<p> The increased number of English language learners (ELLs) presents a difficult task for middle school building principals. The challenge of ensuring the success of ELLs in future years will force schools to rethink educational practices. This study focused on how middle school building principals strategically planned, organized, and managed their schools to meet the needs of ELLs. The phenomenological study was based on the growing student population of English as a second language (ESL) in school districts in Eastern New York. Ten principals were interviewed and a triangulation of data was achieved through observation and collection of documents. The researcher found through bridging that middle school principals engaged in relationship building with parents, students, teachers, and community to create a sense of belonging in the school. As a result, principals are encouraged to provide professional opportunities for the faculty to become certified ESL teachers, accessible to community members, bilingual, and engaged in community building.</p>

<p>This study investigates features of high-level academic writing in English with the aim of understanding the development of L2 English learners&rsquo; academic writing skills as they follow a course of study in an English-speaking country. The study focuses on L2 writers&rsquo; text quality and use of clause subordinators as a measure of writing complexity. The typology of the writers&rsquo; L1s provides the organizational framework for the study, with three language typology groupings determined by a writer&rsquo;s L1 word order tendency: (1) configurational languages, (2) nonconfigurational languages, and (3) Asian languages. </p><p> The corpus analyzed included written work collected at the beginning, the middle, and the end of a semester from 19 international graduate-level students enrolled in a semester-long academic writing course specifically for international students. The principal features examined in the corpus of texts collected were writers&rsquo; use and frequency of subordinators, and text comprehensibility. To provide a comparative reference for the academic writing course findings, a separate dataset composed of 240 TOEFL^&reg;iBT independent essays was also examined for evidence of similar features. </p><p> The results revealed that (1) writers from configurationally different L1s write texts in English that are significantly different in quality and complexity, and; (2) the analysis of the significant differences between groups&mdash;sentence length, sentence complexity, comprehensibility, total subordinator frequency, and specific subordinator usage&mdash;shows the groups are distinct in their text construction and use of subordination, and that the configurational group&rsquo;s texts are most different from other groups. Writers&rsquo; self-reflections on the progression of their writing skills during the study abroad context add insights to the quantitative findings. The study&rsquo;s findings suggest directions for future research in L2 writing development, inform EFL pedagogy and L2 English learners&rsquo; preparation for study abroad, and underscore the importance of colleges and universities providing comprehensive writing support to incoming international students. </p>

<p> Adult second language (L2) learners often experience difficulty producing and perceiving non-native phonological contrasts. Even highly proficient bilinguals, who have been exposed to an L2 for long periods of time, struggle with difficult contrasts, such as /r/-/l/ for Japanese learners of English. To account for the relative ease or difficulty with which L2 learners perceive and acquire non-native contrasts, theories of (L2) speech perception often appeal to notions of similarity. But how is similarity best determined?</p><p> In this dissertation I explored the predictions of two theoretical approaches to similarity comparison in the second language, and asked: [1] How should L2 sound similarity be measured? [2] What is the nature of the representations that guide sound similarity? [3] To what extent can the influence of the native language be overcome?</p><p> In Chapter 2, I tested a `legos' (featural) approach to sound similarity. Given a distinctive feature analysis of Spanish and English vowels, I investigated the hypothesis that feature availability in the L1 grammar constrains which target language segments will be accurately perceived and acquired by L2 learners (Brown [1998], Brown [2000]). Our results suggest that second language acquisition of phonology is not limited by the phonological features used by the native language grammar, nor is the presence/use of a particular phonological feature in the native language grammar sufficient to trigger redeployment. I take these findings to imply that feature availability is neither a necessary, nor a sufficient condition to predict learning outcomes.</p><p> In Chapter 3, I extended a computational model proposed by Feldman et al. [2009] to nonnative speech perception, in order to investigate whether a sophisticated `rulers' (spatial) approach to sound similarity can better explain existing interlingual identification and discrimination data from Spanish monolinguals and advanced L1 Spanish late-learners of English, respectively. The model assumes that acoustic distributions of sounds control listeners' ability to discriminate a given contrast. I found that, while the model succeeded in emulating certain aspects of human behavior, the model at present is incomplete and would have to be extended in various ways to capture several aspects of nonnative and L2 speech perception.</p><p> In Chapter 4 I explored whether the phonological relatedness among sounds in the listeners native language impacts the perceived similarity of those sounds in the target language. Listeners were expected to be more sensitive to the contrast between sound pairs which are allophones of different phonemes than to sound pairs which are allophones of the same phoneme in their native language. Moreover, I hypothesized that L2 learners would experience difficulty perceiving and acquiring target language contrasts between sound pairs which are allophones of the same phoneme in their native language. Our results suggest that phonological relatedness may influence perceived similarity on some tasks, but does not seem to cause long-lasting perceptual difficulty in advanced L2 learners.</p><p> On the basis of those findings, I argue that existing models have not been adequately explicit about the nature of the representations and processes involved in similarity-based comparisons of L1 and L2 sounds. More generally, I describe what I see as a desirable target for an explanatorily adequate theory of cross-language influence in L2 phonology.</p>

<p>Since economic reform started in China in 1978, the educational objectives for English language teaching have undergone many changes. In secondary school, reading and writing abilities have become increasingly important, not only in assisting students to study and work in English language contexts, but also in setting up the foundation for further English learning at university level. Thus, new materials have been devised and new teaching methods have been used. However, in practice, the English reading skills of many learners do not seem to have improved and learners have difficulty in achieving the syllabus goals set for reading. This study investigated the factors which influence the development of reading skills by learners in one Grade 10 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) class in Taiyuan, a city in China.</p>

The aim of the study was to explore the feasibility of critical pedagogy in a sampling of English Second Language classrooms in the Durban-Pinetown region of KZN. I was situated at the Abantwana Higher Primary School for eleven weeks for the first phase of my data collection. Access was negotiated with the Barnabas Shaw Primary School in Pinetown towards the end of August, this ESL-school provided me with a contrasting site for the purposes of comparison. At about the same time I commenced with my case survey of the English Second Language classrooms in the Model C (B) schools. The survey was viewed as a third site in the case study. The construct of "critical pedagogy" was placed within the context of critical theory as this theoretical vantage point was ideally suited to probing and exposing the underlying historical and social relationships of the education problem in KZN. Critical pedagogy is a specific instance within critical theory. The research was qualitative in nature, using comparative case studies of primary classrooms in KZN; supplemented by a case survey of 107 pupils. A popular children's novel was used to develop a critical curriculum suitable for Std 5 pupils. This workbook was used in the classrooms included in the study, and as a means of observing pupils' response to critical teaching processes. The research was described as an ethnographic case study because of the more bounded nature of the research and because of the fact that it was conducted over a fairly short period of time. Nevertheless, the principles of classical ethnography applied. Data was collected by means of sustained observation and participant observation, supported by interviews, questionnaires and document collection. Data analysis took place during the process of data collection and was ongoing and cyclical in nature. The research was initially described as an exploratory study, however, towards the end of the data analysis phase it appeared that the study was more explanatory in nature, as I had become aware of the inter-relatedness of the conditions which were required for the successful introduction of critical pedagogy in the English Second Language classroom. These linked conditions were described as causal links in the final chapter and a feasible set of recommendations were made in respect of the reconstruction and development of critical teaching in the senior primary phase in the historically disadvantaged schools of KZN. The inevitability of political influences on the curriculum and classroom pedagogy emerged during the final stages of the process of data analysis, and the recommendations thus included an appeal to the politicians of this province to address the issue of violence and racial integration in the province with expediency in order to normalise the provision of education for all its citizens. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of Durban-Westville, 1996.

Typical experiments investigating the accessibility and/or role of principles of Universal Grammar (UG) in adult second language acquisition (SLA) use a written grammaticality judgment (GJ) task to infer knowledge of principles of UG. The present investigation examined whether subjects would judge sentences differently in the aural modality than the visual. It was hypothesized that subjects in the aural condition would be less accurate and slower at judging sentences violating the subjacency principle than subjects in the visual condition. Four language groups were tested: ESL (English second-language) FSL (French second-language), L1.E (English first language) and L1.F (French first language). Subjects were assigned to either an aural or a visual condition; the same sentences were presented via computer. The target sentences presented to the subjects were declarative sentences involving embedded questions, as well as ungrammatical wh-questions which violated subjacency. The presentation times for all sentences were matched across conditions. Accuracy and reaction time to grammaticality judgment were measured. The hypothesis that subjects would be slower and less accurate in the aural condition than the visual one was supported. Furthermore, subjects were less accurate and slower to judge violations of subjacency than other sentences, in both modalities. The detrimental effects of the auditory task on judgments was most pronounced for the L2 learners. These results are discussed in the context of the informativeness and validity of outcomes derived from GJ tasks, and the ways in which they are presented.

Questions surrounding the impact of feedback in response to learner error are of interest in the fields of both Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and Intelligent Computer-Assisted Language Learning (ICALL). Current empirical SLA research seeks to ascertain what feedback types have a statistically significant positive impact on the process of acquiring a second language. Similarly, research in ICALL focuses on testing Intelligent Language Tutoring Systems (ILTSs) generally as well as the effectiveness of the feedback that they deliver. Despite this common interest in feedback, to date there has been no significant interdisciplinary research involving the two fields. The experiment reported here seeks to bridge this gap. Using a purpose-built ILTS, we tested the effect of two types of feedback on the acquisition of French past tense aspect among anglophone learners. Inspired by previous work in SLA, Explicit Inductive (EI) and Input Processing (IP) feedback were tested against a control group using a pre test/post test design. The learners completed a transformation and a grammaticality judgment task. For the transformation, they were presented with texts in the present tense and asked to re-write them in the past tense. For the grammaticality judgment, they had to rank the grammaticality of each sentence in a set of texts. In response to errors, EI feedback interpreted the aspectual meaning of the learners' answer and explicitly told them that it was not the most natural according to the context. In order to encourage formmeaning mapping, IP feedback asked the learners to match their erroneous answer to its interpretation. Two interpretations were presented: one was the target interpretation and the other matched the learner's answer. Having made their choice, they were then told whether it was correct as well as which interpretation was in fact target-like. The quantitative evaluation of the effectiveness of the EI and IP feedback was not statistically significant. We argued that this was due to a combined effect of learner level, target structure and feedback.

<p> A disproportionate number of high school dropouts are Latino immigrant students with emergent English language skills. Statistically, students that meet these demographic characteristics are more likely to drop out of high school before receiving their diploma. Thus, these same students will then enter the workforce ill equipped for job advancement or the requirements of postsecondary education. </p><p> A set of negative experiences, referred to as the process of marginalization, may occur in high school, leaving these students alienated and less confident of success than their English-speaking peers. This study used a qualitative research method approach to investigate the factors that lead some high school students to drop out and others to persevere and to become academically successful. This situation was explored by trying to understand Mexican and Central American immigrant students' perceptions of and reactions to possible high school marginalization processes and how this process effects their academic success in 11th and 12th grades. </p><p> More specifically, this dissertation study employed a qualitative design to develop a case study of students and a school and community profile. Several instruments used in the study included a sampling and eligibility questionnaire, a semistructured questionnaire, and an open-ended Interview with high school Latino immigrant youth to examine their perceptions of the process of marginalization and the resiliency factors that they used to overcome them. Based on the study's results, several recommendations are made for schools to reform the negative impact of marginalization and increase feelings of empowerment and inclusion for this group</p>

<p> Providing students at risk of becoming long-term English learners (LTELs) with the instruction and support they need to reclassify as fluent English proficient before entering high school increases their access to grade-level or advanced placement curriculum that will satisfy college entrance requirements and, presumably, postsecondary academic success. The purpose of this study is to determine whether the support provided through College Success Path by the Students First Unified School District (a pseudonym) to its seventhand eighthgradersat risk of becoming LTELs has the potential to lead to university matriculation.</p><p> Descriptive (mean, median, mode, and standard deviation) and inferential (independent measure <i>t</i>-test) statistical analyses of student learning outcomes revealed nonsignificant results at the .05 level.</p><p> Notable findings emerged after looking at score distributions and frequencies (cross-tabulations) for the District Writing Assessments and California Standardized Tests, English Language Arts learning outcomes. The treatment group experienced greater numbers of students moving from lower proficiency levels to higher proficiency levels in terms of the posttests than the control group did. </p><p> Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses of identified student learning outcomes did not yield significant results at the .05 level. Cross-tabulations conducted to analyze score distributions on the same student learning outcomes revealed results in favor of the treatment group. However, A-G completion rates and academic GPA data revealed results in favor of the control group. </p><p> The reality regarding the English learner (EL) population in California is changing as the number of LTELs increases in our public schools. In light of current state legislation, providing equal educational opportunities for ELs, especially LTELs, is vital to their success. This relates to the theoretical foundation of this study because it hearkens back to Paulo Freire's idea of actively participating in one's current reality and working to transform rather than conform to the world around them.</p>

<p> Instead of accepting the adage that adolescent motherhood had a negative effect in young women's lives, this researcher used a portraiture methodology to illuminate the goodness of adolescent motherhood for two <i>Mexicana </i> women in a southern New Mexico mountain town (Lawrence-Lightfoot &amp; Davis, 1997; Pillow, 2004). I examined how the ideological conditions of the hierarchy of gender that femininity and motherhood contextualize the conditions in which two first-generation Mexican American women became pregnant while still in high school. I framed that result within the historical structuring of the education of adolescent mothers to understand how the participants were able to experience a campus-based daycare, parenting program, and health center when they most needed it in order to graduate from high school. This research followed how the participants contended over the years with issues of legal work status, culture, healthcare, romance, language, resiliency, agency, discipline, contraceptives, and sexuality. From 24 hours of audio transcriptions, the experiences of the two participants were presented chronologically from 2004-2013 in order to show how context informed the decisions the women made at the intersection of woman, mother, worker, and student identities. Through a feminist standpoint, I examined the portraits to reveal important insight into the experience of adolescent motherhood to illuminate possibilities for social justice (Bowman, 2011). My findings are based upon the themes that emerged from the data and the critical consciousness I gained from researching their experiences.</p>