Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
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Item EXAMINING ENGLISH-AS-A-FOREIGN-LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ LANGUAGE PRACTICES AND LANGUAGE ATTITUDES THROUGH THE LENS OF TRANSLANGUAGING AND HUMANIZING PEDAGOGY – A QUALITATIVE STUDY ON AN INTERNATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL IN CHINA(2023) Zong, Jiaxuan; MacSwan, Jeff; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Research on translanguaging and humanizing pedagogy has primarily focused on English-as-a-second-language (ESL) contexts, while little attention has been given to the examination and these practices in English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) settings. This qualitative case study aims to address this gap by employing empirical evidence from various sources, including classroom observations, student surveys, student and teacher interviews, and quantitative data analysis of student surveys. The study examines teachers’ understanding of and practices with translanguaging and humanizing pedagogy, as well as students’ perceptions and experiences with these pedagogical movements. In light of humanizing pedagogy studies involving pedagogical codeswitching and translanguaging practices, this research is informed and guided by the combined theoretical framework of translanguaging and humanizing pedagogy, derived from the literature review. The research design consists of four main phases: pilot studies and purposeful sampling, QUALITATIVE data collection and analysis, quantitative data collection and analysis, and qualitative data analysis and triangulation. Through thematic analysis, this study reveals three major findings: (1) teachers’ and students’ strong needs and teachers’ self-debate of translanguaging practices, (2) the enactment of humanizing pedagogy through translanguaging practices by teachers, and (3) the enhancement of multilingual and multicultural awareness through translanguaging and humanizing pedagogy practices. Also, the study identifies two additional findings of importance, including the lack of a healthy professional development community for teachers and the entrenched privileges associated with native speakerism and the native speaker fallacy. These findings demonstrate the importance of language teachers being cognizant of the benefits of using students’ first language while acknowledging the criticality of balance in its use. Furthermore, the adherence to an English-only policy may lead to ineffective English language educational experiences, as demonstrated in one of the cases in this study. In addition, the incorporation of students’ first language by educators promotes the implementation of humanizing pedagogy practices, such as drawing on students’ background knowledge, making class content accessible to all students, and enhancing critical consciousness towards different languages and cultures. Moreover, engaging in translanguaging practices fosters a safe and dynamic space for both multilingual students and their teachers to co-construct their understanding of language and its role in conceptual development. By using multiple languages as mediational instruments, these practices enhance metalinguistic awareness and encourage critical reflection on linguistic and cultural differences. Finally, the study offers potential implications and recommendations relevant to teacher preparation programs and language educators.Item AN INVESTIGATION OF STUDENTS' EXPERIENCES WITH A WEB-BASED, DATA-DRIVEN WRITING ASSISTANCE ENVIRONMENT FOR IMPROVING KOREAN EFL WRITERS' ACCURACY WITH ENGLISH GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY(2010) Lim, Mi-Sun; Oxford, Rebecca L.; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has played an increasingly important role in writing instruction and research. While research has been conducted on English as a second language (ESL) learners and the benefits of using web-based writing assistance programs in writing instruction, insufficient research has been done on English as a foreign language (EFL) students. This study is an empirical investigation of students' experiences with a web-based, data-driven writing assistance environment (e4writing) designed by the researcher to help Korean EFL writers with their grammar and vocabulary. This study investigated Korean university students' perceived difficulties with English grammar and vocabulary as they wrote in English. It also explored their perceptions of e4writing as used in a writing course to enhance English grammar and vocabulary. This study investigated 12 participants' perceptions and "academic profiles" (learning styles, confidence, motivation, and other factors) when they were enrolled in a 16-week course called Teaching Methods for English Composition. To gain a more specific and personal view, the study also included detailed case studies of four of the study participants. The major sources of data for the analyses include interviews, reflective journals, questionnaires, samples of the students' writing before and after their use of e4writing and the researcher's reflective notes. The study revealed that most of the students had difficulty with grammar and vocabulary in English writing. They positively perceived e4writing, as it provided individualized help on their problems with grammar and lexis. Overall, the students showed improvement in accuracy from the pretest to the posttest, and observations suggested that e4writing was probably related to this improvement; however, strong claims about e4writing as a cause of improvement cannot be made without a control group. The students felt e4writing was more beneficial for improving grammatical accuracy than for vocabulary accuracy. The students recommended that some features of e4writing be written in Korean to help students understand grammar and vocabulary explanations.Item Strategy Awareness-Raising for Success: Reading Strategy Instruction in the EFL Context(2007-04-26) Lee, Kyoung Rang; Oxford, Rebecca L; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Researchers and educators have made great efforts to be conscious of students' wide and varied learning processes and to meet individual learners' different needs in one classroom with well-conceptualized and balanced strategy assessment and instruction. Reading is considered very important in academic worlds, including Korea, where English is learned as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL). Ongoing debates about reading strategy instruction, as well as a lack of methodological consistency in previous language studies, make it particularly difficult for EFL teachers to know how to implement strategy instruction in their classrooms. Therefore, this study was designed to examine the effect of reading strategy instruction (a) on strategy use while reading in a target language (L2) and (b) on L2 reading comprehension. The secondary purposes of this study were to examine (c) the effectiveness of color-coding as a new strategy assessment tool and (d) the influence of L2 reading strategy instruction on reading in a native language (L1). The results were very interesting, both theoretically and in practice. First, reading strategy instruction helped learners develop reading strategy knowledge and raise the reading strategy awareness. Second, reading strategy instruction also promoted text-specific strategy use, but not general strategy use, probably because of the short period of the intervention. In a wash-back process, reading strategy instruction, though focused entirely on L2 reading strategies, also improved Korean (L1) reading strategy use. Third, reading strategy instruction helped learners improve their L2 reading comprehension. Fourth, participants' prior knowledge of English grammar served as a confidence-building comfort zone for learning how to use (a) new reading strategies and (b) a new reading strategy assessment tool, color-coding. Fifth, the innovative color-coding technique proved to be effective for measuring text-specific reading strategy use. In sum, the Korean EFL participants benefited in numerous ways from reading strategy instruction.