Academic writing in U.S. higher education often involves textual borrowing, referred to as the integration and documentation of reading sources and carried out with summaries, quotes, and paraphrases. Second language (L2) English students are likely to use sources inappropriately and consequentially are accused of plagiarism based on university…

This dissertation examines the ideological connections between schooling, mobility, and social difference among students in New Delhi. In it, I argue that educational mobility, especially with regard to English-language education, is an ideology which seems to offer a path to reduce social difference while in fact protecting it. I also argue that…

The research presented in this dissertation examined changes in brain activity associated with learning, forgetting and using a second language. The first experiment investigated the changes that occur when novice adult second language learners acquire and forget second language words. Event-related brain potentials were measured while native…

Latinos consistently have the lowest degree completion rate throughout the United States (Kurlaender & Flores, 2005). At the same time, Latinos are the fastest growing sector of the U.S. population. Taken together, these facts demonstrate an ongoing and growing inequity in educational opportunities and outcomes for a significant portion of the…

This volume examines the organization of second language and multilingual speakers' talk and pragmatic knowledge across a range of naturalistic and experimental activities. Based on data collected on Danish, English, Hawai'i Creole, Indonesian, and Japanese as target languages, the contributions explore the nexus of pragmatic knowledge,…

Recent work has shown the importance of identity in language learning and how the desire to belong to an imagined community drives individuals to invest in their learning (Norton, 2000). This work has documented that a mismatch between students' imagined community and the community envisioned by the teacher can have negative outcomes on students'…

This qualitative case study explored the use of sheltered instruction observation protocol (SIOP) instructional practices to promote the language development and learning of elementary English language learners (ELLs) in an immersion setting in 1st and 2nd grades. The SIOP model was developed for middle school ELLs, and there is scant information…

This dissertation examines the effects of service learning experiences on participants' attitudes towards the Spanish language and culture and their language proficiency. It was hypothesized that using the Spanish language outside the confines of the academic environment would affect participants' attitudes and have an impact on their language…

Second language (L2) learners notoriously have trouble using articles in their target languages (e.g., "a", "an", "the" in English). However, researchers disagree about the patterns and causes of these errors. Past studies have found that L2 English learners: (1) Predominantly omit articles (White 2003, Robertson 2000), (2) Overuse "the" (Huebner…

In the United States, foreign language immersion programs are K-8 voluntary programs wherein children are instructed in the core subjects in a language other than English. While these programs are quite popular, many parents, having chosen immersion for their child's education, change their minds and transfer their child into a "regular"…

This dissertation examined the impact that Proposition 227 had upon the identification and placement of English language learners in Special Education programs in small, necessary Special Education Local Plan Areas (SELPAs) in the state of California. Furthermore, this dissertation studied the practices and strategies used by small, necessary…

The problem. The purpose of this study is to investigate positive and negative cross-linguistic transfer on EFL learners' phraseological competence in collocations and its relationship to learners' linguistic proficiency. Method. A quantitative study was conducted. Two instruments, multiple choice test and grammaticality judgment test, were…

"Dimension" is the annual volume containing the selected, refereed, edited Proceedings of each year's conference. The Southern Conference on Language Teaching (SCOLT), held its annual conference April 15-17, 2010, at the Winston-Salem Marriott in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in collaboration with the Foreign Language Association of…

Cutting-edge in its approach and international in its authorship, this fourth monograph in a series sponsored by the Chinese Language Teachers Association features eight research studies that explore a variety of themes, topics, and perspectives important to a variety of stakeholders in the Chinese language learning community. Employing a wide…

This unique new perspective and method for teaching English Language Learners is the proven result of the author's community organizing career and his successful career in the classroom. Great teaching is about facilitating intrinsic motivation and self-directed learning. It's about giving students the opportunity to learn by doing and encouraging…