Matching Items (5)
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- All Subjects: Linguistics
- All Subjects: Bridging Activities
- Genre: Masters Thesis
- Creators: Lafford, Barbara A.
Description
The use of blogging tools in the second language classroom has been investigated from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives (Alm, 2009; Armstrong & Retterer, 2008; Dippold, 2009; Ducate & Lomicka, 2008; Elola & Oskoz, 2008; Jauregi & Banados, 2008; Lee, 2009; Petersen, Divitini, & Chabert, 2008; Pinkman, 2005; Raith, 2009; Soares, 2008; Sun, 2009, 2012; Vurdien, 2011; Yang, 2009) and a growing number of studies examine the use of microblogging tools for language learning (Antenos-Conforti, 2009; Borau, Ullrich, Feng, & Shen, 2009; Lomicka & Lord, 2011; Perifanou, 2009). Grounded in Cultural Historical Activity Theory (Engestrom, 1987), the present study explores the outcomes of a semester-long project based on the Bridging Activities framework (Thorne & Reinhardt, 2008) and implemented in an intermediate hybrid Spanish-language course at a large public university in Arizona, in which students used microblogging and blogging tools to collect digital texts, analyze perspectives of the target culture, and participate as part of an online community of language learners with a broader audience of native speakers. The research questions are: (1) What technology is used by the students, with what frequency and for what purposes in both English and Spanish prior to beginning the project?, (2) What are students' values and attitudes toward using Twitter and Blogger as tools for learning Spanish and how do they change over time through their use in the project during the semester course?, and (3) What tensions emerge in the activity systems of the intermediate Spanish-language students throughout the process of using Twitter and Blogger for the project? What are the underlying reasons for the tensions? How are they resolved? The data was collected using pre-, post-, and periodic surveys, which included Likert and open-ended questions, as well as the participants' microblog and blog posts. The quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and the qualitative data was analyzed to identify emerging themes following the Constant Comparative Method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Finally, three participant outliers were selected as case studies for activity theoretical analysis in order to identify tensions and, through their resolution, evidence of expansive learning.
ContributorsAlvarado, Margaret (Author) / Lafford, Barbara (Thesis advisor) / González, Verónica (Committee member) / Cerron-Palomino, Alvaro (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This semester-long study examined the functions for which English (L1) and Spanish (L2) were used in two intact hybrid Spanish as a foreign language (FL) university classes at the 202 (fourth semester) level. Five 75-minutes classes of two instructors were observed by the researcher, video- and audio-recorded, and transcribed. A survey was also used to determine the functions for which the instructors and students believed that Spanish and English were used in the classroom, and the functions for which both believed that the two languages should be used. Talking about a test and teaching grammar were the functions for which both instructors used the most English and the most Spanish. The questionnaire results indicated that the students who heard more Spanish in the classroom would have preferred that their instructor had used less Spanish for the functions of checking how well students understand a reading in class as well as when giving instructions or explaining how to do group activities. The Minnesota Language Proficiency Assessment for listening at the Intermediate-High level was administered to the students of both instructors at the beginning and at the end of the semester. The classroom observations indicated that although both instructors used more than 50% words in English during their classes, one instructor used twice as many words in Spanish as did the other. However, the results of the study revealed no significant relationship between the amount of Spanish used by the instructors in the classroom and the students' progress on listening proficiency from the beginning to the end of the semester.
ContributorsHansel, Patsy (Author) / Lafford, Barbara A. (Thesis advisor) / García, Carmen (Thesis advisor) / Elorrieta, Jabier (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This study explored the Web resources used by four students enrolled in an introductory university-level Medical Translation course over a period of one semester. The research examined the students’ use of time, information needs and searches, and whether user attributes (translation experience and training, specialization and familiarity with the text, previous Web search training, and effort) or task-related factors (perceived task difficulty) had a relationship with the Web searching behavior of the participants. The study also investigates how this behavior might have been reflected in the quality of the product. The study focused on two translation tasks extracted from medical texts selected by the instructor that had to be translated from English into Spanish. Data was gathered by means of various instruments: translated texts, Think-Aloud Protocols, computer screen recordings, and questionnaires. The results of the data gathered from these instruments were triangulated in an effort to find relationships between the translation process and the translation product. Results were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively.
The findings of the study revealed that the students spent a considerable amount of time looking for information on the Web during their translation assignments, and that the students exhibited an inclination toward bilingual Web sources. An analysis of user attributes suggested that translation experience might have had a relationship with the resources used, and the frequency of their use. Data showed that the more experienced students in the translation program received higher scores in their translations. It was also found that the higher the level of familiarity with the topic, the fewer the number of total searches. In addition, previous Web search training appeared to have a relationship with where and how information was sought. It was observed that in one of the two translation tasks, the more effort the students declared, the more Web searches they carried out. A look at perceived task difficulty indicated that in one of two tasks, this factor had an impact on the number of Web searches, which in turn, seemed to influence the time spent on the translation process, and the translation scores.
The findings of the study revealed that the students spent a considerable amount of time looking for information on the Web during their translation assignments, and that the students exhibited an inclination toward bilingual Web sources. An analysis of user attributes suggested that translation experience might have had a relationship with the resources used, and the frequency of their use. Data showed that the more experienced students in the translation program received higher scores in their translations. It was also found that the higher the level of familiarity with the topic, the fewer the number of total searches. In addition, previous Web search training appeared to have a relationship with where and how information was sought. It was observed that in one of the two translation tasks, the more effort the students declared, the more Web searches they carried out. A look at perceived task difficulty indicated that in one of two tasks, this factor had an impact on the number of Web searches, which in turn, seemed to influence the time spent on the translation process, and the translation scores.
ContributorsFernández, Ofelia (Author) / Lafford, Barbara A. (Thesis advisor) / Beaudrie, Sara M. (Committee member) / Cerrón-Palomino, Álvaro U (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
With the increase of academic courses moving to online instruction (Blake, 2011), it is only natural language education also would make the leap to online platforms. Following Vygotsky's (1978) Sociocultural Theory (SCT), the purpose of this study is to test the differential effect of the presence of a language learning orientation module in online environments as well as exploring the possible variables affecting student success in module and non-module containing courses. The effectiveness of the module is measured by triangulating student success as defined and tested by Kerr et al. (2006) using their quantitative TOOLS (Test of Online Learning Success) instrument and collecting qualitative data in the form of journal entries and surveys. Data were collected from 1st year university Spanish courses from both a control group (no module use), as well as an experimental group (module use). Case study data from both control and experimental groups showed trends related to student success and may help to shed light on the pedagogical implications of language orientation modules in both online and face-to-face language learning environments while providing avenues for future research designs to explore the effectiveness of the aforementioned modules in online environments.
ContributorsFlanagan, Steven Ray (Author) / Ross, Andrew F (Thesis advisor) / Lafford, Barbara A. (Thesis advisor) / Ghanem, Carla (Committee member) / Cerrón-Palomino, Álvaro U (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Drawing on previous empirical works in the field of Intercultural Competence (ICC) and telecollaboration (Chun, 2011; Elola & Oskoz, 2008; Furstenberg, 2004; Schulz, 2007), this study investigates how a completion of Cultura Project tasks in L1 and L2 helped to determine students' cultural values and behaviors, find out how their mental lexicons are structured, and assess a state of their critical cultural awareness. The theoretical framework for this study is based on Byram's (1997) work on ICC. As a part of their course work, Spanish language learners from a lower-division class participate in three Cultura Project tasks and provided their comments afterwards. The findings revealed cultural values and believes of the participants, as well as the organization of their mental lexicons. Moreover, the findings illustrated how the level of critical cultural awareness, as one of the components of ICC, could be assessed using the rubrics developed based on Byram's (1997) work on ICC and Bloom's (1990) revised taxonomy of learning skills. The results of the study contributed to the field of SLA on what is known about the roles of culturally-based questionnaires in critical cultural awareness assessment and the structure of mental lexicons of L2 learners.
ContributorsVaskivska, Tetiana (Author) / Lafford, Barbara A. (Thesis advisor) / Cerron-Palomino, Alvaro (Committee member) / González-López, Verónica (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015