This case study aims to investigate the relationship between the online reading group meetings (ORG) and reading difficulties among upper-level learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL learners). Based on Bernhardt’s constructivist model of L2 reading (1986, 1991) and sociocultural perspectives, this study attempts to answer two research questions: 1. What reading difficulties upper-level CFL learners encountered when they read in Chinese? 2. What components in the online reading group meetings helped upper-level CFL learners to cope with their reading difficulties? How did the components help? Seven Fourth-Year Chinese learners at a university in the United States participated in this study and attended the ORG meetings throughout a semester to discuss five assigned readings. Qualitative research methods were used to collect and analyze the data. The data sources of this study included pre- and post-ORG questionnaires, pre- and post-meeting comprehension checks, pre- and post-meeting self-reports, recordings of the online reading group meetings, and semi-structured interviews. The findings showed a complicated and interactive relationship of the six components in Bernhardt’s model when it came to reading difficulties among upper-level CFL learners. Even though the participants identified word recognition as one of their top reading difficulties when reading in Chinese, the findings showed that extra-text driven components, especially intratextual perceptions and prior knowledge, played an important role in determining the participants’ reading comprehension. Being able to constantly monitor what they learned from each paragraph and which prior knowledge they applied to the reading was found to be a key to improving their reading comprehension. The findings also found reflexivity in dialogic collaboration, especially when the ORG meetings created opportunities for the participants to improve their reading comprehension via peer-to-peer interaction. The patterns of peer-mediated learning included giving corrective feedback, negotiating meaning, learning from listening, strategy coaching, and using English strategically. Whereas the instructor as a facilitator was regarded important to provide timely feedback and facilitate the discussion, the findings suggested that a peer-led group discussion was possible for upper-level CFL learners once they built up their confidence in offering help to their peers. Even though the component of the role assignment seemed to be beneficial for the participants to cope with their reading difficulties in the ORG meetings, the participants did not perceive each role equally helpful nor easy due to various reasons. The study concluded with a discussion of the implications for CFL education, teacher education programs and future research.

In the decades following the Stonewall riots in New York, there has been an increasingly public acceptance and normalization of LGBTQ identities. In some spaces, however, like public schools, LGBTQ identities continue to be contested and positioned as problematic, creating challenges for teachers who seek to create safe and affirming spaces within the classroom and the curriculum. This study using a narrative inquiry methodology, examines the stories of seven teachers of foreign languages at the high school level as they seek to make sense of their work as it relates to LGBTQ identities. This research study using narrative inquiry methods describes the experiences of seven teachers of foreign language as they make sense of and negotiate LGBTQ identities in the context of their work as foreign language teachers. The teachers describe how and when LGBTQ identities manifest in their instruction, their knowledge base of LGBTQ identities, ways in which they address sex and gender normative practices and behaviors in their classrooms, and supports and barriers available to them as they work to create curriculum and classroom spaces that are inclusive of LGBTQ identities. The findings of this study address the unique ways in which foreign language teaching presents a unique site of study of the target language and culture, including LGBTQ identities that are present within those target languages and cultures and within the classroom environment. Teachers described barriers, like language proficiency, administration, perceived surveillance, and lack of materials as challenges to enacting LGBTQ inclusive teaching practices. They cited supports like colleagues, professional learning communities and opportunities to engage with one another on challenging topics, as well as the nature of foreign language teaching as beneficial in their work.

This study aims to study how teachers of English, in years 7-9 focus on various language skills in their lessons. To do this it is necessary to answer several questions. The first question is what language skills are the most important, according to research and steering documents. The second question is what language skills the teachers see as the most important and whether these are the same skills that they focus their teaching on. The third question is what reason the teachers have to focus on certain language skills. The fourth question is what methods the teachers use to teach these language skills. These questions are answered through theories of English foreign language teaching, especially the communicative approach. Previous research shows that all skills are important for English language proficiency. However, the results from the interviews show that the teachers tend to focus on reading, writing and to a lesser extent listening. This is according to the teachers because it is the skills that the students are least proficient in. Furthermore, there are several methods presented that explain how certain language skills may be taught. The language skills studied are reading, writing, speaking and listening. The results have been reached through semi-structured qualitative interviews with teachers working at a single school. The teachers’ answers, together with the theoretical background, have given several results. A result that emerged in this study was that there is a dissonance between what language skills teachers consider the most important and what language skills they teach in their classrooms.

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore the relationship between autonomy, student-instructor dialogue, and student satisfaction within a web-based distance Russian language course. Forty six (46) students from two US higher education institutions participated in this study. Using an Exploratory Model with the elements of an Explanatory Model (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007), the qualitative and quantitative data were collected at the middle and at the end of the course to provide thorough investigation of the three variables, to reveal their interactions with each other, and to discover whether these variables and their relationship change over time. Qualitative data were used to explore the aforementioned constructs, and to enhance the instrument tested in the subsequent quantitative phase. An additional quantitative phase at the end of the course, and follow-up qualitative interviews were provided to discover the changes that occurred in the main variables and in their relationships throughout the course. Content analysis was utilized for the interviews, while reliability (Cronbach alpha) analysis, correlational analysis, t-test, and non-parametric Wilcoxon and sign test were used for the data analysis of the surveys. Findings revealed that autonomy, dialogue, and satisfaction have significant correlation at the beginning and the middle point of the course. All three variables grew throughout the course, however the relationships among them significantly decreased towards the end of the course. The conclusions include suggestions and implications for teachers, students, and course developers.

The general aim of this study is to better understand aspects of using reference tools for writing and to identify technologies that can assist foreign language writers. The specific purpose of this study is to look closely at how English as a Second Language (ESL) students from Korea use a corpus as a reference tool in conjunction with dictionaries when paraphrasing English newspaper articles. The participants were Korean graduate students with advanced English proficiency (N=10). Their task was to paraphrase an English newspaper article. The results show that purposes for using a concordancing program include collocations, definitions, context, and parts of speech. The subjects looked for a variety of information in a concordancing program, including prepositions, authentic samples, and the context in which the search terms were used. Reasons for using dictionaries include definitions, parts of speech, and sample sentences. The most common strategy was to combine reference tools, while the second most common was to use a specific search word. Subjects who used more than one tool for a search or performed multiple searches were more successful in finding what they were looking for. A concordancing program enabled users to see multiple examples of everyday language use. By using the concordancing program, learners were able to see words that were used most frequently, their patterns, and collocations. Learners took more responsibility for their language learning, as they became researchers in their own right. They gained confidence as L2 writers as they had inside access to linguistic resources. The subjects became more independent and were able to solve their own writing and linguistic problems as they became more aware through the use of authentic texts. In this study, the subjects found the corpora to be useful for sentence-level composition and revision. Overall, the use of reference tools led to an improvement in the accuracy of writing. A concordancing program played an important role in defining the structure and context of English phrases and sentences.

There is an increasing number of International Baccalaureate programs in the United States that require instruction in an additional language to prepare culturally responsive global citizens, but there is little research on how the teaching of culture is addressed in elementary additional language programs. This study was guided by Vygotsky's and Dewey's social constructivism and investigated how the teaching of culture is integrated in additional foreign language classrooms in the State of Georgia's International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programs (IB PYP). It also investigated how personal, professional, or organizational factors such as values, beliefs, teacher training, or time constraints impact the integration of culture and language. This qualitative multiple-case comparative study examined the experiences of 3 teachers in Georgia who taught in K-5 additional language classrooms, using curriculum maps, student work samples, lesson plans, and semi-structured interviews as the data sources. Data were analyzed using Atlas.ti software and coded using constant comparative methods; the inductive qualitative content analysis included open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. The study findings showed that a variety of factors impacted program goals including the attitudes of school community, teacher isolation, philosophy, Georgia Standards, and practices of the IB PYP. Findings are applicable to additional language teachers for further discussion on the current state of elementary language programs in Georgia's IB PYP and for informing choices on program design. This study contributes to social change by expanding the body of professional literature in the field of foreign language education and on the issues that affect teachers in additional language classrooms in the IB PYP.

This study was carried out in a secondary school in Sweden and was written by one student becoming a teacher of English. The aim of this thesis is to find out how well the flipped classroom method would work in an English class in Sweden and what one needs to bear in mind when implementing the method. The following research questions guided this thesis: How did the students and teacher experience the flipped classroom as a teaching approach? What elements are important to bear in mind when implementing the flipped classroom? The main findings of this study showed that both the students and the teacher were positive towards implementing some aspects of the flipped classroom such as using video clips, as it was more student-centred and provided more variety to their English classes. Furthermore, this thesis, as well as previous studies, highlights certain aspects one needs to bear in mind when implementing the flipped classroom. Firstly, finding suitable materials is very time consuming initially when one either records or searches for suitable materials to flip that are well-adjusted to the students’ level. Secondly, one needs to understand that homework is essential for the method and one needs routines to make it efficient. Lastly, the essence of the flipped classroom is to free more time in the classroom. Therefore, one needs to construct a well-planned follow-up lesson in order to help the students’ process as to what they learn at a deeper level.

The Spanish subjunctive has been the focus of much SLA research, largely because it poses difficulties for learners of Spanish whose L1 is English (e.g., Collentine, 1993; Stokes & Krashen, 1990; Terrell et al., 1987). Investigating the same feature in heritage learners of Spanish can provide more information about their linguistic development and also has the potential to inform our knowledge of the acquisition of the subjunctive in traditional FL learners. The present study investigates whether heritage learners recognize grammatical and ungrammatical modal choice in volitional constructions. These constructions have been selected because this use of the subjunctive does not vary by a speaker's dialect or by belief about the idea being expressed. Furthermore, given that theories of language attrition posit that the structures that are acquired earliest are the last to be lost (e.g., De Bot & Weltens, 1991) and that Spanish monolingual children acquire the subjunctive in volitional constructions first (Blake, 1980; 1983), heritage learners who have experienced some language attrition may still have knowledge of this feature. To investigate the effect that language attrition or incomplete acquisition may have on this knowledge, I also compared the SHL learners in the sample who were early bilinguals in English (those born in the United States or who immigrated before age 6) with those who were late bilingual (those who immigrated between ages 6 and 13). Students enrolled in Spanish for Heritage Learners (SHL) and Spanish as a Foreign Language (SFL) courses at three universities in the Northeast completed grammaticality judgment (GJ) and editing tasks, which contained examples of correct and incorrect mood choices, as well as distracter items. The GJ task also required participants to explain their judgments. The results indicate that SHL learners outperform their SFL peers on recognizing correct mood selection. No significant differences were found between early and late bilinguals. SHL and SFL learners tended to correct utterances that they had rejected of judged neutrally but gave different types of reasons for accepting utterances. There were several similarities between early and late bilinguals in terms of their reasons for their judgments of utterances.

Each day, foreign language teachers are faced with issues that render the control of the K-12 classroom challenging, at best, and virtually impossible at worst. Even preservice foreign language teachers, those going through a teacher education program towards K-12 licensure, understand that no content can be taught or learned if there is mayhem in the classroom environment. Effective classroom management practices are often what consume these teachers' time and energy, even before the first page of the textbook is turned. However, it would be an error to over-generalize foreign language teachers' challenges with classroom management in an effort to introduce possible solutions without first considering the uniqueness of this particular teaching and learning environment. It was the researcher's contention that the foreign language classroom is unlike any other, and thus thrusts its teachers, both preservice and in-service, into management situations that are rare or non-existent in the classrooms of other subject areas. The purpose of this longitudinal study, therefore, was to describe five foreign language teachers' experiences with classroom management and to identify the distinct issues they have faced, both during their student teaching semester and currently as in-service teachers. The data gathered from the five subjects' weekly reflective journals and teaching philosophies, their observations of other classrooms, responses to a questionnaire, interviews, and observational field notes were analyzed qualitatively using a case study approach. The study confirmed that these foreign language teachers often contended with issues that were exclusive to their teaching field. Target language usage, the systemic lack of respect for the study of foreign language, and the inclusion of students who were heritage speakers of the language being taught were among the issues most commonly cited by these five teachers, and were shown to have a significant impact on student behavior, motivation, and attitude. Many teacher education programs already offer courses that explicitly present appropriate classroom management strategies. However, data from this study suggest that a further breakdown of how foreign language classroom management may differ from other subject areas may ultimately enable foreign language teacher educators to better prepare and better support both their preservice and in-service teachers.

Résumé Cette étude s’intéresse aux influences de la langue maternelle (l’arabe), sur l’apprentissage du français chez les apprenants libyens dans un milieu institutionnel : le département de français à l’université de Benghazi et de Tripoli en Libye. Elle se penche sur les erreurs morphosyntaxiques en productions écrites que commettent les apprenants libyens en français langue étrangère, et sur les difficultés interlinguales dont souffrent ces apprenants. L’objectif de cette étude, c’est d’identifier et de classer les erreurs commises par les étudiants libyens dans leurs productions écrites, puis d’étudier et d’analyser les causes de celles-ci, afin de chercher des procédures pour les corriger. Elle vise à amener une réflexion sur l’enseignement de la langue française en Libye et sur les possibilités d’améliorer quelques-unes des démarches d’enseignement utilisées au sein de ces départements de français. Elle vise aussi à proposer une analyse des différents aspects de l’enseignement du français langue étrangère qui peuvent être transposés dans le cadre libyen, à proposer des idées pédagogiques, et à aborder enfin les différentes théories en relation avec cet enseignement. Pour atteindre ces objectifs, nous avons tout d’abord retracé l’évolution de l’enseignement de la langue française en Libye. Ensuite, nous avons abordé quelques notions ayant une importance remarquable dans notre travail d’étude. Nous avons abordé dans un second temps différents points de vue concernant certaines études réalisées en apprentissage (ou acquisition) d’une langue étrangère. Par la suite, nous avons examiné les fonctionnements morphosyntaxiques opératoires de certains constituants des phrases en arabe en comparant avec le français. Nous avons présenté notre corpus, les modalités de classements et certaines des erreurs relevées dans les copies des apprenants. Enfin, et grâce aux résultats livrés par cette analyse, nous avons été amené à présenter quelques perspectives et propositions didactiques qui peuvent être utiles à l’enseignement de la langue française en Libye, et à ouvrir des possibilités pour l’amélioration des démarches d’enseignement utilisées dans ce pays. / Abstract This study investigates the influence of native language (Arabic) on the learning of French among Libyan learners in an institutional setting : the French department at the University of Benghazi and Tripoli in Libya. It examines the morphosyntactic errors the learners commit in their written productions, and the interlingual difficulties they face. The purpose of this study is to identify and classify those errors, and to investigate their causes so as to offer procedures to correct them. The study aims to bring a reflection on the teaching of French in Libya and the opportunities to improve some of the teaching approaches that are used in the departments of French language. It also aims to discuss or present a number of strategies in teaching French as a foreign language that could be implemented in the Libyan context, and to address various theories linked to this teaching. To achieve these goals, we first traced the evolution of the teaching of French language in Libya. Then we discussed a number of concepts of major significance for our study. We discussed in a second time different views on certain studies in learning (or acquisition) of a foreign language. Next, we examined the morphosyntactic characteristics of some linguistic features of Arabic in comparison with French. We presented our corpus, our ranking methods, and the errors identified in the learners’ submissions. Following the conclusions drawn from the latter analysis, we presented some didactic strategies that may be useful for the teaching of French language in Libya or that may add new perspectives to existing approaches.