulness of the English-only environment at the ELC, but recognized some factors that prevented them from speaking only English in the school building. These factors were grouped into five categories: sociocultural, linguistic, individual, psychological, and institutional. The sociocultural factors included peer pressure, fear of negative evaluation by compatriots, cultural communication patterns, maintaining friendship with compatriots, and need for cultural bonding. The linguistic factors included low language proficiency, difficulty in understanding teachers' assignments, translating habits, and linguistic differences between English and students' L1. The category of the individual factors consisted of the intensity of motivation and personality type. Lack of confidence, stress from speaking English, and fear of having a different personality when speaking English were categorized as psychological factors. Finally, the institutional category included physical factors (number of students of the same L1 in school/class, distance from the university campus), teacher factors (teachers' ability to motivate students, other teachers' characteristics [being sensitive to students' cultures, understanding students' individual circumstances, the ability to establish a rapport with students]), and curricular and administrative factors (poor enforcement of the English-only rule, weaknesses of speaking classes, lack of activities that promote interaction with students from other countries). This study provides a deep understanding of the reasons why many students speak their native language once they leave the English classroom. Based on these findings, recommendations regarding the development and modification of curricula in order to improve the language-learning environment at English institutions are offered to classroom teachers and program administrators.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to extend the understanding of the characteristics of a classroom environment that impact students’ engagement in academics and therefore has the potential to positively impact student achievement scores. Data were collected through content analysis to analyze for reoccurring themes to assess how the characteristics of the classroom environment impact student’s achievement. Ten classrooms within the Kingsport City District were observed and analyzed for this study. Six research questions guided this study, and qualitative data were analyzed for reoccurring themes. Findings from this study suggest that implementing certain characteristics in to the classroom environment can positively impact students’ academic success. The development and construction of classroom environments should include such characteristics as positive discipline, well laid out and organized classrooms, accountable talks, collaborative groups, positive teacher student interaction, and learning targets. As a result of this research a recommendation for practice is that districts support the development of classrooms that would positively impact student’s achievement.

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Storytelling gives us a framework for certain mathematical tasks that is both prescriptive enough to be useful and flexible enough to be usable. Many stories divide into three acts, each of which maps neatly onto these mathematical tasks.

Book Summary: A teacher’s ability to manage the classroom strongly influences the quality of teaching and learning that can be accomplished. Among the most pressing concerns for inexperienced teachers is classroom management, a concern of equal importance to the general public in light of behavior problems and breakdowns in discipline that grab newspaper headlines. But classroom management is not just about problems and what to do when things go wrong and chaos erupts. It’s about how to run a classroom so as to elicit the best from even the most courteous group of students. An array of skills is needed to produce such a learning environment. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Classroom Management raises issues and introduces evidence-based, real-world strategies for creating and maintaining well-managed classrooms where learning thrives. Students studying to become teachers will need to develop their own classroom management strategies consistent with their own philosophies of teaching and learning. This work aims to open their eyes to the range of issues and the array of skills they might integrate into their unique teaching styles.

Book Summary:: A teacher’s ability to manage the classroom strongly influences the quality of teaching and learning that can be accomplished. Among the most pressing concerns for inexperienced teachers is classroom management, a concern of equal importance to the general public in light of behavior problems and breakdowns in discipline that grab newspaper headlines. But classroom management is not just about problems and what to do when things go wrong and chaos erupts. It’s about how to run a classroom so as to elicit the best from even the most courteous group of students. An array of skills is needed to produce such a learning environment. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Classroom Management raises issues and introduces evidence-based, real-world strategies for creating and maintaining well-managed classrooms where learning thrives. Students studying to become teachers will need to develop their own classroom management strategies consistent with their own philosophies of teaching and learning. It is hoped that this work will help open their eyes to the range of issues and the array of skills they might integrate into their unique teaching styles.

A team of graduate students from Brigham Young University under the supervision of the main author, Dr. Henrichsen, collaborated on creating a book as well as a website, Basic Training and Resources for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (BTR-TESOL). The entire project consists of ten main sections with nearly fifty units addressing topics that novice teachers should know before teaching English to non-native speakers. The BTR-TESOL project answers the need for material for untrained novice teachers that will help them to be better prepared in a very minimalistic way to face the challenges and responsibilities that teaching of English as a second language (ESL) brings. This master's project describes the creation of two units of section three, "Fundamental Teaching Skills", titled "Developing a Successful Teaching Personality" and "Managing Classes of English Language Learners." The first unit, "Developing a Successful Teaching Personality", educates novice teachers about the importance of nine major characteristics of a good teaching personality that were compiled by the author of this unit after extensive research of teachers' and students' attitudes. Moreover, the unit explains how each characteristic contributes to the overall challenge of being a successful teacher. In the second unit, "Managing Classes of English Language Learners", novice teachers are introduced to basic classroom management issues, possible reasons behind students' behavior, and tips on how to solve common classroom management issues. Both units include a short introduction to the content, an opening scenario, a video segment related to the theme of each unit as well as reflection questions, objectives, explanatory text, and a section that directs readers to places they can go to learn more about the subject.

In 1941 a large cache of papyri preserving the writings of Origen and Didymus the Blind were discovered in Tura, Egypt. 43 years later 22 signatures from the Tura papryi containing Ps. 26:10–29:2, 36:1–3 from Didymus the Blinds' commentary on Psalms were acquired by Brigham Young University. These signatures remain unpublished at present. This paper examines Didymus' use of the New Testament in this hitherto unpublished section of his commentary and seeks to reevaluate past scholarship on the New Testament text of Didymus in light of this new data. In addition to providing an inventory of all the New Testament references and significant textual variants used by Didymus in this section of his commentary, this paper will also analyze the consistency, or lack thereof, with which Didymus referenced the New Testament throughout his five Tura commentaries. This analysis will show that previous conclusions on the New Testament text of Didymus the Blind need to be reevaluated in a manner that takes into account the significant lack of consistency with which he referenced the New Testament in his classroom lectures as opposed to his published works that were intended for circulation.

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The concepts of an inclusive classroom, inclusion, co-teaching, and disability have been called poorly defined and in need of fresh conceptual analyses. In Chapter 1, I respond to this call for further analysis and then demonstrate, using current educational headlines, that these concepts of `an inclusive classroom,' `inclusion,' `co-teaching,' and `having a disability' are not just issues that are discussed in academia, but are also current issues in schools, courtrooms, and statehouses. In Chapter 2, the Literature Review examines philosophical literature of inclusive education, legislative and judicial history, and service delivery models for special education. In Chapter 3, Methods: A Conceptual Analysis, we examine the history and practice of conceptual analysis, and then look at the models of conceptual analysis as detailed by Jonas Soltis. Chapter 4, Conceptual Analyses, is the core of this dissertation, containing a generic analysis of the `inclusive classroom,' differentiation analyses of `inclusion,' and `co-teaching,' and a generic analysis of `having a disability.' Finally, in Chapter 5, Discussion, we examine implications for further research and conclusions.