76 research outputs found
Mediating Identities: "Doing being global" in a study abroad media literacy course
No full textThesis (Ed.D.) - Indiana University, Literacy Culture and Language Education, 2016This study reports on findings of a complex, contextualized blended education world. It is a blend of modalities, technologies, media, languages, countries, cultures, and literacies. The nature of this blend facilitates observation of what happens as learners transform formal, informal, and digital learning contexts into their own agentive spaces for auditioning global
identity repertoires (Lechner, 2007). Using tools of Nexus Analysis to analyze filmed observations, interviews, field notes, and course artifacts, this study describes how translingual youth select and incorporate available semiotic resources to display symbolic competences (Kramsch & Whiteside, 2008) to negotiate and co-construct global identities across multiple sites
of engagement. Drawing upon Mercer’s (2011a, 2011b, 2012) work on learner agency as a complex adaptive system, I explore how multilingual students’ identity performances can be conceived as nested complex adaptive systems (CAS). Specifically, I focus on how students deploy symbolic competence (Kramsch, 2006) as a discursive adaptive system of meaning-making and intercultural competence (Kramsch, 2009b) in the mediated actions of “doing being global.” Findings indicate that “emergent teaching” (Crowell & Reid-Marr, 2013) plays important roles in constructing collaborative agency even in spaces that materially and discursively are
quite constraining. This ethnographic study addresses interdisciplinary gaps in global education, semiotic landscapes, multilingualism, and complexity education research while contributing to methodological approaches of multimodal action-oriented research and holds implications for teaching practice and approaches to fostering global teaching dispositions
Cultivating Language Teacher Identities: A Narrative Inquiry of Pre-service Non-native English-speaking Teachers
No full textThesis (Ed.D.) - Indiana University, Curriculum and Instruction/Education, 2024Teacher candidates in a Second Language Teacher Education (SLTE) or Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) program, are from different linguistic, cultural, and educational backgrounds. The ideology of native speakerism, which is a pervasive ideology that continues to be an issue in the field of English language teaching (ELT) where the native speaker (NS) is idealized, and the non-native speaker (NNS) is marginalized (Holliday, 2018). This study utilizes a narrative research design incorporating Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) Three-Dimensional Space framework to explore the lived experiences of pre-service non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) development of language teacher identities (LTI) in an MA TESOL program in the United States. The study’s findings indicate that pre-service teachers' previous encounters with native speakerism before entering a graduate TESOL program, along with the encounters with native speakerism while studying in an MA TESOL program, highlight a critical need to create safe spaces for pre-service teachers to engage and counter native speakerism. The study calls for the inclusion of pre-service teachers’ narratives as central to the TESOL curriculum to empower pre-service teachers to cultivate confident language teacher identities
Social and Psychological Valence Components of Translingual Graduate Writers’ Inventory of Strengths
No full textThesis (Ph.D.) - Indiana University, School of Education, 2018This study of the assets that international graduate students bring to the process of learning English academic writing in the US has two purposes. The primary purpose is to develop the Translingual Graduate Writers’ Inventory of Strengths (TGWIS) and to test its reliability and validity as a tool to determine the particular strengths and resources of international graduate writers. The second purpose is to describe the academic writing strategies used by translingual graduate writers in order to suggest a conceptual framework of graduate academic writing in English and to promote teaching and learning of graduate academic writing in English for international graduate students based on positive psychology and translingualism. Previous studies of L2 learning have paid more attention to negative psychological and affective dimensions such as foreign language learning anxiety and writing apprehension. In response tothe need particularly psychological and social dimensions of international graduate academic writers in English, the TGWIS was developed. Based on the conceptual frameworks of translingualism (Canagarajah, 2013a), embodied self (Kramsch, 2009), Strength-Centered Therapy (Wong, 2006a), positive psychological perspectives (Lopez, Pedrotti & Snyder, 2015; Nakamura & Csíkszentmihályi, 2002, 2009; Seligman, 2002), and growth mindset (Dweck, 2000, 2006, 2008, 2010; Dweck & Master, 2009), the TGWIS V.10 was developed with eight psychological and social components (N=509). I tested the validity and reliability of the TGWIS as an instrument to promote a positive perspective on translingual academic writers by employing exploratory factor analysis (n=249) and confirmatory factor analysis (n=260). The final measurement model of the TGWIS V.10 is consisted of four factors with16 items: Interest and motivation to pursue graduate academic writing (GAW) in English (5 items; α = .84), self-confidence in GAW in English (5 items; α = .80), perceived professional value of GAW in English (3 items; α = .73), and using translingual resources in GAW in English (3 items; α = .74). The major contribution of this study is to inform stakeholders in US graduate education programs of the perspectives of international graduate students and to inform efforts to provide customized graduate level writing assistance. These aspirations can be fulfilled in a “nested” environment with affective and social supports, validating their strengths as translingual writers
TEACHING ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE FOR MULTILINGUAL LEARNERS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: THE SOUTH SUDANESE CONTEXT
No full textThesis (M.S.Ed.) - Indiana University, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, 2025As a new country, South Sudan faces many unique challenges and the establishment of English as a shared language of instruction is one of the main challenges. South Sudan is a multilingual and multiethnic nation, and English is often not even the second language of many residents, but sometimes the third. With South Sudan’s independence from Sudan in 2011, English was designated the medium of instruction and national language. The sudden change of English as the medium of instruction has affected the educational system of South Sudan. It led to a very low level of English proficiency for both students and teachers alike. Because of this low proficiency level, this paper focuses on the effective methods of English instruction for higher education students who speak more than one language in South Sudan universities. In particular, it looks at how to help multilingual students with low proficiency contexts for whom English may be a second or third language
COMPARING VOCABULARY RICHNESS IN CHILDREN’S YOUTUBE VIDEOS AND CHILDREN’S PICTURE BOOKS
No full textThesis (M.S.Ed.) - Indiana University, Department of Curriculum and Instruction/School of Education, 2025Children’s growing screen exposure, especially video consumption raises concerns about language development, yet few studies have directly examined whether videos provide sufficient vocabulary input compared to books. This study aims to quantitatively examine the differences in vocabulary provided by children’s picture books and children’s YouTube videos in terms of vocabulary size, diversity, and complexity. A total of 56 popular children’s picture books and 56 highly viewed children’s YouTube videos targeted at children aged eight and under were analyzed using natural language processing techniques and statistical tests like t-test and Welch’s t-test. Statistical analyses revealed that children’s picture books contain significantly more words per minute (vocabulary size) and greater lexical diversity (vocabulary diversity) compared to YouTube videos, though no significant difference was found in word frequency values (vocabulary complexity). These findings suggest that children’s video content may provide less rich vocabulary input than books, potentially contributing to vocabulary development gaps. This study provides valuable insights for educators and caregivers in selecting content that supports adequate language input for children’s language acquisition
Rwanda switches to English: Conflict, identity and language-in-education policy
No full textpre-publication manuscript onlyNational Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowshi
Ventriloquation in discussions of student writing
No full textThis study examines discussions of model papers in a high school Advanced Placement English classroom where students were preparing for a high-stakes writing assessment. Much of the current research on talk about writing in various contexts such as classroom discourse, teacher-student writing conferences, and peer tutoring has emphasized the social and constructive nature of instructional discourse. Building on this work, the present study explored how talk about writing also takes on a performative function, as speakers accent or point to the features of the context that are most significant ideologically. Informed by perspectives on the emergent and mediated nature of discourse, this study found that the participants used ventriloquation to voice the aspects of the essays that they considered to be most important, and that these significant chunks were often aphorisms about the test essay. The teacher frequently ventriloquated raters, while the students often ventriloquated themselves or the teacher. The significance of ventriloquation is not just that it helps to mediate the generic conventions of timed student essays; it also mediates social positioning by helping the speakers to present themselves and others in flexible ways. This study also raises questions about the ways that ventriloquation can limit the ways that students view academic writing
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Tuning Learners to Linguistic Diversity using the “Your Words” Activity
No full textThe “Your Words” activity invites students to explore how they vary the ways that they communicate in their various speech communities (Morgan, 2014; Rampton, 2020). Students may consider their speech communities in only general terms, such as “I am a speaker of English and Cantonese because I am a resident of Hong Kong.” Or “I am from Miami, so I speak English and Spanish at home. Or “I like to skateboard, and I share some jargon with my skate mates that I don’t use in other situations.” To help them reflect more deeply on communities for which they may not have names, the “Your Words” activity invites them to reflect on and share a word or phrase that they only use in specific social groups that form part of their lives. The discussion that follows encourages students to consider how they modify the way they communicate as they move through the different speech communities that are part of their daily lives. The activity is useful for raising awareness of speech communities before introducing discussions about language attitudes and beliefs that can help prepare pre-service teachers for working with students whose linguistic and cultural diversity is unfamiliar to them
Books & Beyond Curriculum Notes
No full textThese curriculum notes are companion materials for The World is Our Home, Volumes 1-4, Books & Beyond’s annual compilations of short stories written by students from Kabwende Primary School (Kinigi, Rwanda) and TEAM Schools (Newark, NJ, USA), with assistance from undergraduates at Indiana University Bloomington’s Global Village Living Learning Center. Books & Beyond was established in 2009 as a collaborative service-learning project that would bring students together from three different schools and two different countries.Books & Beyond: An International Service Project of Indiana University (Bloomington, IN, USA), Kabwende Primary School (Kinigi, Rwanda), and TEAM Schools (Newark, NJ, USA
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