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AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF ANGEL MARIA DAVILA, for the Master of Arts degree in TESOL and Applied Linguistics, presented on February 21, 2013, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: SPANISH SPEAKERS' READING PRODUCTION OF ENGLISH PAST TENSE INFLECTIONAL MORPHEME -ed MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Krassimira Charkova The main purpose of the present study was to examine if the accurate pronunciation of the three allomorphs of the -ed ending improves with the level of English proficiency in Nicaraguan Spanish EFL learners' read aloud production. There were 48 participants. They belonged to three English proficiency levels: high beginners, intermediate and high intermediate. Each level consisted of 16 informants, with the same number of women and men. The research instrument included a list of 44 regular past tense verbs to measure the three phonological realizations of the -ed inflectional morpheme. The results revealed that the effect of proficiency level was different for the three allomorphs. It was found that more advanced EFL Spanish learners had a significantly higher level of accuracy on the production of two of the three allomorphs, /t/ and /d/. In fact, their error rate on these two allomorphs was as low as 9% and 8%, respectively. In the case of the /əd, ɪd/ allomorph, no significant differences were found among proficiency levels. Moreover, this allomorph showed the lowest rate of errors overall. These results were interpreted in view of the Markedness Differential Hypothesis (Eckman, 1977) and the Similarity Differential Rate Hypothesis (Major & Kim, 1996). The trends in the data definitely suggested support for Similarity Differential Rate Hypothesis which postulates that markedness by itself cannot explain the development of L2 learners as they improve their L2 level of proficiency. In the context of the present study, this was evident in the significantly better performance of the most advanced group which showed the highest rate of accuracy on the more marked allomorphs /t/ and /d/. In view of these findings, the study offers implications for the teaching of the three phonological realizations of the -ed past tense inflection. Keywords: allomorph, inflectional morpheme, proficiency level

In this study, 85 students registered in a biochemistry course were administered a survey of science engagement modeled after the High School Survey of School Engagement (HSSSE), created by the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy. The survey, Postsecondary Survey of Science Engagement – High School Version (PSSSE-HSV), was used to measure the participants’ recall of science engagement from grades 7-12 and the perception of support from school leadership. Additionally, participants provided a 400-500 words statement detailing their current work and future careers in science or science related fields. This study examines the proficiency of writing samples as an outcome of science engagement. A qualitative data analysis of writing samples and a constructed response item on the PSSSE-HSV investigates the outcome of complex human-environment interactions. The results showed that human-environment interactions are a significant aspect of science engagement, learning outcomes, and career choice.

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This study investigates the relationship between nonnative English speaker (NNES) proficiency level and native English speaker (NES) level of comfort interacting with NNES. The purpose of this study was to discover at what proficiency level NESs feel comfortable interacting with NNES. This study also looked at how communicative task and NES demographic variables affected the proficiency expectations NNESs have for NESs. Participants included 120 NESs and 7 NNESs. The NESs listened to sound clips from the 7 NNESs and rated how comfortable they would feel (on a scale of 0-10, 10 indicating very comfortable) interacting with the speaker in a variety of communication tasks. Listeners rated intermediate and advanced level speakers significantly higher than the novice speakers. Additionally, there was not a significant difference between mean ratings for the intermediate and advanced speakers. Communication task was revealed as having a significant main effect on task. Listeners rated that they would feel least comfortable communicating with the speakers over the phone while discussing a customer service issue. They also indicated that they would feel least comfortable interacting with the speakers if they were their boss. Listener demographic variables did not have a significant main effect on overall ratings, but were significant for some tasks when task was analyzed individually. Specifically, age and frequency of interaction with NNES had an effect on some tasks; however the reliability of this result is affected by sample size. These results suggest a threshold relationship between NES comfort ratings and speaker proficiency level. Additionally, the data suggests that task may be more important than proficiency level in some interactions. A larger sample is needed to better understand the role NES demographic variables may play in level of comfort during NES and NNES interaction.

Research shows that oral proficiency is a big part of communicative competence, and therefore highly relevant for EFL teachers in today’s society. This study aims to investigate what types of activities four EFL teachers in secondary school in Sweden prefer to use in order to practice and assess their students’ oral proficiency. This study further seeks to give an insight in what the four teachers focus on when assessing their students’ oral proficiency. The method used for this study was qualitative, semi- structured interviews with four EFL teachers of different secondary schools in south of Sweden. Furthermore, the data was later coded and analysed with inspiration of the Grounded theory methodology. The results of this study showed that the four teachers used different oral activities very often in their teaching, especially different kinds of discussions. The oral activities were often connected to other projects and assignments that included other skills such as reading and writing. Therefore, the oral proficiency activities were only said to be clearly planned and assessed once or twice per term. Moreover, the four teachers main focus when assessing the students’ oral proficiency seemed to be phenomena like fluency, clearness, adaption to purpose and strategy- usage.

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Based on the review of literature, it has been demonstrated that anxiety has some detrimental effects on the short-term memory functions of the college student. In order to improve the experimental methodology, the present study combined Type I and Type II studies of short-term memory as a function of anxiety. The two were combined so that the major criticisms in each study were controlled.

Work title: Conception of a new Kickboxing examination code for testing technical skills up to 1st Dan. The goal of this work: The primary goal of my master's paper is to break the current and past Czech kickboxing examination system down to the individual levels of technical skills and examine each of them. Further, it is my aim to propose and develop a detailed conception of new examination code from 7th Kyu to 1st Dan. Methods: I carried out a content analysis of the current and past examination code for testing technical skills in the Czech Republic and compared those with examination codes from abroad. I consulted the proposed new conception of the examination code with professional specialists. Based on their advice and based on information sourced from various publications I developed the detailed new conception. Results: A new examination code with well arranged overview of the required technical skills of a kickboxer for each level of the downwardly system of kickboxer's technical proficiency is the output of my work. Key words: Technique, technical proficiency, kickboxer .

Student Number : 0302922V - MSc research report - School of Education - Faculty of Science / The difficulty of teaching and learning mathematics in a language that is not the learners' home language (e.g. English) is well documented. It can be argued that underachievement by South African learners in most rural schools is due to a lack of opportunity to participate in meaningful and challenging learning experience (sometimes due to lack of proficiency in English) rather than to a lack of ability or potential. This study investigated how improvement of learners' English language proficiency enables or constrains the development of mathematical proficiency. English Computer software was used as intervention to improve the English Language proficiency of 45 learners. Statistical methods were used to analyse the pre- and post-tests in order to compare these learners with learners from another class of 48. The classroom interaction in the mathematics class before and after the intervention was analysed in order to ascertain whether or not the mathematics interaction has been enabled or constrained. The findings of this study were that proficiency in the language of instruction (English) is an important index in mathematics proficiency, but improvement of learners' language proficiency, even though important for achievement in mathematics, may not be sufficient to impact on classroom interaction. The teacher's ability to draw on learner's linguistic resources is also of critical importance.