The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore what elementary teachers recommend and understand in identifying appropriate referral and classroom support placement procedures of English language learners with a suspected disability in the southeastern United States. Incorporating the conceptual frameworks of Bandura (1977) and…

This study examines the relationship between English language proficiency outcomes and the use of a Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) tool that is designed to strengthen the academic English and oral proficiency skills of young English Learners (ELs). We compare scores on a standardized English language proficiency assessment for 2,034…

This study examines the L2 pronunciation feedback provided by the Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) functionality in Google Translate (GT). We focus on three Quebec Francophone (QF) errors in English: th-substitution, h-deletion, and h-epenthesis. Four hundred and eighty male and female QF recordings of sentences with correctly and incorrectly…

Vocabulary learning that overlooks the discrimination of single sounds in English language learning could lead to communication difficulties, such as the inability to hear and speak English pronunciation. To address this issue, vocalization strategy, in which students listen to the sounds of words and memorize them aloud, is considered a useful…

Adult first language (L1) English speakers who are advanced second language (L2) learners of Spanish demonstrate near-ceiling levels of accuracy for some features of Spanish, such as [Person] and [Number] for verbs (McCarthy, 2012; Rodgers, 2011). While for other features, such as [Aspect] for copulas (i.e. ser and estar), and [Person] and…

This dissertation investigates language-specific acoustic and aerodynamic phenomena in language contact situations. Whereas most work on second language and bilingual phonology has focused on individual consonants and vowels, this project examines patterns of coarticulation in the two languages of Spanish-English and French-English bilingual…

Research on communication strategies (CSs) has been drawing much attention in the area of psycholinguistics and applied linguistics. This study examined if triggering instruction can accelerate the cognitive aspects of CSs transference from L1 to L2. In the first part of the experiment, all participants, twenty-one Japanese university students,…

With the recent surge of online language learning, it is important to explore the different possible modalities of online learning and the factors that could influence the success of those modalities in language learning. This study found differences in (1) motivation, (2) anxiety, (3) perception of the learning community, and (4) oral proficiency…

Arab Americans are a growing population in the United States. According to the Arab American Institute (2012), their number has reached 3.6 million. In spite of this, there is a scarcity of research exploring this population and the issues related to the area of speech-language pathology. This study explored Arabic-speaking SLPs' perceptions of…

Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) is a framework structure implemented within public education designed to provide students with targeted enrichment or remediation needs interventions. The MTSS process and its implementation directly impact the academic success of students. Using interventions when students are academically or behaviorally…

This dissertation examines how L2 Japanese speaker international students experience their subjectivity (Harre & Gillett, 1994), that is, how their language use and actions convey their thoughts and feelings, their sense of self, and how they relate to the world around them, in casual conversations with L1 Japanese speaker peers. In order to…

This dissertation builds on existing heritage language research (e.g., Albirini 2014, 2018; Benmamoun & Albirini 2018) and examines the complex and challenging practices of an understudied, marginalized, and stigmatized group of Muslim Arabic heritage-speaking children (MAHSC) and their immigrant families in the US. It argues that the…

This interdisciplinary study investigates whether, and to what extent, grit (consisting of "perseverance of effort" and "consistency of interests") and classroom enjoyment are linked with EFL learners' willingness to communicate in a second language (L2 WTC), the final psychological step before actual English communication. To…

Research has pointed to the importance of introducing social aspects of language at the beginning stages of second language (L2) acquisition (Yates, 2017). This proof-of-concept study therefore sought to determine if an explicit pedagogical intervention consisting of various types of sociolinguistic awareness activities could be implemented with…

As Chinese students have become a larger share of the international student population at U.S. universities, their participation in Japanese language classes has increased. However, Chinese student enrollment significantly decreases after the completion of the first Japanese class, and consequently, fewer Chinese students take intermediate or…