The current project investigates developmental aspects of acquiring locative verb constructions in English as a second language. Locative verbs, such as "to pour," "to spill," "to spray," and "to sprinkle," constitute a prototypical case of an overgeneralization problem in language learning: Whereas some of…

The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 requires high standards, but academic achievement among English Language Learners (ELL) falls below that of their peers in Texas. These students' lower academic achievement may lead to their dropping out of high school, not going to college, or being underemployed, a problem that led to this study. The…

Understanding how children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) improve oral language skills in relationship to tutor prompting has not yet been investigated. The study examined how variation in language prompt use by tutors during a storybook reading intervention influences growth in vocabulary and emergent literacy for young children with ASD.…

This dissertation looks at the effects of the flipped classroom model on foreign language learners at the introductory level. Specifically, the project examined students' learning outcomes in reading, writing, speaking, and listening when exposed to the flipped classroom format for one or two semesters of introductory German classes at the college…

Most adult English Language Learners (ELLs) in the United States struggle with the basics of English literacy and reading comprehension. The lack of metacognitive awareness during reading prevents ELL students from engaging actively in the learning process. The CALLA method was used as a conceptual framework for explicit instruction. The problem…

This study examined the effects of expository text read-alouds on first grade English Language Learners' listening comprehension and book choice selection. All students in the study received ELL pull out services from a certified EL teacher. Five schools participated in the study. One school, the experimental group, received expository text…

Writing is a skill that has increased in significance for both researchers and classroom teachers due to changes in recent standards. Currently, many high school English Language Learners (ELLs) are struggling to master this priority skill. A strategy that has been shown to be effective for adolescent writers is Self-Regulated Strategy Development…

Oral testing administration plays a significant role in foreign language programs aiming to foster the development of students' speaking abilities. With the development of language teaching software, the use of computer based recording tools are becoming increasingly used in language courses as an alternative to traditional face-to-face oral…

The field of Instructed Second Language Acquisition (ISLA) has expressed interest in pursuing a research agenda that expands the current heritage language (HL) strand of research to investigate how this heterogeneous population re-learns their family language, and how this experience differs from that of second language (L2) learners. This…

This dissertation examined the effects of the inferencing reading strategy using a emotionally charged instruction for students from countries who do not speak English as their first language. A quasi-experimental study applying quantitative research methods to collect data from the two sections of Level four Reading classes during a ten week…

The purpose of this study was to examine fourth-grade English-Spanish bilingual students' ability to recognize and transfer knowledge of cognate word ending rules from English to Spanish and from Spanish to English. Cognate transformational word ending rules are strategies for tapping into the students' linguistic background and for opening…

Language learners need to understand and apply appropriate discourse as part of the process of attaining "communicative competence" (Canale, 1983) needed to fulfill academic and social-adaptive functions. Students who are able to apply discourse strategies within the classroom demonstrate higher levels of metacognition and critical…

The study abroad (SA) context is often assumed to foster pragmatic development in a second language (L2), yet previous scholarship confirms that pragmatic norms are culturally-shaped and often remain imperceptible to uninstructed SA students (Bataller, 2010; Cohen & Shively, 2007; Shively, 2010). Because pragmatics is not traditionally taught…

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was: (1) to document the design and implementation process of an online video-based pre-arrival course that was intended to cultivate Asian students' willingness to communicate in American Classrooms; (2) to assess the effectiveness of the course by measuring students' oral proficiency and willingness to…

This pilot study examined the effects of the Interactive Book Reading at Home (IBR; Wasik, 2009) parent training program on the emergent literacy skills of preschool children and parent beliefs about reading. A quasi-experimental, pretest and posttest design was utilized. Twenty parent-child dyads were randomly assigned to a control or treatment…