Mandarin Chinese Immersion Program for Preschool Children in an Urban Private School in California: A Case Study

This study enlisted language immersion practitioners in highlighting and exploring the issues and challenges that accompany language immersion education. Comprehensive focused personal interviews of preschool Mandarin Chinese language immersion educators in a private school provided the basis of the study. The research literature reviewed indicated that when young children learn a new language it benefits them later in their education. These students have increased competency in their second language compared to children who do not received language instruction in early childhood. Four professionals who are bilingual in English and Mandarin, and one expert in immersion program were interviewed; all four participants worked in a Chinese Mandarin private preschool in the San Francisco area. Following an analysis of responses, the professionals outlined different instructional strategies and various challenges that characterize language immersion education. The study also provides a coherent comparison of this analysis with previous research works in adding value to language immersion schooling

Gaining Proficiency in French Through Service Learning: An Action Research Project with Secondary French Students in California and Secondary Students in a French School in France

Engaging in service learning at the high school level in a world language classroom is integral to gaining oral proficiency in the target language. Service learning helps students to see the practical application of the language and it increases student motivation. In many high schools, students have limited opportunities to engage in authentic experiences, use the target language outside of the classroom or with native speakers and they cannot envision practical application for the language. Through the implementation and evaluation of this service-learning project this study aims to increase the opportunity to use French in authentic situations and therefore increase the students’ oral proficiency. A review of the literature revealed that the more students interact in authentic situations the higher oral proficiency rates, augmenting motivation and helping students to see the connections between learning language and its usefulness in the real world. This is a qualitative study that examines students’ perceptions of their increased French language proficiency after experiences with native speakers in a variety of contexts including speaking one-on-one with native speakers, a lesson in sports from a native speaker and communicating virtually and a-synchronistically with students in France. The secondary students are from a fourth year French class at an urban high school who are corresponding with French literature students at a public French high school. Results indicated that students have an increased awareness of the magnitude of the French speaking community; they are able to make connections between language learning and the global community, and they have increased motivation and engagement when learning through this model of teaching

Influenza Vaccination in School-aged Children

Should schools in the United States require children between the ages of six months to 17 years to have flu vaccination shots? Influenza is a serious disease that can lead to hospitalization and sometimes even death. According to the Center of Disease Control (CDC), every flu season varies, and an influenza infection can affect people differently. Millions of people get the flu every year, hundreds of thousands of people are hospitalized, and thousands or tens of thousands of people die from flu-related causes every year. Everyone is at risk for influenza, but the highest risk lies within children who are still developing their immune systems. However, with vaccines, this risk is easily preventable and can decrease a person’s chances of acquiring the infection. As such, the CDC recommends that every person six months and older should be vaccinated annually. This is even more important for children because they attend schools where they have maximum exposure to various strains of influenza six to ten hours daily. They can easily spread and contract the disease in their school environment, specifically from children that are not vaccinated. This leads to the hypothesis that children six months to 17 years should be required to receive influenza vaccinations.https://scholar.dominican.edu/ug-student-posters/1070/thumbnail.jp

BFA in Dance program presents annual Spring Showcase

When Ivy Patterson came from Massachusetts six years ago to enroll in the LINES Ballet BFA in Dance program at Dominican, she was thrilled with the opportunity to meet and work with LINES Ballet founder and artistic director Alonzo King

The Effects of Losing a Parent on Teenagers Mental Health

Losing a parent is one of the hardest losses we experience. For many, the loss of a parent comes too early. Losing a parent as a teenager has lasting effects. This thesis examines the research literature review and proposes a study for further investigation about this important healthcare matter. The mental health of teenagers who lose a parent experience worsened mental health than those who have two living parents. Bereaved teenagers experience worsened mental health, increased aggression, and an increased risk for self-harm. The research in this literature reviews, supports this, and further emphasizes the negative impact of losing a parent on teenagers mental health. After losing a parent, there are many routes that a teenager can take to cope. There are different interventions and needs that are beneficial to the teenager. There are also needs that are not met, but had they been met, may have helped with the coping process. The research in the second half of the literature review looks at different needs and interventions that teenagers report would help them to cope. It also looks at what interventions were done that were helpful with the coping process. A qualitative study is proposed to explore young people\u27s perceptions about feelings of grief after the loss of a parent, and their perceptions about which interventions may be most beneficial. Overall, when a teenager loses a parent, it is important for the teenager to seek out help in order to improve their mental health. It is also important for other family members, such as the living parent, to understand some of the needs that these teenagers require to help improve their mental health after this traumatic experience

Opportunity and Access: High School Coursework and its Impact on Student Self-Perceptions

The skills taught and the courses offered to the United States’ public high school students have changed drastically over the past 20 years. Career-based electives have given way to college preparatory classes. Gone are the auto shops, construction and home economics classes—courses that many view as outdated, dangerous or unnecessary at the high school level. Arts and humanities-based courses have also disappeared; even courses that can train students to enter the robust fields of healthcare or technology are diminishing (Dare, 2006). The communities in which many of these courses are disappearing are often diverse and economically disadvantaged. This “second-generation segregation” which materializes as differentiated course offerings for students from various backgrounds may lend some insight into explaining the current inequities in student achievement (Southworth & Mickelson, 2007, p. 498). Perhaps students are disconnecting from their public education due to the loss of access to varied learning opportunities. The purpose of this mixed-method research study is to examine the impact of high school coursework on students’ perception of their post-secondary options. Current high school students and their school counselor are interviewed in an effort to determine if particular coursework, for better or worse, has any effect at all on a student’s self-perception and what they see as a feasible option for their future

Into the Abyss: Self-Destruction as Feminist Resistance in Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Han Kang’s The Vegetarian

This paper is a comparative literary analysis of two contemporary novels: Han Kang’s The Vegetarian (2007) and Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018). With a focus on self-destruction as a mode of feminist resistance, I explore the two novel’s overlapping themes, specifically the ways in which radical transformation offers a means to escape social and cultural oppressions impressed upon women. My inquiry into these processes aims to trace methods of resistance in response to patriarchal and anthropocentric ideologies, through forms of social deprogramming, the embodiment of vegetal and animal alterity and a recuperation of the maternal semiotic as a mode to escape the paternal symbolic. The realistic outcomes of such modes of resistance pose certain challenges, however. Accounting for the damaging potential of self-destructive tendencies , I weigh the possibility as well as the limitations these enactments have to offer, ultimately moving past the concept of survival and demise in order to come to a different perspective on the ways in which female agency is both mitigated and reclaimed in each novel

Museum Studies class curate exhibit of paintings by Davis Perkins

An exhibition by artist Davis Perkins and curated by students from Dominican’s Museum Studies Class opened Nov. 4 in the San Marco Gallery. Perkins has exhibited nationwide, including a solo exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC