Browsing by Subject "Second language learners"
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Item The contribution of teacher beliefs and student motivation on the academic lives of different learners(2010-12) Shankar, Shobha; Schallert, Diane L.; Svinicki, MarillaToday's classrooms have a significant diversity of learners who are expected to engage in similar academic activities and meet common standards of academic competency irrespective of their individual differences. As a result, for many students, school is a challenging endeavor that elicits emotional responses ranging from low self-efficacy to frustration, stress and anxiety. Research has shown that factors such as students' motivation and teachers' beliefs are important influencers of classroom achievement. These factors determine students' persistence towards their academic goals as well as the standards teachers set. This report reviews the literature on major constructs of motivation and teacher beliefs specifically with different learners, that is second language learners and students with learning disabilities. A proposal of a synthesis model is offered, with the primary objective of depicting the influence of teacher beliefs and student motivation on learning process and performance outcomes among different learners.Item Principles of music education applied to pronunciation instruction(2014-05) O'Connor, Jenna Anne; Sardegna, Veronica G.Music education and pronunciation teaching within second language education would seem to be two entirely separate fields. Yet, there are undeniable links between learning to play an instrument, such as the violin, and learning to speak in a second language. This Report attempts to bridge the divide between both disciplines by highlighting the similarities between musical features and pronunciation features, and by applying principles for practicing music to pronunciation practice. It is hoped that this comparison will motivate second language learners to practice pronunciation and increase the quality of their home practice, which has been found to play an important role in determining the degree of students’ pronunciation improvement (Sardegna, 2011). This Report begins with a review of pronunciation teaching trends and how they have shaped pronunciation teaching today. It then provides an overview of three important pronunciation learning models, followed by a discussion of a principled approach to teaching pronunciation. This principled approach may help bridge the gap between theory and classroom practice. Then, grounded on evidence suggesting strong links between teaching pronunciation and teaching violin, the Report concludes with a rationale for applying the proposed principles to a musical teaching context and suggests adopting a musical approach to practice in order to effect change in students’ English pronunciation.Item The effectiveness of dual language programs in the writing development of second language learners(2011-05) Pincock, Cecilia; Aguirre-Muñoz, Zenaida; Agnello, Mary F.; Salazar, DoraResearchers have found that in order for English Language Learners to be academically successful in a second language, they must be immersed in an environment where their needs are being met, socioculturally, linguistically, academically and cognitively. Such an environment has been highly debated between proponents of English-only instruction and those of native language instruction. The purpose of this paper is to review the current issues and language studies relating to the best environment for the development of second language writing. A study was conducted to investigate the differences between second language writing from English language learners participating in a dual language classroom to those participating in an English-only classroom in attempts to provide insight on how the dual language program can provide the right conditions for successful interlingual transfer skills in L2 writing development. Results from text analysis of the writing samples demonstrate how L2 writers appear to benefit from native language instruction as they transfer their knowledge of writing skills acquired from L1 instruction and apply it into their L2 writing creating meaningful genre-appropriate texts. The results also show that the writing of students placed in English-only classes was less developed.