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Reflections on Teaching Language and Culture in the French Dual Language Immersion Classroom
Get PDFThis portfolio is representative of the author’s work in the Masters in Second Language Teaching (MSLT) program and classroom experience. The reflection paper explores teaching French in the Dual Language Immersion (DLI) and Bridge secondary education context and evaluates specific examples of innovative teaching. The aims of this reflection are twofold: first, to reflect on how the author improved her teaching effectiveness through this experience and through the USU MSLT program; second, to suggest best practices in the French DLI classroom. Both practical and theoretical, the reflection focuses on the author’s own experiences teaching Bridge program intermediate and advanced-proficiency level French courses. The author provides a teaching philosophy statement and discusses her experiences in teaching language and culture in the Bridge program, reflecting on teaching strategies and innovations used to increase student engagement, cultural competencies, and proficiency levels. The portfolio provides an analysis of a specific lesson using stories and the PACE model. Then the portfolio includes teaching reflections on teaching with song and video, teaching global francophone cultures, and aspects of the author’s teaching experiences, reflecting on improvements and suggesting best practices for the future
She: The Shadow Self
Get PDFThis multimodal poetry thesis explores the Female Shadow, an adaptation of Carl Jung’s concept of the Shadow that focuses on women’s experiences, through the themes of silence, abuse, and generational trauma. Incorporating multimodal forms such as video poetry and visual poetry alongside traditional print poetry, the collection mirrors the fragmented nature of trauma and the instability of memory. This collection draws from feminist theorists like Hélène Cixous, bell hooks, and Trinh T. Minh-ha, as well as poets engaging with Jungian concepts such as Sylvia Plath, Robert Bly, and Châtillon Coque. This work examines repression, voice, and the unconscious. Formally, it employs found poetry, ekphrasis, fragmentation, and anaphora, reflecting the lived reality of trauma survivors. Rather than resolving the Female Shadow, this collection seeks to witness and give form to it, asking: How is the Female Shadow created? How do women come to know their Shadows? And what is left after the Shadow has taken shape
Projects in Lighting Design and Technical Direction
Get PDFA report of realized lighting design, projection design, and technical direction theatre projects
The Art of Engagement: Personal Connections, Innovative Practices, and Goal-Driven Language Motivation
Get PDFThis portfolio includes the author’s personal experiences, practices, and perspectives for teaching languages, all refined and revitalized during her time in the Master of Second Language Teaching program at Utah State University. The author’s teaching perspectives have been informed by her experiences teaching French to primary, secondary, and university students, as well as by courses taken throughout the program. The following consists of three main pieces: the author’s teaching philosophy, an overview of research and practical applications of Game-Based Learning, and finally, research on factors that influence continuation of Arabic, French, and German in a university program
A Curriculum Development Study: Crafting and Teaching Curricula for ELL Students in China
Get PDFWhen teaching English Language Learners (ELL), it is important to understand the best practices and tools available to teach these students effectively and engagingly. In this curriculum development study, I examine and utilize effective and engaging practices for teaching ELL students and offers ten lesson plans taught to a native Chinese speaker that reflect the implementation and development of these practices. Research consisted of both practical and theoretical sources concerning critical pedagogy for teaching ELL students. An understanding of students’ background shapes an understanding of language transfer, thus providing a more tailored teaching approach (Rigby, 2004). The scaffolding of lessons present in the study utilizes the methods taught in current Teaching English as a Foreign Language courses (TEFL, 2025), with the lesson beginning with a warm-up activity, followed by direct instruction, controlled practice, and an open production activity. Teaching practices were also informed by other professional texts, using strategies from Singer (2018) and Serravallo (2017) for more engaging, hands-on writing, speaking, listening, and reading activities. Lessons were created using these scaffolding structures and engagement strategies, while also considering the needs and situations of the student. After each lesson, the success of the lesson as well as the student’s engagement and learning progress were recorded in order to inform the planning and implementation of the following lesson. Each lesson used a variety of exercises to challenge the student to improve their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills, with homework assignments designed to accelerate learning beyond the classroom. Because the lessons were held virtually, a variety of technology tools such as whiteboards, annotations, and screen sharing were employed to effectively engage the student in each lesson. This study includes a breakdown of research conducted, a rationale for planned lessons, as well as a reflection about the effectiveness of various engagement and scaffolding strategies developed throughout the curriculum
Political Violence, Electoral Behavior, and Their Interaction With Identity
Get PDFThe research takes Pakistan as a case-study to explores how political violence shapes electoral behavior by focusing on two forms of violence: terrorist interventions by non-state actors and political repression by state institutions. Analyzing multiple elections and regional contexts, the study investigates how fear inflicting non-state violence can discourage voter participation, while state sponsored violence can drive communities by triggering anger, particularly those with strong ethnic identities leading to a higher voter turnout. Overall, this work highlights how different types of violence have varying effects on voter participation, and how these effects are conditioned
Describing Functionality in Natural Language May Improve Decomposition Behaviors
Get PDFProblem decomposition—the ability to break complex problems into simpler parts—is a critical skill for computer programming that many beginning students struggle to develop. This research examines how using natural language to describe program functionality can help students develop better problem-solving approaches.
We created a tool called ”Natural Language Functions” (NLFs) that allows students to write descriptions of what they want their code to do in plain English, which then generates working Python functions. We studied how students used this tool compared to students who solved programming problems in traditional ways.
Our findings show that students who used the NLFs tool created approximately three times as many functions in their solutions compared to students who didn’t have access to the tool. This indicates significantly more decomposition behavior. Additionally, we observed that students using NLFs shifted from verbally describing their problem-solving process to writing it down in their function descriptions, suggesting that the act of writing prompts serves a similar purpose to speaking aloud when working through programming problems.
These results suggest that having students articulate functionality in natural language gives them an advantage when breaking down problems and building solutions. The NLF approach could serve as a valuable teaching tool that encourages structured thinking through written expression, potentially improving learning outcomes by making students’ thought processes more explicit
A Comparison of Principal Motivational Orientation and the Orientation of Principal Actions to Motivate Teachers
Get PDFThis study was planned and conducted to evaluate the correlation between a principal’s dominant motivation type (intrinsic or extrinsic) related to their dominant method to motivate others (intrinsic or extrinsic). The study included nine elementary school principals who led schools to high levels of academic performance. Three participating principals were selected from a school with high poverty rates. Three other principals were selected from schools with medium poverty rates, and three more were selected from schools with low poverty rates.
The researcher collected information from the nine participating principals regarding factors that motivate them to improve student learning at their respective schools. Data were collected from these participants through a survey tool to evaluate the level of intrinsic or extrinsic motivation the respondents had for their work. Additional information regarding sources of motivation was gathered through one-on-one interviews. The responses from each collection method (survey and interview) were reviewed to classify each participant as either intrinsically or extrinsically motivated in their work to improve student learning.
Further information was gathered from each participant regarding the actions they use to motivate teachers at their schools. These responses were then analyzed to identify each principal’s dominant motivation style as either more intrinsic or extrinsic. Finally, the principals’ own motivation orientation and the motivational style they used to motivate teachers were compared. Findings revealed that principals’ own identified motivation orientation and the actions they took to motivate teachers often were not the same
The Impact of Visually Presented Distractor Taboo Words During a Bilateral Attention Task
Get PDFAttention is a limited resource. Some events are able to capture one’s attention more efficiently than others, such as swear or sexual words. These events have preferential access to attentional resources and increase our arousal levels due to the activity of a neurotransmitter called norepinephrine. We investigate how well swear/sexual words capture peoples’ attention and interpret these effects in terms of norepinephrine activity.
Participants performed a visual task where they responded to different shapes presented while ignoring neutral or swear/sexual words presented on opposing sides of the computer screen.
Participants were significantly more inaccurate in identifying the shape present when a swear/sexual word was presented in the unattended visual field than when a neutral word was presented. Regardless of what type of word was presented, participants were significantly more inaccurate when the ignored words were presented to the left compared to right hemisphere within the brain. Participants were not significantly slower at reporting which shape was presented when ignored swear/sexual words were present compared to neutral. However, participants were significantly slower at reporting which shape was presented when the ignored words were presented to the left compared to right hemisphere. Analysis of event-related potentials and pupil size showed that participants had significantly larger late positive potential (LPP; 600-1200ms), P3 (250-350ms), pupil size when swear/sexual words were presented compared to neutral, associated with emotional responses and norepinephrine activity, respectively. Participants did demonstrate larger P3 when words were presented to the left compared to the right hemisphere, though not significantly. Participants had significantly larger LPP and pupil size when any type of word was presented to the LH compared to the right.
We are the first to demonstrate the attention capturing effect of swear/sexual words when presented as ignored events in an unattended visual field. The event-related potential and pupil size data suggest a role of norepinephrine activity in the attention capture. Taken together, the data suggest that swear/sexual events provoke norepinephrine activity that highlights the inherent salience of the events. Additionally, the results reveal the efficiency in the left hemisphere for processing linguistic stimuli without initiating language processing