Matching Items (25)
Description
This study investigates how university instructors from various disciplines at a large, comprehensive university in the United States evaluate different varieties of English from countries considered "outer circle" (OC) countries, formerly colonized countries where English has been transplanted and is now used unofficially and officially to varying degrees. The study was designed to address two gaps in the research: (1) how instructors in increasingly internationalized U.S. universities evaluate different written varieties of English, since many international students may be writing in an L1 other than American English, and (2) how instructors' first language and/or disciplinary backgrounds appear to affect their evaluations. Through a comparison of rankings and qualitative analysis of interview data, the study examines whether the participating instructors value the same features and characteristics in writing, such as text and organization features, found in American English and varieties of OC written English. In addition, it examines whether one's first or native language or one's disciplinary training affects the perception and evaluation of these particular varieties of English. This study showed that what is currently valued and expected by instructors from various disciplines in U.S. universities is what may be identified as an "American" style of writing; participants expected an organization providing a clear purpose up front, including paragraphs of a certain length, and containing sentences perceived as more direct and succinct. In addition, given the overall agreement on the element of good writing demonstrated in how composition and content area professors ranked the writing samples, my study suggests that what is being taught in composition is preparing student for the writing expected in content area classes. Last, my findings add to World Englishes (WE) research by adding a writing component to WE attitudinal research studies, which have previously focused on oral production. Almost equal numbers of Native and Non-Native English Speakers (NESs and NNESs) participated, and the NNESs appeared more tolerant of different varieties, unlike the preference for inner circle norms noted in previous studies. This study, therefore, has implications for writing research and instruction at U.S. colleges and universities, as well as informing the field of World Englishes.
ContributorsCollier, Lizabeth C (Author) / Matsuda, Aya (Thesis advisor) / Wiley, Terrence (Committee member) / Mccarty, Teresa (Committee member) / Friedrich, Patricia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The study develops a better understanding of what is valued in L2 academic writing in IEP and FYC programs through a comparative case study approach, identifying the assumptions and underlying values of program directors and instructors in both types of instructional settings. The goal of the study is to understand more about second language writing pedagogy for international students in these programs, as well as to provide university administrators with a better understanding of how to improve writing instruction for multilingual students, who have become a key part of the U.S. higher education mission. Data include program-level mission statements, course descriptions and objectives, curricular materials, as well as interviews with teachers and program directors. Major findings show that there is a tension between language-focused vs. rhetoric-focused approaches to second language writing instruction in the two contexts. IEP instruction sought to build on students' language proficiency, and writing instruction was rooted in a conception of writing as language organized by structural principles, while the FYC program emphasized writing as a tool for communication and personal growth. Based on these findings, I provide recommendations for improving graduate education for all writing teachers, developing more comprehensive needs analysis procedures, and establishing administrative structures to support international multilingual students.
ContributorsHammill, Matthew Joseph (Author) / Matsuda, Paul Kei (Thesis advisor) / James, Mark A (Committee member) / Rose, Shirley (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Most new first-year composition (FYC) students already have a great deal of writing experience. Much of this experience comes from writing in digital spaces, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. This type of writing is often invisible to students: they may not consider it to be writing at all. This dissertation seeks to better understand the actual connections between writing in online spaces and writing in FYC, to see the connections students see between these types of writing, and to work toward a theory for making use of those connections in the FYC classroom. The following interconnected articles focus specifically on Facebook--the largest and most ubiquitous social network site (SNS)-- as a means to better understand students' digital literacy practices.
Initial data was gathered through a large-scale survey of FYC students about their Facebook use and how they saw that use as connected to composition and writing. Chapter 1 uses the data to suggest that FYC students are not likely to see a connection between Facebook and FYC but that such a connection exists. The second chapter uses the same data to demonstrate that men and women are approaching Facebook slightly differently and to explore what that may mean for FYC teachers. The third chapter uses 10 one-on-one interviews with FYC students to further explore Facebook literacies. The interviews suggest that the literacy of Facebook is actually quite complex and includes many modes of communication in addition to writing, such as pictures, links, and "likes." The final chapter explores the issue of transfer. While transfer is popular in composition literature, studies tend to focus on forward-reading and not backward-reaching transfer. This final chapter stresses the importance of this type of transfer, especially when looking back at digital literacy knowledge that students have gained through writing online.
While these articles are intended as stand-alone pieces, together they demonstrate the complex nature of literacies on Facebook, how they connection to FYC, and how FYC teachers may use them in their classrooms. They serve as a starting off point for discussions of effective integration of digital literacies into composition pedagogies.
Initial data was gathered through a large-scale survey of FYC students about their Facebook use and how they saw that use as connected to composition and writing. Chapter 1 uses the data to suggest that FYC students are not likely to see a connection between Facebook and FYC but that such a connection exists. The second chapter uses the same data to demonstrate that men and women are approaching Facebook slightly differently and to explore what that may mean for FYC teachers. The third chapter uses 10 one-on-one interviews with FYC students to further explore Facebook literacies. The interviews suggest that the literacy of Facebook is actually quite complex and includes many modes of communication in addition to writing, such as pictures, links, and "likes." The final chapter explores the issue of transfer. While transfer is popular in composition literature, studies tend to focus on forward-reading and not backward-reaching transfer. This final chapter stresses the importance of this type of transfer, especially when looking back at digital literacy knowledge that students have gained through writing online.
While these articles are intended as stand-alone pieces, together they demonstrate the complex nature of literacies on Facebook, how they connection to FYC, and how FYC teachers may use them in their classrooms. They serve as a starting off point for discussions of effective integration of digital literacies into composition pedagogies.
ContributorsShepherd, Ryan P (Author) / Gee, Elisabeth (Thesis advisor) / Matsuda, Paul Kei (Committee member) / Rose, Shirley K. (Committee member) / Daer, Alice (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This dissertation delves into some EFL stakeholders' understanding of spiritual identities and power relations associated with these identities as performed in an undergraduate EFL teacher education program at a Christian university in Indonesia. This study is motivated by an ongoing debate over the place of spirituality, especially Christianity, in ELT. In this project, religions are considered to be windows through which one's spirituality is viewed and expressed. Spiritually associated relations of power indicate discrepancies due to positioning of one person committed to a spiritual view in relation to those having similar or different spiritual views. The purpose of exploring spiritually associated identities and power relations is to provide empirical evidence which supports the following arguments. The integration of spirituality in ELT, or lack thereof, can be problematic. More importantly, however, spirituality can be enriching for some EFL teachers and students alike, and be presented together with critical ELT. To explore the complexity of power relations associated with some EFL stakeholders' spiritual identities, I analyzed data from classroom observations, four focus group discussions from February to April 2014, and individual interviews with 23 teachers and students from February to September 2014. Findings showed that Christian and non-Christian English teachers had nuanced views regarding the place of prayer in ELT-related activities, professionalism in ELT, and ways of negotiating spiritually associated power relations in ELT contexts. Students participating in this study performed their spiritual identities in ways that can be perceived as problematic (e.g., by being very dogmatic or evangelical) or self-reflexive. Classroom observations helped me to see more clearly how Christian English teachers interacted with their students from different religious backgrounds. In one class, a stimulating dialogue seemed to emerge when a teacher accommodated both critical and religious views to be discussed. This project culminates in my theorization of the praxis of critical spiritual pedagogy in ELT. Central to this praxis are (a) raising the awareness of productive power and power relations associated with spiritual identities; (b) learning how to use defiant discourses in negotiating spiritually associated power relations; and (c) nurturing self-reflexivity critically and spiritually.
ContributorsMambu, Joseph Ernest (Author) / Matsuda, Paul Kei (Thesis advisor) / Friedrich, Patricia (Committee member) / Prior, Matthew T. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This yearlong project examines how multilingual undergraduate writers--including international visa students and U.S. permanent residents or citizens who are non-native English speakers--exercise agency in their first-year composition placement decisions. Agency is defined as the capacity to act or not to act contingent upon various conditions. The goal of the project is to demonstrate how student agency can inform the overall programmatic placement decisions, which can lead to more effective placement practices for multilingual writers. To explore the role of agency in students' placement decisions, I conducted a series of four in-depth interviews with eleven multilingual writers between Fall 2010 and Spring 2011 in the Writing Programs at Arizona State University. To triangulate these placement decisions, I interviewed some of the multilingual student participants' academic advisors and writing teachers as well as writing program administrators. Findings showed that when conditions for agency were appropriate, the multilingual student participants were able to negotiate placement, choose to accept or deny their original placement, self-assess their proficiency level as deciding to choose a writing course, plan on their placement, question about placement, and finally make decisions about a writing course they wanted to take. In the context of this study, conditions for agency include the freedom to choose writing courses and information about placement that is distributed by the following sources: advisors' recommendations, other students' past experience in taking first-year composition, the new student orientation, and other sources that provide placement related information such as an online freshman orientation and a major map. Other findings suggested that the academic advisor participants did not provide the multilingual students with complete placement information; and this affected the way the multilingual students chose which section of first-year composition to enroll in. Meanwhile, there was no formal communication about placement options and placement procedures between the Writing Programs and writing teachers. Building on these findings, I argue for improving conditions for agency by providing placement options, making placement information more readily available, and communicating placement information and options with academic advisors, writing teachers, and multilingual students.
ContributorsSaenkhum, Tanita, 1976- (Author) / Matsuda, Paul Kei (Thesis advisor) / Rose, Shirley (Committee member) / James, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This action research project explores masters level graduate student writing and academic identity during one semester in an interdisciplinary masters program. Informing this study is a two part theoretical framework including the Academic Literacy Model (Lea and Street) and Wenger's concept of identity. The purpose of this exploration was to understand how first semester graduate students experienced academic writing and what characteristics of their academic identity emerged. A mixed-methods approach was used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data included results from the Inventory of Processes in Graduate Writing (Lavelle and Bushrow, 2007) and the Graduate Student Identity Survey. Qualitative data was collected through researcher observations, student blog entries, writing group transcripts, and individual interviews. The following themes emerge from the data: a) graduate students attribute their successes in writing to previous experiences, b) graduate students experience struggles related primarily to academic quality and faculty expectations, c) graduate students negotiate ways of being in the academy through figuring out expectations of faculty and program, d) work done in the writing group meetings shows evidence of meaning-making for the graduate students, e) the focus of the MA program was critically important to graduate students in the graduate writing project, e) participants' role as graduate students felt most strongly in contexts that include academic activity, and f) students acknowledge change and increasingly identify themselves as writers. Ideas for future cycles of research are discussed.
ContributorsRuggles, Tosha M (Author) / Wetzel, Keith (Thesis advisor) / Ewbank, Ann (Committee member) / Friedrich, Patricia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This dissertation is an exploration of various identity labels available for first-year composition (FYC) students that tend to classify them into categories which may or may not relate to the students' perception of themselves. If there remains a gap between self-identification and institutional labeling then students may find themselves negotiating unfamiliar spaces detrimental to their personal goals, expectations, and understanding of their writing abilities. This may trigger a rippling effect that may jeopardize the outcomes expected from a successful FYC program stipulated in the WPA Outcomes Statement. For this study I approached 5 sections of mainstream FYC and 7 sections of ESL/ international FYC with in-class questionnaire based surveys. The 19 questions on the survey were cued to address students' concern for identity and how course labels may or may not attend to them. With feedback from 200 participants this study endeavors to realize their preference for identity markers and definitions for mainstream and ESL sections of FYC. The survey also checks if their choices correlate and in some ways challenge ongoing research in the field. The survey reports a marked preference for NES and English as a second language speaker as prominent choices among mainstream and ESL/ international students, respectively, but this is at best the big picture. The "truth" lies in the finer details - when mainstream students select NNESs and / or resident NNESs the students demonstrate a heightened awareness of individual identity. When this same category of resident NNESs identify themselves in ESL/ international sections of FYC, the range of student identities can be realized as not only varied but also overlapping between sections. Furthermore, the opinions of these students concur as well as challenge research in the field, making clear that language learning is a constant process of meaning making, innovation, and even stepping beyond the dominant mores and cultures.
ContributorsChaudhuri, Anita (Author) / Friedrich, Patricia (Thesis advisor) / Roen, Duane (Committee member) / James, Mark A (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The present study investigates some of the different ways in which English has been conceptualized in Brazil since the beginning of intensified globalization in the 1990s, and proposes how such conceptualizations relate to sociocultural, political and historical phenomena in the country. To this end, central texts (governmental documents, musical lyrics, cultural messages, educational policies, and language school commercials) of three domains of language regulation and use (political discourse, pop culture, and English language teaching) were examined through discourse analytical tools, text mapping, and content analyses. The investigation of each domain was supplemented by analyses of additional data (media texts, artistic work, and teacher interviews) that either confirmed or problematized results. Findings showed that the symbolic meanings of English in Brazil are caught in a heteroglossic web of discourses, which reflect diverse understandings of global processes, of the spread of English, and of Brazil itself. Tensions between authoritative and internally persuasive discourses, and between centripetal and centrifugal forces are revealed not only across different texts and realms - as reported in studies of English in other contexts - but also within domains, and within the discourses of the same people and institutions. It is argued that legislative authority, the role of the state, and the contradictions between discourses of mobility and empowerment and unsuccessful educational practices play a central role in the way English is understood and experienced in Brazil, confirming previous claims of an identity crisis, and revealing other crises of power, democracy, politics, and education. The study adds to the literature on English conceptualizations by bringing an understanding of the case of Brazil, which has not been as extensively investigated as other contexts. Moreover, the individual analyses presented bring new perspectives on the political discourses that have attempted to regulate loanword use in Brazil, and on the nature of language teaching in the country, besides emphasizing the role of pop culture in the understanding of English in that context. Further implications include the discussion of how the study of the spread of English may connect with different understandings of globalization, and the presentation of how the results contribute to language education.
ContributorsFigueiredo, Eduardo Henrique Diniz de (Author) / Friedrich, Patricia (Committee member) / Matsuda, Aya (Committee member) / Gee, James (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
In countries of conflict, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) often resort to humanitarian relief. A small number of peace and conflict resolution organizations (P/CROs) engage more directly, through grassroots mediation, elite negotiation and advocacy. This thesis observes the potential for implementing such direct conflict interventions in traditional relief and development organizations. To understand current NGO activities, I examine ten case study organizations in two countries of conflict, Cote d'Ivoire and Somalia. I analyze organizations' rhetorical presentation, their society-level engagement, strategies for intervention, and responses to persistent challenges, such as security, impartiality, collaboration and evaluation. Based on conflict study literature, I make tentative recommendations for NGOs in Cote d'Ivoire and Somalia specifically. I also propose a more general system for classifying NGO peace work: five generations of conflict intervention, each more integrated, direct, and political. Rhetorical, structural and operational changes will help organizations move toward higher generation work.
ContributorsDiddams, Margaret (Author) / Ron, Amit (Thesis advisor) / Friedrich, Patricia (Thesis advisor) / Wang, Lili (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Situated in the influx of Chinese students entering U.S. higher education and the L2 writing research growing interests in investigating learners’ experience to gain further insights into their emic perspectives on English literacy development, this dissertation argues that the identifying the beliefs as the underlying principle shaping and being shaped by our experience. In this dissertation, I propose a theoretical framework of beliefs and validates the framework by using it to examine multilingual writers’ learning experience in the context of First Year Composition. The framework advances a definition of beliefs and a framework demonstrating the relationship among three constructs—perception, attitude, and behavior. In order to develop the framework, I first synthesized existing literature on language learning beliefs and argue the scarcity of L2 writing researchers’ discussing belief when exploring learners’ experience. I define beliefs as an individual’s generalizations from the mental construction of the experience, based on evaluation and judgment, thus are predisposed to actions. I proposed a framework of belief, consisting three mental constructs—perception, attitude and action—to identify and examine factors contributing the formation and change of beliefs. I drew on drawing on Dewey's theory of experience and Rokeach's (1968) belief theory, and contextual approach to beliefs in the field of second language acquisition. I analyzed the interview data of twenty-two Chinses students accounting their English learning experiences across four different contexts, including English class in China, TOEFL training courses, intensive English program, and FYC classroom. The findings show that their beliefs were formed and transformed in the contexts before FYC. They perceived all the writing learning in those courses as similar content and curriculum, but the attitudes vary regarding the immediate contexts and long-term goal of using the knowledge. They believe grammar and vocabulary is the “king’s way,” the most effective and economic approach, which was emphasized in the test-oriented culture. Moreover, the repetitive course content and various pedagogies, including multiple revisions and the requirement of visiting writing center, have been perceived as requiring demonstration more efforts, which in turn prompted them to develop their own negotiation strategies, the actions, to gain more credits for the class. This dissertation concludes that the beliefs can be inferred from these all three constructs, but to change beliefs of learners, we need to make them explicit and incorporate them into writing instruction or curriculum design. Implications on how to further the research of beliefs as well as translating these findings into classroom pedagogies are also discussed. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of how the framework can be used to inform future research and classroom practices informed by writing beliefs identified in this study.
ContributorsYang, Yuching (Author) / Matsuda, Paul Kei (Thesis advisor) / Matsuda, Aya (Committee member) / James, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017