It is estimated by the year 2025, ELLs will make up one-quarter of the student population in the U.S. (Baecher et al., 2012). Simultaneously, literature has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of preparation for preservice and Inservice teachers to meet the needs of ELLs (e.g. Ballard, 2016; de Jong, 2013; Lucas et al., 2013; Villegas et al., 2018;…

The potential of speech technology to improve educational outcomes has been a topic of great interest in recent years. For example, automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems could be employed to provide kindergarten-aged children with real-time feedback on their literacy and pronunciation as they practice reading aloud. Within these systems,…

This sequential explanatory mixed-methods study provides a radical transformative framing of the power language dynamic in K-6 classrooms in the U.S. The quantitative phase of the study determined the relationship between teachers' self-efficacy and the use of linguistically responsive techniques in the classroom. The study's qualitative phase…

In English as a lingua franca (ELF) communication, in which English is used as a common language among interlocutors of different first languages, successful communication often features communication strategies that enhance mutual understanding and relationship management. Although prior research suggests that including such strategies in English…

Translanguaging, an emergent theoretical orientation to language, has become a widely discussed topic in writing studies with the rise of translingual movement in composition. Challenging the ideologies of standardization and monolingualism, translanguaging forwards towards a pedagogy of difference and facilitates transcending the…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the teachability of Situation-Bound Utterances (SBUs hence) in a Modern Chinese foreign language classroom. Specifically, the basic question to be examined is this: to what extent two instructional paradigms--explicit versus implicit instruction--affect learners' knowledge and ability to use SBUs. For…

Research on Arabic as a foreign language has centered on studying students' attitudes toward the problems of learning Arabic as a foreign/second language. Because little is currently known about language use within the Arabic classrooms, this study aimed to investigate how students perceive the use of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and colloquial…

Diversity is valued and promoted in contemporary public discourse, but on the other hand, there is a strong tendency to homogenize differences in society. The tension between diversity and homogeneity is palpable on U.S. college campuses as the number of international students has been ever-increasing. A more nuanced approach is needed to grapple…

The purpose of this dissertation is to outline a pedagogy that promotes language difference in college composition classrooms. Scholarship on language difference has strived for decades to transform teaching practices in mainstream, developmental, and second-language writing instruction. Despite compelling arguments in support of linguistic…

The purpose of this qualitative action research study was to explore how critical pedagogy can foster writing competency and critical consciousness among adult basic writing students in a community college writing classroom. To this end, critical pedagogy and related critical discourses were used to theoretically frame this study. These theories…

Linguists have long accepted the inevitability of linguistic variation as scientific fact. However, the general public continues to associate regional variation with low intelligence and to promote a non-regional, "accentless" English as the ideal. The result of this ideology, which ignores the natural diversity of all languages, is that…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine which instructional strategies elementary school principals and fourth-grade teachers perceive substantially support the development of Standard English language skills and reading proficiency in African American students. Methodology: The study used a descriptive case study. The findings were…

A number of arguments appeared in the late-nineteenth-century United States about "correctness" in language, arguments for and against enforcing a standard of correctness and arguments about what should count as correct in language. Insofar as knowledge about and facility with "correct" linguistic usage could affect one's standing in the social…