Welcoming Deaf or Hard of Hearing English Language Learners: A Guidebook for English Educators

Research in the Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) English Language (EL) Education has shown that there is a significant lack of published research and resources within the past ten years. The purpose of this project is to fill the gap between what is available and what is needed to give EL educators in public universities in the United States a resource and a guide to help them when working with DHH English Language Learners (ELL). Useful information, suggestions, and practices are provided within this guidebook and separated into three different chapters. The goal is to help DHH ELLs feel comfortable by implementing affective practices and adjustments so EL educators can be more affective in helping the DHH ELLs in their classrooms

The identification of teaching styles of full-time tenured community college faculty in New England and their impact on the successful retention of black students.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship, if any, between teaching styles of selected community college faculty and retention of African-American students with comparable learning styles. Other questions investigated were: (1) Was there a relationship between the match of students\u27 learning styles to teaching styles and the student\u27s expectation for success? (2) Did African-American students show a preference for a particular context of instruction? The study focused on teaching styles of full-time college faculty who teach core courses and learning styles of African American students enrolled in selected Massachusetts community colleges. Two companion instruments were used to gather data. They were: (1) The Canfield Instructional Styles Inventory (ISI) and (2) The Canfield Learning Styles Inventory (LSI). The ISI measured teaching style preferences; the LSI assisted in determining the student\u27s preferred learning style. Faculty and student participants in this study were asked to complete a questionnaire prepared by the writer. The faculty questionnaire consisted of: (1) Biographical data and (2) questions concerning the faculty\u27s learning and teaching styles. The student questionnaire consisted of: (1) Biographical data, and (2) questions concerning students\u27 perception of classroom environment and students\u27 classroom interaction with their instructors. Assumptions 1, 2, and 5 were not supported by the results the study. This study\u27s findings supported Assumptions 3 and 4. According to the results, there seemed to be no correlation between learning and teaching styles matches and student classroom success. There was also no correlation between student expectation for success and matches of learning and teaching styles. A majority of faculty participants in this study indicated their belief that learning was primarily the student\u27s responsibility. While a majority of the faculties\u27 teaching style preferences clustered around a mixed or pure conceptual typology, a majority of the students\u27 learning preferences clustered around the mixed or pure social typology. Student participants indicated minimal in-class and out-of-class interactions with their instructors. Faculty participants revealed a preference for utilizing reading as a primary method of information dissemination; students revealed a desire to obtain new information through visual, kenetic, and tactile approaches

The right to human dignity : a study of communal water and sanitation facilities for the peri-urban settlement of Inanda.

Master of Architecture. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2015.Sustainable urban sanitation presents one of the many challenges towards service delivery and is directly related to poverty alleviation. Without appropriate social infrastructure such as water and sanitation - communities in the developing world can easily spiral into a decline. Water and appropriate sanitation, centre on community building and support communities to achieve high standards of health, equality, and good quality housing, good schools, safe, clean and friendly neighbourhoods. Without these social support infrastructure, peri-urban settlements struggle to become cohesive, and living communities with a sense of place, belonging or identity. In the developing world, communities without access to water and sanitation facilities suffer from a wide range of social problems and a platform for social discourse. Women are closely related to sanitation and water usage due to their social responsibilities at home and within their communities. Women tend to manage households and are the primary caregivers to children and extended family, also playing a nurturing role for the vulnerable, disabled and sick in the community. In South Africa, women living in rural and peri-urban areas face significant challenges. They live within a cycle of poverty, without appropriate access to a private toilets or to clean drinking water at the home. This research paper sets out to achieve an understanding of the daily living conditions communities face both spatially and programmatically, with a focus on women living in the peri-urban settlement of Inanda Durban. The objective set out tackles how architecture can be envisioned to meet dignified possibilities for and enrich the livelihoods of communities through the provision of appropriate and sustainable and suitable water and sanitation

A simultaneous treatment comparison of oral, total communication and nonverbal language training programs for teaching expressive language skills to three nonverbal children/

This study was conducted in order to simultaneously compare the relative effectiveness of three different language training models (total communication sign training, nonverbal sign-alone training, oral (vocal) training), for teaching expressive language skills to three nonverbal children. A single subject, simultaneous treatment (multi-element) design with replication within and across subjects, was used to compare the rate of expressive word acquisition across training models. Results showed the total communication training model to be substantially superior to both oral and sign-alone training models, and suggest that the use of physical prompts combined with multi-sensory inputs provide a basis for the demonstrated success

The Nature of Problem Solving

Solving non-routine problems is a key competence in a world full of changes, uncertainty and surprise where we strive to achieve so many ambitious goals. But the world is also full of solutions because of the extraordinary competences of humans who search for and find them. We must explore the world around us in a thoughtful way, acquire knowledge about unknown situations efficiently, and apply new and existing knowledge creatively. The Nature of Problem Solving presents the background and the main ideas behind the development of the PISA 2012 assessment of problem solving, as well as results from research collaborations that originated within the group of experts who guided the development of this assessment. It illustrates the past, present and future of problem-solving research and how this research is helping educators prepare students to navigate an increasingly uncertain, volatile and ambiguous world

An Examination of the Influence of Age on L2 Acquisition of English Sound-Symbolic Patterns

A number of researchers (DeKeyser, 2012; J. S. Johnson & Newport, 1989; Long, 1990) have argued that age is a critical factor in second language acquisition. This conclusion is based on extensive research over the last two decades that has demonstrated age-related effects in learners’ nonnativelike acquisition of phonology, morphosyntax, pragmatics, and discourse-level features of language. In the wake of such findings, there has recently been an increased interest in determining the precise linguistic areas that are difficult for adult learners and the cognitive mechanisms implicated in age-related effects. Because implicit learning plays a key role in first-language (L1) acquisition, particularly in the acquisition of statistical patterns in language, it has been proposed that age effects may be the result of attenuated implicit learning capabilities in late-teen and adult learners (DeKeyser, 2000; Janacsek, Fiser, & Nemeth, 2012). If this is true, age-related effects should be significant in linguistic areas that are not readily amenable to conscious learning processes and explicit instruction. To determine whether this is in fact the case, this study examined the linguistic knowledge of native speakers (NSs), early L2 learners, and learners who acquired English as adults. In particular, it examined these groups’ knowledge related to an area of English that is hypothesized to be difficult to learn explicitly, namely, English sound-symbolic (SS) patterns. Participants were composed of English NSs (n = 20) and three NNS groups with L1 Korean and L2 of English. The NNS groups were divided into three groups based on age of onset (AO) , with an AO range from 3 to 9 years of age (n = 20), 10 to 16 (n = 20), and > 17 (n = 20). Three experiments were performed that tested the participants’ English magnitude SS sensitivities when forming assumptions about nonce words (Experiment 1 and 2) and their ability to utilize English SS patterns to bootstrap their learning of new vocabulary (Experiment 3). The two late L2 learner groups (AO 10-16; 17+) were found to have significantly reduced levels of SS knowledge compared to the early L2 learners (AO 3-9) and NSs in all experiments. Only in Experiment 1 and 2, the early L2 learners had diminished magnitude SS sensitivities compared to NSs, but not for Experiment 3. Explicit and implicit aptitudes as measured by LLAMA (Meara, 2005) were also tested for potential relationships with test scores. Explicit aptitudes (LLAMA B, E, and F) did not have a significant effect on the performance of all AO groups, whereas implicit aptitude (LLAMA D) did have a moderate to strong correlation for test scores in only the two late learner groups. The early learner group was not affected by language aptitude levels during the experiments. In sum, the study has found that there is evidence for SPE in the areas of magnitude and English phonesthemic SS patterns. Implicit language-learning aptitudes appeared to have a facilitative effect on the acquisition of these SS sensitivities for the two late L2 learner groups, but not for the early L2 learners

COVID-2019 Impacts on Education Systems and Future of Higher Education

The rapid outbreak of the COVID-19 has presented unprecedented challenges on education systems. Closing schools and universities and cancelling face-to-face activities have become a COVID-19 inevitable reality in most parts of the world. To be business-as-usual, many higher education providers have taken steps toward digital transformation, and implementing a range of remote teaching, learning and assessment approaches. This book provides timely research on COVID-19 impacts on education systems and seeks to bring together scholars, educators, policymakers and practitioners to collectively and critically identify, investigate and share best practices that lead to rethinking and reframing the way we deliver education in future

Dorothy Heathcote: A Model for Alchemical Leadership

This thesis explores the possibility of using a drama in education classroom model of practice, to construct a leadership model that may be used in commercial organisations and in schools. Using a case study approach of the Manx Myth, Mantle of the Expert approach to teaching, devised by the late Dorothy Heathcote the researcher attempts to demonstrate that not only was she an inspirational pedagogue, but that within her work lay seeds of a leadership model which the researcher has named the Alchemical Model of leadership. Data, consisting of two interviews alongside fourteen transcripts was subjected to thematic analysis. The study is concerned with exploring the chronological development of the leadership theory continuum to see where the classroom practice of Dorothy Heathcote may be placed among the recognised models of leadership. The researcher will make the analogy of Dorothy Heathcote as the teacher, leading learners in a constructivist classroom, to leaders leading a workforce in an organisation. Reference throughout is made to the importance of finding a new model of leadership that can contribute to the many changes facing the leading of organisations in the twenty first century