The aim of this study review is to seek knowledge about how computer games affect students' motivation and vocabulary in English teaching. This paper will also examine the challenges that may occur when including games in education. The choice of game genre is based on Vygotsky's sociocultural theory, which states that learning occurs in social interactions. Using language in order to learn and communicate with others is emphasized in the theory. In order to obtain scientific articles that were of interest to the purpose and questions of the study, several different databases have been used. The studies that have been used are both national and international studies, which have led to a broader perspective in the results of this study. The results of the study show that computer games develop students' vocabulary where they are given the opportunity to both use their abilities and develop them. The students also get the opportunity to interact with other players where they can speak English freely while remaining anonymous. As games increase students' motivation for language learning, teaching becomes more meaningful. Furthermore, the results show that games also develop problems such as gambling addiction and sometimes even aggressive behavior depending on the game's gratification system.

The purpose of this research review is to explore the effectiveness of using digital games to enhance vocabulary development in the subject of English, as well as to investigate how digital games impact students' motivation and teachers' attitudes toward incorporating digital games in English language instruction. These questions were addressed through a literature review of scholarly articles from various databases. The results of this research review show that digital games positively affect students' vocabulary learning and motivation in English teaching. Digital games promote learning through interactivity, multimedia, and the utilization of specific information. Students who regularly engage with digital games experience increased motivation to study English, influenced by a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Teachers' attitudes vary, ranging from viewing games as valuable tools to having concerns and doubts. Additional research indicates that training is necessary to support teachers in meaningfully integrating digital games into the classroom. In summary, this paper highlights the potential of digital games as educational tools in English language instruction. Keyword: English

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Thesis advisor: Patrick J. McQuillan / In the 2007-2008 school year, the author conducted a collaborative case study (Stake, 2000) with the goal of discovering and describing "emergent learning" in three high school classrooms. Emergent learning, defined as the acquisition of new knowledge by an entire group when no individual member of the group possessed it before, is implied by the work of many theorists working on an educational analog of a natural phenomenon called a complex adaptive system. Complex adaptive systems are well networked collectives of agents that are non-linear, bounded and synergistic. The author theorized that classes that maximized the features of complex adaptive systems could produce emergent learning (a form of synergy), and that there was a continuum of this complexity, producing a related continuum of emergence. After observing a co-curricular jazz group, an English class, and a geometry class for most of one academic year, collecting artifacts and interviewing three students and a teacher from each class, the author determined that there was indeed a continuum of complexity. He found that the actively complex nature of the Jazz Rock Ensemble produced an environment where emergence was the norm, with the ensemble producing works of music, new to the world, with each performance. The English section harnessed the chaotic tendencies of students to optimize cognitive dissonance and frequently produce emergent learning, while the mathematics section approached the learning process in a way that was too rigidly linear to allow detectable emergence to occur. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Discourses of adolescence/ts that reduce teenagers to impulsive, hormonal, incomplete adults are pervasive, and affect the way that adolescence/ts is regarded in institutional spaces like schools. However, scholars in Critical Youth Studies (CYS) reject these determinations in favor of a vision of adolescence as a social construct; a construct that has changed throughout time and does not accurately reflect the lived experiences of diverse youth. This study considers the way in which these discourses are mobilized and circulating in one English Language Arts (ELA) classroom and, specifically, through the study of literature. Grounded in empirical scholarship that approaches classroom literature pedagogy and response through a sociocultural lens, and in theoretical scholarship in Critical Youth Studies (CYS) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the purpose of this qualitative inquiry is to observe student response to young adult literature (YAL) in one ELA classroom in order to locate discourses of adolescence that are mobilized and circulating as students comprehend, analyze and interpret texts.

This dissertation addresses two problems with advanced academic writing pedagogy. First, doctoral students must participate in academic discourse communities, yet they report being underprepared to do so (Boquet et al., 2015; Caplan & Cox, 2016). Second, studies (e.g., Curry & Lillis, 2004; Matsuda & Tardy, 2007; Tardy & Matsuda, 2009) suggest that L1 and L2 voices are not well integrated in the institution and that this lack of integration systemically privileges the dominant culture. The purpose of this research is to investigate the role relationships play in helping culturally and linguistically diverse doctoral students negotiate and acquire advanced academic discourse. I pose the overarching research question: Given a discipline-specific writing center for graduate students in a College of Education, what role does interaction play in helping students to participate in academic conversations? The two papers in this collection employ qualitative classification and discourse analysis to investigate writing-related interactions among peers. Data include audio-recorded writing consultations and interviews, post-session reports, field notes, and artifacts. Taken together, findings from this research highlight the role interaction can play in writing support, development, and research. This research has implications for developing writing pedagogy and support programs to facilitate productive academic socialization. In response, the researcher calls for more robust academic writing support in order to improve access and resources for diverse student populations and decrease attrition and time to degree for all students.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of English, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains [2], 52 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 51-52) and filmography (p. 50).

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Debbie K. Mercer / Fostering student engagement in classes aligns with requirements from the latest national college English curriculum issued in 2015 in China. However, abundant research has identified that both intrinsic and extrinsic obstacles impede the creation of an authentic student-centered learning environment. Meanwhile, limited research studies have evaluated instructors’ perspectives toward student engagement at the undergraduate level embedded in the Chinese examination-oriented educational system. Therefore, this qualitative study investigated four English instructors’ experiences in student engagement and relationship building with their students in postsecondary English classes. This study was confined to English education to non-English major students in the context of Chinese higher education. Research questions were answered through a multiple case study approach guided by Self-Determination Theory, emphasizing the uniqueness of each participant’s experiences and construction of meaning. Triangulation, participants’ member check, and peer debriefing achieved the trustworthiness and rigor of the findings of this study. Results indicate that the four participants appreciated student engagement and confirmed including group class activities and fostering rapport with students as effective ways to increase student engagement. Accordingly, participants viewed themselves as organizers, facilitators, counselors, and resources. Instructors’ beliefs and students’ motivation in English teaching and learning influenced the level of student engagement. Participants struggled with constraints from large class sizes, limited pedagogical knowledge, and shortage of educational technology support. On this basis, a reformation in English curriculum and teacher credentialing is recommended to enhance student engagement. For future studies, empirical research should examine the correlational relationship between engaged pedagogies and academic performance. Further exploration of student engagement from the student perspective is also recommended to identify the most engaging pedagogical practices.

The globalization of the English language has rendered both positive and negative impacts to countries around the world. With the ever-increasing pervasiveness of the English language, many non-native-English-speaking (NNES hereafter) people and countries have shown growing interests in teaching and learning English. Some governments of these NNES countries have decided to implement “English” as a mandatory school subject into their compulsory curriculum in order to “connect with the world” and/or to increase their nation’s international image. However, in these NNES countries, English often does not hold official capacity and is taught as a foreign language (EFL). Although English (language) education can bring positive changes to a nation, it is not free of problems. Essentially, English education influences many NNES countries and their citizens in sociocultural, economic, and educational arenas. Some scholars, such as Tsuda (2008), assert that the “problems” and impacts are inseparable from “English language hegemony.” My country of origin, Taiwan, is one of the EFL and NNES countries that implements English education in our nation’s compulsory education. In recent decades, communicative-based English educational approaches have received great support from the Taiwanese Ministry of Education. In an EFL setting, such as that in Taiwan, the said educational approaches have complicated English education even further. In particular, the communicative-based approaches focus on teaching and practicing English oral proficiency, which average Taiwanese citizens do not need in their daily lives. Many Taiwanese people experience identity struggles and self-esteem issues because of their less-than-desirable English oral proficiency. In addition to Taiwanese, native-English-speaking (NES) teachers who are recruited to teach English in Taiwan are an integral part of the Taiwanese English education. As a Taiwanese citizen and an intercultural communication scholar, I recognize the intricate complexity of Taiwanese English education and am compelled to examine it in this dissertation as it has not received much attention in the discipline of Communication Studies. In this dissertation, I employ Identity Management Theory (IMT) (Cupach & Imahori, 1993; Imahori & Cupach, 2005) as the primary theoretical framework to examine Taiwanese English education. Particularly, I utilize IMT to study the identity construction and management (such as identity freezing), facework strategies, and intercultural relationship development among NES teachers, Taiwanese English teachers, and Taiwanese students. To carry out this research, I employ critical complete-member ethnography (CCME) (Toyosaki, 2011) as the central research methodology, because I see myself as a complete-member researcher with my research participants. I share complete-memberships with them in nuanced, complex, and contextual manners. Methodologically, CCME entails ethnography of communication, autoethnography, and critical ethnography; all are informative of my data collection methods, including ethnographic participant observation, ethnographic interview, and autoethnographic journaling inside and outside of English classes at different Taiwanese universities. These three methods helped me gather rich data for this research. To analyze and discuss the data, I employed thematic analysis (Owen, 1984) and critical examinations of consensual and conflictual theorization (Fiske, 1991; Toyosaki, 2011). Both methods render complex findings. In particular, the analysis and discussion reveal and explain (a) how the research participants manage cultural identities through marking scope, salience, and intensity with different English educational participants, (b) how they apply facework strategies to cope with identity freezing experiences, and (c) how they establish and maintain intercultural relationships with other English educational participants as they transition across different relational phases of their relationships. I deliver the findings thematically in an analytical and narrative-like manner, as I layer and weave together the field notes, the interview responses, and my autoethnographic journaling. Ultimately, I argue that English hegemony has glocalized in Taiwanese English education and is manifested through research participants’ identity management politics and their intercultural relationships. Essentially, my research shows that identity management politics is inseparable from the power differentials and inequalities imbued in Taiwanese English education. Voluntarily and/or involuntarily, the research participants and I have normalized English hegemony, embodied its presence in our knowledge production and consumption, and given English/Western ideologies consent to dominate our communicative choices, our (sub)consciousness, and our intercultural relationships. Aside from perpetuating English hegemony, I have also observed resistance against the said hegemonic impacts inside and outside of the English classrooms. In a power-laden intercultural communication context, such as Taiwanese English education, critical analyses and examinations play essential roles in revealing the identity management politics and power differentials embedded in the (mythically) “innocent” English classrooms. I further recognize how this research serves as an example to other EFL and NNES countries. In due course, I conclude that my research makes contributions to the scholarships of intercultural communication and to English education in Taiwan and beyond.

abstract: This dissertation shares findings from a yearlong qualitative case study of Young Voices Rise (YVR), a diverse spoken word poetry group in the urban Southwest. The study examined the group's characteristics and practices, adolescent members' views of their writing and themselves as writers, and changes members attributed to their experiences in YVR. Data sources included interviews with six adolescent poets and two adult teaching artists, observations of writing workshops and poetry slams, collection of group announcements through social media, and collection of poems. Sociocultural theory guided the study's design, and grounded theory was used to analyze data. This study found that YVR is a community of practice that offers multiple possibilities for engagement and fosters a safe space for storytelling. The adolescent participants have distinct writing practices and a strong sense of writing self; furthermore, they believe YVR has changed them and their writing. This study has several implications for secondary English language arts. Specifically, it recommends that teachers build safe spaces for storytelling, offer spoken word poetry as an option for exploring various topics and purposes, attend to writers' practices and preferences, encourage authentic participation and identity exploration, and support spoken word poetry school-wide. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Curriculum and Instruction 2015