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Walden University College of Education This is to certify that the doctoral study by Joye Elfreda Henry has been found to be complete and satisfactory in all respects, and that any and all revisions required by the review committee have been made. Review Committee Dr. Gloria Jacobs, Committee Chairperson, Education Faculty Dr. Jerita Whaley, Committee Member, Education Faculty Dr. Mark Earley, University Reviewer, Education Faculty Chief Academic Officer Eric Riedel, Ph.D. Walden University 2018

This study aims to contribute uniquely to both the debate and the literature on diversity and difference within the college sector in Scotland. It investigated how migrant ESOL learners are supported within one large college in Glasgow, and adopted a qualitative approach underpinned by a previously under-used strand of Foucault’s theory of practices of the self to interpret the language and practices of both ESOL learners and their lecturers. It analysed how the college situates the migrant learners’ experience by examining the discourses of two focus groups of learners and staff, as well as seven individual members of staff and selected learners at both Intermediate and Advanced levels. The research found that both the learners and their lecturers have to negotiate quite different manifestations of power as they work towards their individual goals. The learners’ practices illustrate their sophistication as they assimilate behaviours and language which help to ease their progression through and beyond the college, while the lecturers work within the challenges of their role to enable, with evident care, the goals of the learners which are entangled with their own. The findings raise issues for practitioners working within the field of ESOL learning and teaching, specifically how to support students in negotiating the learning process, and the associated layers of power embedded within the practices of the college. The key beneficiaries of this study are the lecturers but, ultimately, the migrant ESOL learners and the potential is identified for Foucault’s framework of practices of the self to be used to support lecturers in developing more culturally sensitive practices.

Thesis advisor: Sarah Beckjord / This thesis examines the motivations for English language acquisition among Latino immigrants currently residing in the United States. By interviewing 34 adult students enrolled in ESOL classes in the Boston area, the author attempts to determine whether their desire for language acquisition is motivated by integrative or instrumental factors. These results are analyzed in light of the current debate on the assimilation of Latino immigrants, ultimately concluding that this segment of the population is indeed desirous of integration into the mainstream U.S. society. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Romance Languages and Literature. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Much of how Florida and other states across the country justify the practice of mainstreaming English language learners into regular content classrooms rests on the premise that with the guidance of state officials, local school districts adequately train content teachers to work with English language learners. Yet little to no research exists that can help identify and analyze the overall efficacy of these programs. Consequently, this study has attempted to determine whether district training sessions in Florida are sufficiently covering the state-mandated content areas that teachers are required to learn and to what extent in-service teachers agree or disagree that they received the appropriate amount of instruction that would prepare them to instruct English language learners. Training sessions in three large Florida school districts with high proportions of English language learners were studied using a mixed-methods approach that gathered quantitative and qualitative data from observations, surveys and in-depth interviews. Among other things, the findings revealed a pattern of districts overemphasizing cross-cultural awareness issues to the detriment of other critical areas teachers need to know such as methods and curriculum. In addition, there was a general consensus on the part of participants that the trainings lacked specificity and were both impractical and redundant. A number of specific recommendations are offered such as ways to modify the focus of the curriculum, provide incentives to teachers, and create more accountability and oversight of the training sessions themselves. Policymakers are strongly urged to prioritize these types of programs by providing training sessions with more resources and attaching to them a larger sense of importance.

The purpose of this dissertation is to provide a posthuman perspective of adult second language and literacy learning using the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and his collaborative work with Félix Guattari, Masny’s (2005/6) multiple literacies theory or MLT, and DeLanda’s (2016) assemblage theory. Thinking with these scholars, I employ a post-qualitative, posthuman MLT conceptual framework to study literacy as a process that flows through and connects with globally-diverse students, languages, worldviews, and texts in the assemblage of adult education, English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) classrooms. I posit this assemblage as a remarkable and important context for literacy research because of its heterogeneity and potential to produce creative expressions of multiple literacies. With the MLT framework, I explore expressions of multiple literacies as emergent multilingual subjectivities that deterritorialize commonsense worldviews about adult second language and literacy learning. I use observations and student work as data to map a posthuman perspective of adult education to address three research questions: (1) How might we use an MLT framework to explore multiple literacies in adult education ESOL classrooms? (2) With an MLT framework, how are multiple literacies expressed in adult education ESOL classrooms? (3) What are the benefits and implications of an MLT perspective for the field? This project offers a counter-story about the research context and problematizes qualitative inquiry by asking questions and raising problems that might otherwise be invisible. What emerges is a feminist practice of immanent ethics with important implications for the field of adult literacy and second language learning.

English language learners (ELLs) from an urban high school in the southeastern United States struggled to achieve reading proficiency on the federally mandated reading assessments. The purpose of this case study was to gain an understanding of ELL teachers' perceptions about how using effective vocabulary pedagogies affected the reading comprehension of high school ELLs. Guided by Vygotsky's theory of development, the research questions of this study addressed ELL teachers' perceptions of vocabulary instruction and its effect on reading comprehension. The purposeful sampling included 5 high school teachers, an administrator, and an English for students of other languages compliance specialist, who met the criteria of having the experience of providing instruction and/or support to ELLs. These participants were asked during their interviews about their perceptions of vocabulary instruction to improve the reading proficiency of the ELLs, effective vocabulary strategies that affect ELLs' reading comprehension, and the various methods that support and hinder vocabulary instruction to ELLs. Interviews and observations were used to collect data. Data were analyzed using thematic coding to organize the participants' responses through occurring themes and sorted categories. Participants' responded that there should be more professional development about ELL vocabulary instruction and practices. The culminating project may lead to improved instructional vocabulary strategies that will provide an impetus to respond to the learning requirements of all ELLs, resulting in positive change through increased reading success for ELLs in the district at large.