The current research set out to explore how Chinese-English bilingual scholars utilize their linguistic and cultural resources in teaching and academic inquiry. Adopting the theoretical lenses of translanguaging and multilingual perspective on creativity, I explored the teaching, research, and academic writing practices of three bilingual…

Multilingual instruction takes many shapes and forms depending on the affordances and limitations of the context in which it is implemented. Because multilingual instruction is often context-specific, it has to be designed in collaboration with local stakeholders and developed through multiple implementations in the context. While the field of…

The public education system in the U.S. has been under assault with the latest neoliberal education reforms. Those reforms are characterized by their antidemocratic and homogenizing assessment system, which reinforces a banking model of education. Such model goes against teachers and teaching, linguistic and cultural diversity and bilingual…

The dissertation is divided into seven chapters. In the first chapter, I outline the study objectives in relation to the current research on translingual instructional activities in English-dominant schools, describe how I will contribute to this growing body of work, and provide the research questions that guided the study. In Chapter 2, I…

Many scholars have noted the disjunction between language instruction at the lower- and upper levels of FL study (Byrnes, 2002; Kraemer, 2008; Lord, 2014; Maxim, 2005; Schultz, 2000; Swaffar & Arens, 2005). Whereas lower-division courses tend to focus primarily on learning grammatical patterns and the "four skills," upper-level…

This case study investigated case-based pedagogy using student-teacher-generated cases as an instructional tool in the preparation of 12 pre-service ESL, Bilingual, and Modern Foreign Language teachers enrolled in a Student Teaching Seminar at a post-secondary institution. In the fall methods course, each participant generated a case study based…

This study examines proposals made during planning talk--a speech act that has received little attention in previous literature--to determine the applicability of the stages of second language (L2) pragmatic development posited by Kasper and Rose (2002). Although Kasper and Rose suggest that formulas play a prominent role in L2 pragmatic…

Long before deciding to become second language (L2) teachers, novice teachers have subconsciously developed conceptions of teaching cultivated by their experiences as learners in both general and language education classrooms. This "apprenticeship of observation" (Lortie, 1975) can foster deeply held beliefs about teaching that are carried with…

The purpose of this research study was to conduct exploratory research to examine federally-mandated annual English language proficiency (ELP) assessment of English language learners (ELLs) and their use of accommodations on the assessment. First the researcher provides a review of the literature regarding accommodations provided for ELLs,…

The study investigates how language is used among 17 children in a dual language classroom as they create academic-based one-act plays in conjunction with social studies instruction. Examining over 20 hours of video, the teacher researcher analyzes students' use of translanguaging during cooperative groupings in order to co-accomplish an…

Dynamic assessment (DA) is based on Vygotsky's (1978) sociocultural theory and his Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). ZPD is the range of abilities bordered by the learner's assisted and independent performances. Previous studies showed promising results for DA in tutoring settings. However, they did not use proficiency-based rubrics to measure…

Current second language (L2) research focuses on the level of features--that is, the core elements of languages in the Minimalist Program framework. These features, involved in computations, are further divided into two types: those that indicate to which category a word belongs (i.e., interpretable features) versus those that constrain the type…

Recasts are one type of corrective feedback that reformulates all or part of a learner's erroneous utterance during communicative interaction without changing the meaning. Categorized as implicit and input-providing corrective feedback, recasts have become the focus of debate in the area of interaction research in recent years. The debate…

This longitudinal study examines the acquisition of tense and agreement morphology by child L2 learners in an early stage of language acquisition. The objectives of this study are twofold. The first is to observe the development of verb inflections and syntactic competence over time from an early stage by Chinese child L2 learners of English. The…

This ethnographic study of language use and English language learners in Central Java, Indonesia examines globalization processes within and beyond language; processes of language shift and change in language ecologies; and critical and comprehensive approaches to the teaching of English around the world. From my position as teacher-researcher and…