Instruction for students classified as English Learners (EL-classified) in the US has been dominated by formalist orientations to language that focus instruction on acquiring decontextualized linguistic forms often as a prerequisite to mainstream classroom learning (Valdes et al., 2014). Many language scholars argue that these formalist…

This dissertation investigates the linguistic features of engagement in spoken academic online and face-to-face instruction in mathematics on two platforms: Khan Academy and MIT OpenCourseWare. In particular, the study analyses involvement features (personal pronouns and deixis) and interactional features (response elicitors, direct hypothetical…

This phenomenological study research presents an option to use both discourse in the native language and technology as an alternative to improve the understanding of mathematics in secondary education. 13 students whose native language is Spanish attended a high school in a large urban school district in the Southwest of the United States,…

"Generation Z" multilingual writers are caught up in a globalized/globalizing and superdiverse linguistic and cultural contact zone as well as a neoliberal political and institutional environment. To understand how they inhabit their idiosyncratic literate worlds and practice their differences, I aligned myself with an ethnographic case…

Individuals with lower proficiency in a second language tend to produce more disfluent speech patterns in the second language. Speech disfluencies refer to interruptions in the forward flow of speech and are distinct from the colloquial use of "fluency," to characterize knowledge of a language. Prior research indicates that some speech…

This qualitative study utilized positive discourse analysis (PDA) to explore the classroom discourse practices of three grade-level teachers at a highly diverse school. The purpose of the study was to investigate ways elementary teachers who employ biography-driven instruction (BDI) (e.g., Herrera, 2016) use discourse to invite and nurture student…

"Service-learning" (SL) is an experiential pedagogy that engages students in working for, with, and in communities in need. While prior research has explored the effects of SL on second language (L2) users' (perceived) language development (e.g., Gaugler & Matheus, 2019), intercultural awareness (e.g., Sa´nchez-Naranjo, 2021), and…

This dissertation was driven by a need to better understand how the growing movement of nature-based education, particularly nature-based preschools, compares to more conventional approaches. This dissertation analyzed videos of preschool teaching to describe nature-based teaching practices, particularly around the outdoors as a classroom and a…

Most bilingual programs are built around a clear separation between the two languages used throughout the school day. However, in bilingual research centers (BRCs), a key component of the Gomez and Gomez Dual Language Enrichment model, students can choose which language to use. This is what sparked my interest, because I wanted to understand more…

Studies in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) indicate that the use of discourse markers (DMs) in the academic writing of second language learners improves the overall quality of these texts by contributing to their cohesion and comprehensibility (Saif Modhish 2012; Jalilifar 2008; Intaraprawat & Steffensen 1995). However, despite the…

Teacher recognition of student argumentation has been addressed by many researchers (e.g., Schwarz, 2009; Krummheuer, 1995; Bieda & Lepak, 2014; Whitenack & Yackel, 2002). Further, standards for mathematics learning emphasize the importance of including argumentation in the K-12 classroom (NCTM, 2000; CCSS, 2010). The study reported here…

This discourse analysis study examines the final moments of selected online sermons delivered by America's leading evangelical pastors and speakers, paying particular attention to the language employed in the presentation of Christian gospel tenets, the public invitation for salvation, the altar call that identifies new followers, and the…

This dissertation sheds light on how learners of German, NSs of German, and Americans unfamiliar with German reach decisions about the nature of speech acts that they witness NSs of German perform in three authentic video clips. It also aims to gain a better understanding of what sources members of the three groups bring to bear when they attempt…

Producing a sensible utterance requires speakers to select conceptual content, lexical items, and syntactic structures almost instantaneously during speech planning. Each language offers its speakers flexibility in the selection of lexical and syntactic options to talk about the same scenarios involving movement. Languages also vary typologically…

Most of the training material that Assemblies of God educators use in Latin America was originally written in English. Almost without exception nationals or missionaries translated the approved theology texts from English. While everyone contextualizes, the gospel message will not ever be completely at home in the Yucatan until the pastors think…