The study investigated the effects of a motivational and cognitive pre-tasks on oral task production by intermediate and low advanced college learners of French at a large public university in the United States. The motivation and cognitive groups engaged in an information-gap group discussion task in French following brief motivationally and strategically oriented pre-tasks conducted in the participants' native language, while the control group completed the discussion task without a pre-task. In addition, all groups completed a dictation as a measure of proficiency and a post-task motivation survey. The results of the study did not show any significant differences between the motivation, cognitive and control treatments in terms of accuracy, fluency or complexity of their speech. Possible reasons contributing to the findings are discussed and interpretations are proposed. Particularly, it is suggested that strategies for motivating students and providing cognitive support for a language task need to be coupled with focus on the task content and/or form, addressed in the target language, in order to differentially affect the fluency, accuracy, and complexity aspects of the second language speech. At the same time, the motivation group participants reported significantly higher interest in the task, higher perception of its value, and higher perception of their own autonomy, which indicates that the motivation pre-task did positively affect their motivation in relation to the task. Interest and value subcategories of the motivation survey were particularly sensitive to differences between the groups. It is suggested that regular support and promotion of positive motivational dispositions in a language class may, in the long run, result in an observable positive effect on certain aspects of the learners' speech.

Despite 21st Century technology, our nation’s high schools deliver a print-centric curriculum driven by high-stakes tests. A majority of states have adopted Common Core State Standards that incorporate producing and consuming multiple media texts. Some teachers have begun to include multimodal activities but few are exploiting the affordances of multimodal composition specifically for the benefit of English learners. Public high school teachers hold deficit views of English learners and fail to offer them challenging, creative tasks. Framed by the complementary sociocultural theories of ecological linguistics (van Lier, 2004), multimodality (Kress, 2010), and identity (Gee, 2001; Norton, 2000), this qualitative case study examined the process and product of high school English learners composing multimodally with digital video. Four questions guided the study: 1) What can we learn from adolescent English learners engaged in composing with video? 2) What identities do adolescent ELs explore while engaging in multimodal communication? 3) What processes do ELs engage in as they compose multimodally? 4) How do their multimodal compositions contribute to our understanding of ELs? Participants were enrolled in an elective English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) class at a public high school during Spring semester of 2012. Data included student generated lesson artifacts, audio/video recordings, researcher journal, and participants' video compositions. Data were analyzed through an ongoing, recursive cycle to determine themes, categories, and trends. Visual and video data were examined through visual discourse analysis (Albers, 2007b; Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006) and multimodal interaction analysis (Norris, 2004). Addressing the process and product of learning to read and compose visual and video texts, this dissertation examines 3 pairs of student participants and their video compositions. It reveals English learners working collaboratively and creatively, exploring imagined identities, showing investment in learning, engaging in critical analysis, and effectively communicating through multiple modes. Multimodal analysis of three student videos revealed four patterns of multimodal design; less is less, layered modes, less is more, and overlapping modes. The study redefines English learners as multilingual, multimodal communicators. It illustrates the complexity and reveals the benefit of incorporating multimodal activities and provides a model for fostering multilingual, multimodal communicators.

This thesis investigates where the Years 4-10 Queensland French Syllabus is receiving support, by investigating groups of teachers with shared characteristics. In doing so, it aims to shed some light on why teachers have not embraced this new syllabus. Specific issues pertaining to the syllabus are investigated, such as the use of task-based instruction as the chosen methodology and of embedded content, as well as contextual issues, such as employment sector and levels taught. Teachers' reactions to change have also been investigated in relation to the introduction of this syllabus. In addition to this, the process involved in acceptance of an innovation has been explored which led to an examination of teacher understanding of the current syllabus. This study is divided into five chapters. Chapter one outlines the syllabus and context, as well as hypotheses for this study and rationale. Chapter two is a literature review which brings together previous research and links it to the current study. The chosen methodology is covered by chapter three, with chapter four being a detailed explanation of results received from the data collection. The final chapter, chapter five, discusses these results and the implications of these findings.