Browsing by Subject "Second language acquisition"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    The acquisition of Spanish vowels by native English-Speaking students in Spanish immersion programs.
    (2010-06) Menke, Mandy R.
    Native-like pronunciation is necessary for membership into some social groups and to be considered a legitimate speaker of a language. Language immersion education aims to develop bilingual individuals, able to participate in multiple global communities, and while the lexical, syntactic, and sociolinguistic development of immersion learners is well documented, their phonological skills are not. This study set out to address this gap by investigating immersion learners' pronunciation of Spanish vowels, a sound class known to lead to a foreign accent, comparing the vowel productions of native English-speaking learners in one-way (foreign language) immersion and two-way (bilingual) immersion programs to those of their native Spanish-speaking peers and their teachers. A total of 85 immersion students participated in this study. A cross-sectional sample of students from each of the program/language groups was taken; students from each of four grade levels (first, third, fifth, and seventh) participated. Students completed an animal picture sorting task in pairs during which their speech was audio and video recorded. Up to twenty tokens of each of the five Spanish vowels, for a possible total of 100 tokens per subject, were isolated and examined via spectrographic analysis in order to measure first and second formant values. The tokens examined for each vowel were balanced for their occurrence in stressed and unstressed syllables. Students also completed a written questionnaire in order to gather data about extralinguistic factors (i.e., attitudes and motivation) that have been shown to influence pronunciation. The findings indicate that the vowel productions of immersion learners differ from those of native Spanish-speaking peers. In general, the vowel space of the learner groups is larger than that of the native speaker peer group. Over time, the number of differences between one-way NES learners and native speakers increase while the number of differences between two-way NES learners and native speakers decrease. This finding suggests that there may be an effect of program model; however, differences in the ethnic background and exposure to Spanish outside of school between the two learner groups may also play a role and thus make it difficult to attribute differences solely to the effect of program model. Differences in attitude between the groups do not reach statistical significance and do not correlate with more native-like vowel pronunciations.
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    A dynamic approach to social interaction: Synthetic immersive environments & Spanish pragmatics.
    (2008-05) Sykes, Julie M.
    In an effort to better understand how innovative technologies can be used to enhance second language acquisition, this study investigates the role that online immersive spaces, specifically, synthetic immersive environments (SIEs), can play in enhancing advanced language learners' pragmatic performance (i.e., their ability to perform requests and apologies in Spanish). SIEs are engineered spaces which integrate the many benefits of online gaming to produce explicitly, educationally-related outcomes in simulated, relevant, interactional contexts. The results of this study address two important components of the use of SIEs for L2 pragmatic acquisition. First, utilizing a synthesis of 120 hours of in-game behavior, survey data, and one-on-one participant interviews, this study analyzed how three potentially beneficial attributes of the SIEs were used and perceived by the participants (i.e., individualized experience, varied participant roles, and "low-risk" practice space). The results demonstrate that in-game behavior can be categorized into four distinct types of individualized experiences. Furthermore, there was not a high level of experimentation with participant roles in this study; however, the data revealed an increased importance placed on experimentation upon completion of the unit. Finally, quest completion was viewed as the primary indicator of success with quest resets carrying a connotation of failure for the majority of the students. In addition, results indicate a marked difference between actual learning outcomes (measured by pre/post DCTs) and perceived outcomes on the part of the learners. In terms of both speech acts, the DCT data revealed little change from pre- to posttest, except in the case of perspective for the apologies scenarios. The perception data exhibited an overall perceived benefit for all eight scenarios surveyed, with statistically significant improvements in the scenarios most closely emulating those that were present in the SIE. Implications for future design, implementation, and research projects are also discussed
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    Examining the Role of Family Education within Language Revitalization
    (2014) Shields, Sanna Mourita; Rauschenfels, Diane
    Understanding how to extend language learning beyond the classroom and into the home and family life of the enrolled preschool students in an Indigenous language immersion program is the focus of this study. The study explored the role of family education in language revitalization by asking families to describe their children’s target language learning outside of school; if the parents/caregivers feel able to support their children’s language acquisition without studying the language themselves; which types of resources they are most likely to engage with to facilitate second language acquisition; and what strategies parents/caregivers use to learn the language alongside their children. The results of this study show the limited language background of many parents/caregivers of enrolled immersion program students; outline motivating factors for language revitalization participation; identify activity based family programming and time spent in the immersion classroom as favored strategies for parents/caregivers to learn the target language and find that lack of time and energy are limitations faced by families to participate in family educational programming. Addressing the language fluency deficiencies within the adult population of Indigenous speaking communities as well as moving language use into wider daily practice have also been addressed by this study.
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    Politeness and social interaction in study abroad: Service encounters in L2 Spanish
    (2008-06) Shively, Rachel Louise
    This study examines the second language (L2) learning of politeness and social interaction in study abroad within a sociocultural and rapport management framework, reporting on longitudinal, ethnographic research of service encounters recorded in situ between L2 learners of Spanish and local Spanish service providers in Toledo, Spain. Service encounters are defined as interactions between a customer and a service provider in which some commodity will potentially be exchanged. The participants in the study were seven U.S. American students who studied abroad for one semester in Spain during 2007. The data consist of naturalistic digital recordings that participants made of themselves while visiting local stores, banks, information desks, and other service providers. The study was longitudinal with five recordings made at the beginning, middle, and end of the semester by each student, for 113 recordings total. Other sources of data included students' weekly journals describing their service encounters and learning of politeness, interviews with participants and local Spaniards, and the researcher's field notes as a participant observer. The findings indicate that, during the semester abroad, participants learned target language norms of politeness regarding requests, openings, and discourse markers. These developments over time in L2 politeness were connected to students' descriptions about how they learned specific politeness features, namely, through explicit instruction, observation of Spaniards, participation in service encounters, and reactions of interlocutors. Learners managed rapport in service encounters through tone of voice, positive assessments, and other face-enhancing moves.
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    Revitalizing language, reframing expertise: An ecological study of language in one teacher-learner's Ojibwe classroom
    (2017-05) Engman, Melissa
    The demand for Ojibwe language education is outpacing the current number of ‘first speakers’ in the United States (Treuer, 2010). This inverse relationship between the number of learners and the number of fluent speakers means most teachers involved in Ojibwe language education are themselves language learners with varying levels of proficiency. Nevertheless, the experiences, practices, and ideologies of the ‘teacher-learner’ (Hinton, 2003) have received little attention despite their central role in the success of classroom-based, K-12 language programs. This study addresses this gap in the literature through an ethnographic and sociocultural analysis of language use within one teacher-learner’s Ojibwe kindergarten classroom. It examines classroom language and interaction, participant structures, and routines, documenting the languages and discourses that are used for academic, social, and spiritual purposes. It employs linguistic ethnography (LE) to first present a descriptive picture of the linguistic ecology of the classroom along with the teacher-learner’s practices and strategies. LE is then combined with critical discourse analysis (CDA) to unpack the beliefs and ideologies that shape these practices. Findings show how the teacher-learner’s reliance on routines and matrix-language framing to scaffold her own language opens up discursive space for learners to experiment, play, and relate to one another in English and Ojibwemowin. Furthermore, this study highlights the ideological constraints and openings that shape the learning and use of an Indigenous language within a colonial institution (school) that has long been a tool of assimilation and Indigenous language erasure. This study incorporates experiential knowledge from Indigenous educators and critiques of applied linguistics from Indigenous scholars to call attention to the obstacles and innovations that arise as multilingual Ojibwe language learners and their teacher(-learner) negotiate new terrain in classroom-based language revitalization. Findings provide a better understanding of how language teaching and use function in teacher-learner-led classrooms with implications for both language revitalization research and the development of heteroglossic Indigenous identities. Moreover, the inclusion of oft-dismissed Indigenous epistemology speaks back to the field of applied linguistics, arguing for an increased openness and commitment to difference and flexibility in multilingual language teaching and learning theory.