Thesis (M.A.T.) -- School for International Training, 2006 / Advisor -- Patrick Moran Includes bibliographical references (leaves 138-140).

Thesis (M.A.T.) -- School for International Training, 2006. / Advisor -- Pat Moran Includes bibliographical references (leaves 90-91).

Focusing on a Vygotskian theory of cultural historical psychology, this dissertation features a narrative analysis to examine the role of subjectivity and the generative potential and agency manifested in Non Native English Speaking Teachers' (NNESTs) successful development of L2 (English) fluency. My research creates another view of a Vygotskian theory by means of the imagination. Building on a cultural-historical approach, I conducted a qualitative analysis of how these teachers' pathway to fluency evolved from their Imagined Destinations. This term is defined as a goal or objective in the mind of the learner that mediates, and is mediated by, his or her lived experiences. The concept I coin as Imagined Destinations surfaced in my three initial pilot cases and took shape while working with NNES Panamánian teachers, from the analysis of online survey data with 27 of these experienced teachers, and detailed case study analyses of the language learning of eight of these teachers. These data revealed how participants dynamically create and recreate their environments through agentive roles that support the transformation of their environments to advance their goals. These transformations have implications for how subjectivity, agency, and acquisition of the target language intertwine throughout the participants' lived experiences or pathways to learning, thus providing an additional way to look at subjects and subjectivities within a Vygotskian theoretical frame. The findings also indicate that teachers' language trajectories are continuous, emergent, and the result of taking on very deliberate ecological roles in their bilingual success despite recurring salient and limiting circumstances. These findings about the centrality of Imagined Destinations in learning "smudges" the perception that societal power outweighs the dynamic and agentive roles of individuals as active molders of their lives. Finally, this dissertation also seeks to enrich scholarship by demonstrating how NNESTs use their bilingual identities built from their trajectories to bilingualism as ways to influence and inspire their own students' second language learning.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:07:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 LorenaAS_DISSERT.pdf: 3138552 bytes, checksum: 529fbc35b1f1cc2aefc225fcbb9d86d4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-02-17 / VoiceThread (VT) is a collaborative and asynchronous web 2.0 tool, which permits the creation of oral presentations with the help of images, documents, texts and voice, allowing groups of people to browse and contribute with comments using several options: voice (microphone or cell phone), text and audio-file or video (webcam) (BOTTENTUIT JUNIOR, LISB?A E COUTINHO, 2009). The hybrid experience with VoiceThread allows learners to plan their speech before recording it, without the pressure often existent in the classroom. Furthermore, the presentations can be recorded several times, enabling students to listen to them, notice the gaps in their oral production (noticing) and edit innumerous times before publishing them online. In this perspective, oral production is seen as a process of L2 acquisition, not only as practice of already existent knowledge, because it can stimulate the learner to process the language syntactically (SWAIN, 1985; 1995). In this context, this study aims to verify if there is a relation between the oral production of the learners more specifically the grammatical accuracy and the global oral grade and their noticing capacity, how the systematic practice with VoiceThread, in a hybrid approach, can impact the learners global oral development, their oral production in terms of fluency (number of words per minute), accuracy (number of errors in hundred words), and complexity (number of dependent clauses per minute), and on their noticing capacity (SCHMIDT, 1990; 1995; 2001), that is, the learner s capacity of noticing the gaps existent in their oral production. In order to answer these research questions, 49 L2 learners of English were divided into an experimental group (25 students) and a control group (24 students). The experimental group was exposed to the hybrid approach with VT during two months and, through a pre- and post-test, we verified if this systematic practice would positively influence these participants oral production and noticing capacity. These results were compared to the pre- and post-test scores from the control group, which was not exposed to VT. Finally, learners impressions in relation to the use of this tool were also sought through a questionnaire applied after the post-test. The results indicate that there is a statistically significant correlation between the learners speech production (accuracy and global oral grade) and their noticing capacity. Besides, it was verified a positive impact of VoiceThread on the learners speech production variables and on their noticing capacity. They also reveal a positive reaction by the learners in relation to the hybrid experience with this web tool / O VoiceThread ? uma ferramenta da web 2.0, colaborativa e ass?ncrona, que permite a cria??o de apresenta??es orais com aux?lio de imagens, documentos, textos e voz, possibilitando que grupos de pessoas naveguem e contribuam com coment?rios de v?rias maneiras: utilizando a voz (com microfone ou telefone), texto e arquivo de ?udio ou v?deo (webcam) (BOTTENTUIT JUNIOR, LISB?A E COUTINHO, 2009). A experi?ncia h?brida com o VoiceThread permite que o aprendiz planeje sua fala antes de grav?-la, sem a press?o geralmente existente em sala de aula. Al?m disso, as apresenta??es podem ser gravadas e regravadas v?rias vezes, possibilitando que ele se ou?a, perceba as lacunas em sua produ??o oral (noticing) e a edite in?meras vezes antes de public?-la online. Nesta perspectiva, a produ??o oral ? vista como um processo de aquisi??o de L2, e n?o apenas como pr?tica do conhecimento j? existente, por estimular o aprendiz a processar a l?ngua sintaticamente (SWAIN, 1985; 1995). Neste contexto, o presente estudo visa verificar se existe uma rela??o entre as medidas de produ??o oral dos aprendizes - mais especificamente a acur?cia gramatical e a nota global - e sua habilidade de noticing, de que forma a pr?tica sistem?tica com a ferramenta VoiceThread, em uma abordagem h?brida, impacta o desenvolvimento oral global dos aprendizes, sua produ??o oral em termos de flu?ncia (n?mero de palavras por minuto), acur?cia (quantidade de erros gramaticais a cada 100 palavras) e complexidade (n?mero de ora??es subordinadas por minuto), e a sua habilidade de noticing (SCHMIDT, 1990; 1995; 2001), ou seja, a capacidade de o aprendiz perceber as lacunas existentes na sua produ??o oral. A fim de responder a essas quest?es, 49 aprendizes de ingl?s como L2 participaram da pesquisa, divididos em grupo experimental (25 alunos) e grupo controle (24 alunos). O grupo experimental foi exposto a uma experi?ncia h?brida com o VT durante dois meses e, por meio de um pr? e um p?s-teste, verificamos se essa pr?tica sistem?tica influenciaria positivamente a produ??o oral e a habilidade de noticing destes participantes. Esses resultados foram comparados aos escores do pr? e do p?s-teste de um grupo controle, que n?o foi exposto ao VT. Por fim, as impress?es dos aprendizes a respeito da experi?ncia com a ferramenta foram analisadas por meio de question?rios aplicados ap?s o p?s-teste. Os resultados apontam que h? uma correla??o estatisticamente significativa entre as medidas de produ??o oral dos aprendizes (acur?cia gramatical e a nota global) e sua habilidade de noticing. Al?m disso, verificou-se que h? um impacto positivo da ferramenta VoiceThread sobre as vari?veis da produ??o oral dos aprendizes e sua habilidade de noticing. Por fim, a parte qualitativa desse estudo revela uma rea??o positiva dos aprendizes em rela??o ? experi?ncia h?brida com esta ferramenta

The present study examines students’ use, attitudes and preferences, when it comes to EE (Extramural English). EE is defined as English language activities that learners are engaged in outside their ordinary language class, such as reading books, reading newspapers/magazines, watching TV, watching films, surfing the Internet, playing video games, listening to music, etc. The results of the study are based on data that was collected from Swedish upper secondary-school learners of English over a period of one term on several occasions. Information about students’ EE activities was collected by quantitative questionnaires, including both multiple-choice and open-ended questions. The results showed that Swedish upper-secondary school students were engaged in many different extramural activities. The extramural activity that the students were most often engaged in, was watching English language movies. The second most popular extramural activity was watching TV-programs in English with Swedish subtitles. Furthermore, according to the surveyed upper-secondary students, most of their language skills they develop with the help of their Extramural contacts with the English language. These are for example understanding of spoken English, speaking English, understanding of English vocabulary and understanding written English. However, when it comes to the written English and the development of English grammar, it appears that the students see themselves as developing these language skills more successfully within the language classroom than in their free time. The results also showed that, whereas the above-mentioned extramural activities were preferred by both boys and girls, there were also some differences in their use of extramural activities. Whereas boys rather preferred such activities as "English-speaking role-playing or computer games", girls, according to their answers, preferred such activities as "reading texts in English". The results of this study have shown that, according to the students’ responses, there is no strong gender difference when it comes to attitudes about learning English in school versus outside the school.

O presente estudo busca entender como se apresentam e se relacionam os estados afetivos e motivacionais dos alunos ingressos e egressos do nível de graduação do curso de língua russa da USP. Para tanto, a pesquisa utiliza-se de enfoque teórico e metodológico que engloba fatores tanto da Psicologia Social quanto da Psicologia Educacional. A análise dos resultados sugere a mudança destes estados afetivos no contato com as diferentes situações de aprendizagem a que são expostos. / The research aims to understand foreign language students\' affective and motivational situation. The participants of the research have a higher level of education and they studied Russian as a foreign language. For the purpose mentioned above we have applied the educational psychological and the social psychologycal theories and a mixed methodology. The results suggest that initial motivation changes over time as students has been exposed to different language learning contexts, as classes, groups, professors, materials, etc.

Most pupilsin grade 5 and grade 9 pass the oral part of the national exam. The aim of thispaper is to find out when and how often the pupils speak English in theclassroom. There is also a question of when and how often the teachers speak inEnglish and why the teachers make these choices. The studywas carried out by using a questionnaire. The pupils were asked two questionsand the teachers were asked almost the same two questions with the addition offive open questions. 71 fifth graders from four different classes and 94 ninthgraders from four different classes responded. 3 teachers from grade 5 and 4teachers from grade 9 also participated. Theresults show that both the teachers and the pupils use spoken English in avariety of situations such as communication between teacher and pupil and amongpupils. The younger pupils take on a more passive role, like imitating theteacher, but there is a progression from more controlled situations to moreopen situations. There seems to be a more varied, but less regular communicationin the older ages. The teachers want to speak English as much as possible, butoften explain difficult parts in Swedish in order for the pupils to understand.

This study aims at generating an understanding of today's teaching in English. The study  seeks to find out in what extent teachers in grade 4-6 speak English during the lessons in English and on what occasions the teacher chooses to use the English language. The work empiricism consists of two different methods, classroom observations and qualitative interviews. In order to get such a broad picture of teacher's English teaching as possible, classroom observations were conducted first and then supplemented with an interview. Respondents participating in this study work in the municipal sector at four different schools in central Sweden.          The study shows that English as an teaching language is used at all times during the lesson, and that English is the most used teaching language. The teaching language fluctuates a lot, and the teachers who participated in this study mainly choose languages according to the group and the pupils in the group. All participating teachers used Swedish as a tool to answer the students' questions and guide them. The teachers primarily want to create a safe place for the students and to make sure everyone understands what´s being said on the lessons. / Denna studie syftar till att generera förståelse för dagens undervisning i engelska. Jag undersöker i denna studie i vilken utsträckning lärare i 4-6 talar engelska under lektionerna i engelska och vid vilka tillfällen läraren väljer att använda det engelska språket. Arbetets empiri utgörs av två olika metoder, klassrumsobservationer och kvalitativa intervjuer. För att få en sådan bred bild av lärares engelskundervisning som möjligt så genomfördes klassrumsobservationerna först och kompletterades sedan med en intervju. Respondenterna som deltar i denna studie arbetar inom den kommunala sektorn på fyra olika skolor i Mellansverige.          Studien visar att engelska som undervisningsspråk används under alla tillfällena under lektionens gång och att engelska är också det undervisningsspråk som används mest. Undervisningsspråket växlar väldigt mycket och lärarna som deltog i denna studie väljer främst att välja språk utefter vilken grupp och vilka elever som finns i gruppen. Alla deltagande lärare använder svenska som ett verktyg för att besvara elevernas frågor och vägleda dem. Lärarna vill i första hand skapa trygghet för eleverna och vill säkerställa att alla ska känna att de förstår vad som sägs.

English is a part of our lives from an early age, and it is important that pupils engage themselves in learning the language. Today many pupils have access to a computer and can play online games in collaboration with others from around the world. This study aims to examine how online gaming can help pupils develop their second language. By studying prior research and analysing the results, it was found that there are several factors which may have an effect on pupils’ second language development. Through online games, motivation increases. Also, the interaction with both native English speakers as well as other second language learners within the games, form immense language input from authentic communication. These findings show that there are possible benefits in playing online games. However, there is a need for much further research to get a clear overview over the possible affects online games have for pupils second language development. / <p>Engelska</p>

The overall purpose of this thesis and the four independent studies it builds upon is to examine how categorizations and identity positions are constructed and negotiated in the educational program Swedish for immigrants (SFI) both historically and among participants in the program at the beginning of the 21th century. The analytical focus is on the discourses that frame the development of the SFI program with a specific interest in categorizations and identity in relation to gender, language and national belonging. The empirical material includes historical texts (curricula, commission reports, public inquiries, political propositions, laws) from 1965 to 2010, as well as approximately 95 hours of audio and video recorded data and ethnographic field notes from five SFI classrooms. The results are presented primarily in the four articles but partly also in the thesis itself. Our analysis in the first study, that takes a sociohistorical perspective as a point of departure, indicates shifts in discourses with regards to the categories and aims of the educational program, thus, making certain identity positions more accessible than others at specific times. Using the approach of nexus analysis, the theoretical framework employed in the second study approaches language policies n terms of a dialectical elationship between policy and the learning that takes lace in the language focused classroom. Feminist and postcolonial frameworks re employed ore pecifically in the third and fourth studies. The historical nalysis presented in article three shows how the categories of “immigrant” and Swedes” ave been produced and negotiated in discourses on gender and gender quality in the SFI program since the early 1970s. The fourth study highlights he omplex relationship between gender equality and integration policies, as well as he perception of gender equality as a central part of Swedishness”, negotiated in he everyday conversations in the SFI classroom. Overall, the results illuminate he circulation of discourses both cross ime and between policy and classrooms. oreover, it contributes to a critical discussion about the intersection of language, ender and national elonging in the negotiation of boundaries between insiders and outsiders in Swedish society.