Due in large part to their open access and affordability, community colleges have long played a central role in providing students with immigrant backgrounds who are English language learners (ELLs) with access to postsecondary education. Researchers have noted that English as a second language (ESL) courses have been the primary form of support provided by institutions to foster the college persistence and success of ELLs. Nevertheless, despite their importance, little is known about the extent to which participants who engage in postsecondary ESL programs are likely to succeed in college. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze quantitative administrative data and use qualitative data to examine how ELLs seeking postsecondary education acquire the knowledge, skills, and abilities they need to be successful in college programs. It does so by exploring the role of two ESL pathways at a Large Urban Community College System (LUCCS): (1) the English Language Immersion Program (ELIP) and (2) the traditional ESL sequence. In the quantitative phase of the study, I use a propensity score matching approach together with a large administrative dataset to examine the effects of ESL pathways on ELLs college English enrollment and performance, credit accumulation, and college progression and degree outcomes. I find no evidence that participation in ELIP versus traditional ESL leads to significant impacts on college English enrollment and performance within three and five years. I also find consistent evidence that students who participate in ELIP versus traditional ESL earn fewer college level credits, but they also earn significantly fewer equated credits over three and five years--suggesting they spend less time on remedial coursework. Results also indicate that ELIP participants are more likely to persist and less likely to drop out, but there is no effect on graduation and/or transfer within three and five years. Finally, results indicate that males, younger students (age 23 and younger), and foreign-born, U.S. educated (generation 1.5) students experience less negative impacts on college credits and more positive impacts on several of the longer term outcomes. Next, qualitative methods were used to help explain the quantitative results. In particular, interviews and focus groups were conducted to explore with program instructors, staff, and students' their perceptions of their engagement in ELIP and traditional ESL and its respective role in students' success in college programs. Findings suggest that null impacts on college English enrollment and performance could be explained by the finding that both ESL pathways emphasize the acquisition similar skills and employ parallel instructional approaches to help students acquire these skills. Findings also suggest that negative impacts on college credit completion may be due to the programs' respective college enrollment experience. The structure and length of the traditional ESL sequence helps explain negative results for equated credits. Differences in persistence and drop out as well as differences for subgroups are found to be partially explained by the activities and interactions that are fostered by a high intensity program. This study provides suggestive evidence that the ESL pathway taken by degree-seeking students at LUCCS has important implications for their college outcomes. It also suggests that there exist heterogeneous impacts by gender, age, and immigrant status. ESL program staff and college administrators can use these findings to explore strategies that will better support ELL student success.

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The purpose of this qualitative research is to determine the factors involved in adult language learners’ success or lack of success in the private sector in Beijing, and why learners have chosen to voluntarily sign up to learn English as adults. To be specific, I wanted to find out why some learners are more successful than others when all have started learning English at beginner level and under the same context for a period of 9 months to 2 years. A total of six students in Aspire English (AE), a language training school in Beijing, took part in this small scale study. The six learners were interviewed on aspects such as motivation to learn English, reasons for learning English and for choosing AE, language learning strategies and previous learning experiences. Four AE teachers were also consulted to further ensure participants were placed accordingly to the two groups of learners – successful language learners and less successful language learners. The overall results of this study showed that students had negative learning experience when learning English in formal schools. Also, it was found that adult learners would most likely succeed in language learning in the private sector context of they were learning English as a way to obtain symbolic resource and not material resource. This means that learners were learning the language in order to gain a sense of belonging to the target language community, and not as a way to gain capital. Furthermore, learners who were integratively motivated, who used a wider variety of learning strategies along with out-of-class socializing with members in the target language community were also more successful that their peers. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

abstract / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Based on the Theory of Contrastive Analysis and Inter-language Theory, this paper investigates the common initial errors of Korean fundamental Chinese learners in different groups. The data were analyzed by listening to it and were described with IPA. 7 initial errors were found in this paper, such as a) errors of recognizing and pronouncing “b” and “p”; b) errors of “z/c/s” and “zh/ch/sh” c) errors in pronouncing “r” and so on. In order to avoid contributing all the errors to the impact of first language transfer, the students were chosen with 3 different nationalities, including Korean, Pakistani and Brazilian. The participants are all at the same age without any experience of learning a third language. This research analyzed the errors’ reasons in terms of interlanguage transfer, intralingual transfer, students’ learning attitudes and the impact of target language. Softwares called Praat and Cooledit were used to analyze the data. The reasons were analyzed with the help of the format, burst and VOT of the spectrograms. The results indicated that some errors made by all the students from different countries are due to the difficulties of the target language. As for these mistakes, even some native speakers may make them in their daily life. The reasons for these errors can be traced back to the target language itself, rather than relating them to the negative transfer of the first language. At last, some useful pedagogical recommendations were mentioned to facilitate the Chinese language education. 本文以对比分析理论与中介语理论为理论基础，以调查分析法为研究方法对 韩国初级汉语学习者的汉语声母偏误进行了分组对比研究。语音资料以由经过专 业训练的母语者听辨的方式进行统计，并得出韩国学生声母偏误共7 个，例如： 送气音与不送气音混淆；舌尖前音与舌尖后音混淆；舌尖后浊擦音闪音化，舌面 音尖音化等。 为了避开当前研究将偏误原因完全归结于母语负迁移的错误，笔者通过对比韩国、巴基斯坦、巴西三类同等水平、无第三外语、年龄相同的汉语学习者的不同偏误情况，对偏误产生原因进行了细致分析。本文从语际迁移、语内迁移、学习者学习态度和目的语语言本体角度；以Praat、Cooledit 等语音软件为分析手段；通过观察共振峰、冲直条、嗓音起始时间等元素来分析韩国初级汉语学习者声母偏误产生的原因。 经过分析，本文得出结论：即某些所有国家学生都出现发音偏误的声母，其自身都有相当的难度，母语学习者在学习的时候也会出现种种错误。这种情况下，偏误则是由目的语本身的难度等级影响而来。母语负迁移只是影响了学生声母偏误的形式。另外，笔者还针对韩国学生出现的不同偏误提出了针对性的教学方法，希望可以对对韩汉语声母教学方面有所启示。 / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

This dissertation consists of two studies which addressed the issue of teaching young Chinese Language Learners (CLLs) to learn Chinese and their language teacher’s culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy. Young CLLs in Hong Kong mainly came from ethnic minorities of South Asia, the differences between language systems and complicated home languages imposed challenges on their Chinese learning. Frontline Chinese language teachers often encounter difficulties in teaching due to inadequate training about the learning needs of young CLLs and effective pedagogies. Teacher’s self-efficacy has a significant impact on students’ academic performance and engagement of students from diverse background. In order to facilitate both learning and teaching of Chinese as a second language (L2), this study explored teacher’s culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy (CRTSE) through a mixed methods research. Study I addressed this issue by developing and validating the Chinese Culturally Responsive Teaching Self-Efficacy (CRTSE) Scale for the language teachers teaching Chinese as a L2 in Hong Kong. A total number of 128 Chinese language teachers were recruited for the validation of scale. Through the Exploratory Factor Analysis, a 5-factor solution with Varimax Rotation was adopted with consent by the expert panel. The 5-factor structure of the scale included Teaching to accommodate diversity, Awareness of cultural difference, Development of positive and trusting relationship, Communication with parents and School-based curriculum development. The study will shed light on the in-depth investigation on teacher’s enhancement of CRTSE in Study II. Quantitative analysis on scores obtained from 166 Chinese language teachers revealed the current phenomenon faced by frontline teachers in Hong Kong. As captured by the scale, teachers scored the lowest on Factor 2, Awareness of cultural difference (Mean= 48.98; S.D.=18.87), and the highest on Factor 3, Development of positive and trusting relationship (Mean= 68.90; S.D.=11.90). The mean of total score among participants in the study (Mean=63.78; S.D.=11.69) was found to be lower than that obtained in Siwatu’s study (Mean=84.05; S.D.=8.55) in 2007. In Study II, teacher’s development and enhancement on the CRTSE were explored through Learning Study which is a classroom-based research using the phenomenographic approach and the Variation Theory. Measured by the Chinese CRTSE Scale and the Structured Test, both teachers and young CLLs showed improvement on their teaching and learning after the Learning Study. Qualitative analysis revealed how Variation Theory facilitated teacher’s development of effective pedagogies with variations in language and culture. The mastery and vicarious experience facilitated teacher’s development of awareness and accommodation of teaching towards cultural diversity. The collaborative nature of Learning Study also fostered teacher’s self-reflection and assimilation of cultural diversity into the school-based curriculum. How teacher’s development of awareness, accommodation and assimilation towards cultural diversity nurtured through the two years made contribution to their development of cultural responsiveness were examined. This study is a pioneering research on the enhancement of teacher’s CRTSE through Learning Study. Learning Study is proven a powerful intervention enhancing both learning and teaching of Chinese as a L2. This professional development model could make an impact on culturally diverse classrooms. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy