The present inquiry is a qualitative case study of conversations and attitudes of students participating in a non-required, second-year conversation section offered as a voluntary adjunct to required second year courses in Italian. The findings in this dissertation support calls by policy makers in foreign language education who advocate for a more integrated and holistic approach to foreign language education. Through this empirical qualitative case study, I have used the construct of Third Space (Gutiérrez, 2008) to examine students’ development of multiple literacies (Swaffar & Arens, 2005) in a foreign language conversation-based classroom. The theory of Third Space is seen as a kind of authentic intersubjective space, where students’ ways of knowing and learning are accepted and expanded in the learning environment. The study describes the results from the implementation of a language pedagogy based on the model of multiple literacies in an Italian conversation class. Students in the class read and viewed a wide variety of authentic materials, around which they anchored their class discussions. Through activities involving multiple readings of the given text, the students co-constructed their interpretations based on personal experiences and on the socio-cultural background of the text. Students also engaged in self-reflective exercises documenting their own learning processes. Through interpretive analysis of student work produced in the class, the ecology of learner developments and the corresponding classroom talk are assessed. I have identified three major themes that are evident as essential elements to the students’ developing trans-linguistic proficiency in conjunction with their evolving cultural literacy. In particular, self-reflection and identity, expanded practices of knowing and learning, and the influence of semiotic mediation on classroom interactions are the three elements that define how these students articulated their Third Space in conjunction with this particular language learning context. / text

The purpose of this report is to inform foreign language (FL) educators about students with learning disabilities (LD) so that instruction can better serve their needs. It applies this to Spanish FL education in the United States, examining reading performance due to the role of reading in academic success and the prevalence of reading LD. The report outlines reading models and the cognitive processes within these approaches to explain how students read. With this understanding, the report examines LD, focusing on the role of phonemic awareness in L1 and FL reading. It analyzes reading instruction in English and Spanish in order to evaluate existing FL strategies and propose new interventions. From this report, educators should gain an understanding of how LD in reading impacts FL and how reading could be better addressed in the Spanish FL classroom. / text

Thus far, few research studies have examined the practice of integrated speaking test tasks in the field of second/foreign language oral assessment. This dissertation utilized structural equation modeling (SEM) and qualitative techniques to explore the relationships among topical knowledge, anxiety, and integrated speaking test performance and to compare the influence of topical knowledge and anxiety, respectively, on independent speaking test performance and integrated speaking test performance. Three instruments were employed in this study. First, three integrated tasks were derived from TOEFL-iBT preparation materials, and three independent tasks were developed specifically for this research study. Second, four topical knowledge tests (TKTs) were constructed by six content experts and validated on a group of 421 Taiwanese EFL learners. Third, the state anxiety inventory (SAI) from the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was adopted. A total of 352 Taiwanese EFL students were recruited for the official study. At the first stage, they filled out the personal information sheet and responded to the TKTs. At the second stage, they took two independent tasks for which they spoke without input support, responded to an SAI, performed two integrated tasks in which they orally summarized the textual and auditory input given to them, and completed another SAI. Finally, 23 volunteers took part in follow-up interviews. The quantitative data were analyzed using the two-step SEM approach and the interview data were examined using a series of qualitative techniques, leading to five primary findings. First, topical knowledge and anxiety both strongly influenced the integrated speaking performance, though in an opposite manner. Second, topical knowledge did not significantly affect anxiety. Third, the effect of topical knowledge on independent speaking performance and integrated speaking performance varied depending on the topics of the tasks. Fourth, the impact of anxiety on independent speaking performance and integrated speaking performance also differed according to the topics of the tasks. Fifth, participants were overwhelmingly positive about the integrated tasks. In light of the findings, several implications are proposed for second/foreign language oral assessment theory, research methodology, and practice. / text

This study investigated the effects of foreign language reading anxiety on Korean ESL learners’ reading strategy use and reading comprehension. Data were collected from forty-five Korean students who were enrolled in either ESL programs or graduate programs at UT. The students took the foreign language reading anxiety scale (FLRAS) followed by a background questionnaire. Based on their FLRAS scores, six participants who were classified as high, mid, and low anxiety were invited to an individual reading study. Various types of data were collected from a reading comprehension task, a strategy inventory for reading comprehension, the Cognitive Interference Questionnaire, and interviews. The results showed that there is a fair amount of FL reading anxiety among Korean ESL learners. Although it seems at first glance that reading in a FL is not anxietyprovoking, the result indicated that it can indeed arouse anxiety in some learners due to distinct features of FL texts including a different orthography, textual organizations, and cultural topics. In addition, the results of reading processing of six participants representing different anxiety levels indicated that anxiety can affect learners’ reading processing in terms of their strategy use and cognitive interference. The results showed that highly anxious students who were occupied with off-task thoughts tended to use more local strategies while less anxious students employed more global strategies and background knowledge strategies. Lastly, the highly anxious students showed lower reading comprehension scores than their less anxious peers, suggesting that anxiety can play a detrimental role not only in reading processing but also in comprehension. / text

This paper examines the use of humor in the foreign language classroom. Humor is an essential part of culture and a sociolinguistic phenomenon that speaks to the uniqueness of a language and culture. Thus, I argue that an application of humor as an educational objective as well as an educational strategy in the foreign language classroom is valuable in order to lower learners' anxiety and to foster language learning through an increase in culture and humor competences and critical thinking skills. First, I define humor and explore its linguistic functions as well as psychological features and effects that need to be understood to make humor an integral part of a foreign language learning setting. My theoretical research is primarily based on Raskin's Semantic Sript-based Theory of Humor and general theories of incongruity and ambiguity. I further illustrate the effects of using humor in the classroom with psychological research and Krashen's affective filter theory. I then relate the effects of humor to the National Standards of Foreign Language Learning (1996). Eventually in a case study I demonstrate how parodies, as a specific type of humor, can be implemented in the foreign language environment. This is done through the examination of the German film parody "Sieben Zwerge" and it supports my argument that humor deserves an autonomous place in foreign language education as an educational objective and strategy. Finally, I discuss pedagogical recommendations. This paper explores the opportunities and effects of an incorporation of humor in the foreign language classroom. / text

第一章導論 第二章現代學派相互依存發展緣由 第一節二次戰後國際政經體系基礎 第二節七十年代後國際政經體系變遷 第三節現實主義國際政治模式 第四節現代學派相互依存興起 第三章現代學派相互依存基本概念 第一節相互依存學說之性質與歸屬學科 第二節相互依存概念之定義 第三節相互依存形式 第四章現代學派相互依存理論主張 第一節相互依存理論模式 第二節相互依存與權力關係 第三節相互依存與國際體制關係 第四節相互依存與對外政策關係 第五章現代學派相互依存理論主張之評論 第一節相互依存的在真性 第二節相互依存的普遍性 第三節相互依存的可靠性 第六章結論 英文參考書籍 英文期刊 中文參考書目

Learners from many corners of the earth are acquiring English as a Foreign Language (EFL), lending importance to issues of language learning and its effects on global and local identities being forged in the process. As English language users, they are recipients and producers of multiple discourses around the global status of English as a foreign language, from English as linguistic, material, and symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1991) to language as commodity (Heller, 1999). Such discourses are accompanied by representations of language and culture, or imagined communities (Anderson, 1983, Norton, 2001) that represent language use and cultural representations deemed as legitimate.The purpose of this study is to triangulate three different but intersecting perspectives: that of the researcher, Mexican EFL teachers and Mexican teachers-in-training, on the imagined communities and the underlying ideological discourses of English in a global EFL textbook, as well as those held by these same teachers and teachers-in-training. Critical discourse analysis, classroom observations, in-depth interviews and language learning autobiographies provided the data for a critical assessment of the language and cultural content of the textbook and the ideologies of English.While CDA has been rightly challenged for privileging the researcher's position, this study contributes to a poststructuralist view of the participants as agents of change; they are receptors of discourses that taint their ideologies about language, but they also resist and transform them, through articulated ideas as well as through specific classroom actions that allow them to appropriate the English language, despite the textbook's systematic exclusion of speakers like them, and cultural practices like theirs.This study contributes to the growing field of critical applied linguistics, where learners are viewed as social beings in sites of struggle and with multiple and changing identities (Norton, 2000). In this vein, neutrality can no longer be accepted as a construct in textbooks or in the ELT practice, since the contained practices are subject to ideologies which must be dismantled in order to offer students and teachers more equitable representations of the English language and its speakers.

Textbooks are essential to Foreign Language (FL) curricula. They contribute to the homogenization of instruction between multiple-language courses; they provide learners with an advance organizer; they help train novice teachers, and they supply both novice and experienced instructors with a variety of resources (Allen, in press). In a context where the textbook appears to be the pillar of FL instruction, we find numerous studies about teachers' beliefs concerning FL textbooks (Ariew, 1982; Apple, 1986; Menke, 1994; Graden, 1996; Richards & Mahoney, 1996; Masuhara, 1998; Bancheri, 2006); however, there are very few studies on students' self-perceived needs (Jan & Glenn, 1984), and equally few on both teachers' and students' perspectives on language teaching materials (Donovan, 1998). Thus, the goal of this study is to examine both students' and teachers' views of FL textbooks in light of current Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theory. In so doing, this project addresses three research questions: 1) what role should authenticity of the L2, target culture, and tasks play in language teaching materials?, 2) what place should grammar take in FL textbooks?, and 3) what part should technology play in language teaching materials? 48 French teachers and 1023 learners from four major North-American universities were surveyed using an online questionnaire containing not only closed-response questions rated on a four point Likert-type scale but also open-ended questions. This mixed-design methodology allowed the researcher to draw tentative conclusions on how to reconcile language teaching materials design with SLA research, teachers' beliefs and students' self-perceived needs. Practical implications for language teacher training programs and FL textbook development are offered.

Each year a group of university students from English speaking countries go to Chile and work as volunteers under the National Volunteer Centre Program. The purpose of this case study is to examine how a group of novice volunteer teachers describe their experiences in a foreign country and how these experiences shape their understanding of teaching. Participants went through the process of open-ended questionnaires and one-on-one interviews of their experience. This study was sustained in the literature by the domains of volunteerism, English Language Teaching, and volunteerism and ELT, and a socio constructivist and experiential lens was adopted. Even though volunteer teaching abroad is an increasing worldwide trend, there are few studies that combine these areas, showing that the existing blend of volunteerism and English language teaching needs to be further examined. The analysis of the data showed that novice volunteer teachers experience five types of experiences when teaching English: language teaching experiences, language learning experiences, challenges, general experiences, and volunteering experiences. Novice teachers recalled their expectations before teaching and those were maintained, modified, or unfulfilled. Volunteers stated what teaching means to them after working in public schools, they were able to describe diverse language teaching experiences, and make recommendations to future volunteers.

The self, the self-concept and identity are contested areas in various domains of enquiry. In cognitive psychology, the self is seen as a powerful explanatory construct. Indeed, in the education context, self-concept has been associated with achievement and motivation, though sociocultural approaches have highlighted the failure of certain schools of thought to take account of contextual and relational self processes. Nonetheless, despite the importance of the concept of self for learning, it has only fairly recently become of significant interest in the field of second or foreign language learning (L2). This longitudinal study focuses on the nature of, and changes in, students’ L2 reading self-concepts. In order to navigate the complexity of the theoretical issues surrounding the self construct, the approach of Rom Harré (1998) was adopted in which the self is seen as a frame for the discourse of personal attributes, reflexive self-beliefs and action. This perspective underpinned a mixed methods approach to enquiry with a group of international students taking a nine-month business pre-masters pathway programme. Based on the work of Pollard and Filer (1996), a framework for the narrative description of L2 reading self-concept was devised which provided a broad account of self-views of L2 reading, showing how these are linked in important ways to personal histories and the situational context. It was found that perception of competence was the main area of L2 reading self-concept change. Findings also included the importance of competence perceptions and the role of language knowledge in distinguishing L2 reading self-views. It is hoped that the model of L2 reading self-concept developed will enhance understanding of students’ experience of reading and learning through a second or foreign language. This should enable educators to support students more effectively, especially in international education contexts in which students study through another language. Areas for further research into L2 reading self-views in this type of context are suggested.