Peer interaction and learning opportunities in cohesive and less cohesive L2 classrooms

The present study investigates peer to peer oral interaction in two task based language teaching classrooms, one of which was a self-declared cohesive group, and the other a self- declared less cohesive group, both at B1 level. It studies how learners talk cohesion into being and considers how this talk leads to learning opportunities in these groups. The study was classroom-based and was carried out over the period of an academic year. Research was conducted in the classrooms and the tasks were part of regular class work. The research was framed within a sociocognitive perspective of second language learning and data came from a number of sources, namely questionnaires, interviews and audio recorded talk of dyads, triads and groups of four students completing a total of eight oral tasks. These audio recordings were transcribed and analysed qualitatively for interactions which encouraged a positive social dimension and behaviours which led to learning opportunities, using conversation analysis. In addition, recordings were analysed quantitatively for learning opportunities and quantity and quality of language produced. Results show that learners in both classes exhibited multiple behaviours in interaction which could promote a positive social dimension, although behaviours which could discourage positive affect amongst group members were also found. Analysis of interactions also revealed the many ways in which learners in both the cohesive and less cohesive class created learning opportunities. Further qualitative analysis of these interactions showed that a number of factors including how learners approach a task, the decisions they make at zones of interactional transition and the affective relationship between participants influence the amount of learning opportunities created, as well as the quality and quantity of language produced. The main conclusion of the study is that it is not the cohesive nature of the group as a whole but the nature of the relationship between the individual members of the small group completing the task which influences the effectiveness of oral interaction for learning.This study contributes to our understanding of the way in which learners individualise the learning space and highlights the situated nature of language learning. It shows how individuals interact with each other and the task, and how talk in interaction changes moment-by-moment as learners react to the ‘here and now’ of the classroom environment.O presente estudo é uma investigação no âmbito da interacção oral em pares em duas salas de aula: um grupo auto declarado coeso, outro declarado menos coeso, ambos de nível B1. O estudo revela a forma como os alunos criam coesão e oportunidades de aprendizagem através do discurso. O estudo foi baseado em exercícios práticos desempenhados em sala de aula, tendo sido desenvolvido ao longo de um ano lectivo académico. Isto é, a investigação é o resultado da observação e análise do trabalho prático regular realizado em aula pelos discentes. A pesquisa foi enquadrada numa perspectiva sociocognitiva de aprendizagem da segunda língua, e a informação provém de um conjunto de fontes metodologicamente utilizadas, nomeadamente questionários, entrevistas e registos áudio das conversas das díades, tríades e grupos de quatro alunos, num total de oito tarefas de oralidade. Os registos áudio foram transcritos e qualitativamente analisados para interacções que estimulavam uma dimensão social positiva, e comportamentos que conduziam a oportunidades de aprendizagem usando Conversation Analysis. Além disso, os registos foram também analisados quantitativamente relativamente às oportunidades de aprendizagem e à qualidade e quantidade de linguagem produzida. Em ambas as turmas, os resultados indicam múltiplos comportamentos interactivos por parte dos estudantes, comportamentos esses que promovem uma dimensão social positiva, embora tenham sido detectados também, comportamentos que podem desencorajar a afectividade entre os elementos do grupo. A análise do processo de interacção revelou também as diversas formas através das quais os estudantes criaram oportunidades de aprendizagem em ambos os grupos; o coeso e o menos coeso. A outro nível, uma análise qualitativa complementar destas interacções mostrou que, tanto o número de oportunidades de aprendizagem criadas, como a qualidade e quantidade de linguagem produzida são influenciadas por vários factores, nomeadamente o modo como os estudantes desempenham a tarefa, as decisões que tomam em zonas de transição interactiva e as relações afectivas entre os participantes. A principal conclusão do estudo é que não é a condição coesa do grupo como um todo, mas a natureza da relação entre os seus membros que completam a tarefa, que influencia a eficácia da interacção oral na aprendizagem.Este estudo contribui para a nossa compreensão do modo como os alunos singularizam o espaço de aprendizagem, ao mesmo tempo que destaca a natureza contextual do ensino da língua. Mostra ainda como interagem os indivíduos uns com os outros e com a tarefa, e como, no processo de interacção, o discurso muda a cada momento, devido à reacção dos alunos ao “aqui e agora” do ambiente da aula

Bootstrap Boricuas: A Family Performing and Exploring Cultural Assimilation

This dissertation involves myself, my two brothers, and our mother embarking, over several years, on a journey to explore the meanings we and others ascribe to our identities as second and third generation Puerto Ricans. Engaging a methodology I dub dialogic ethnography, the study produces a critical interweaving of family history, identity stories, and dialogue, within the context of U.S. racial/ethnic hierarchies. The purpose is to reflect on the ethical implications of our daily performances of cultural assimilation

Imagining Madam President: a critical typology of fictional female presidents and intersectional presidentiality in U.S. politainment

The purpose of this dissertation is to systematically explore and illuminate fictional female presidential portrayals in politainment, or the symbiotic fusion of entertainment media and politics. Grounded in literatures on politainment, presidentiality, and the cultural barriers women face in politics, I examine and evaluate the fictional female presidential representations in 15 television series spanning the first two decades of the twenty-first century. To conduct my study of these artifacts, I adopt a pluralistic approach involving a hybrid of textual and critical analysis based on the cultural barriers that women face in politics. I explore how television series of the past two decades construct and portray women as president in a critical typology, tracing the trajectory of thematic and stylistic features in their production and presentation. Using an intersectional perspective on television representation, I also evaluate how fictional female presidential portrayals promote social progress for marginalized identities or further subvert them to hegemonic forces and patriarchal tradition.Includes bibliographical references

Orality in Medieval Drama: Speech-Like Features in the Middle English Comic Mystery Plays

Da die historische Sprachwissenschaft ausschließlich über geschriebene Texte als Datenbasis verfügt, wurden insbesondere im Forschungsgebiet der historischen Pragmatik bestimmte Genres identifiziert, die Aufschluss über die Sprechsprachlichkeit vergangener Sprachstufen bieten können. Dem dramatischen Genre der Komödie wird in der sprachhistorischen Forschung eine besondere Nähe zur gesprochenen Sprache zugesprochen. Das Korpus dieser Dissertation umfasst insgesamt 46 Stücke der spätmittelenglischen Mystery Plays, die biblische Episoden von der Erschaffung der Welt bis zum Jüngsten Gericht (komisch) in Szene setzen. Neben der quantitativen und qualitativen Analyse von acht nähesprachlichen Merkmalen (u. a. Anredepronomina, Fragen, Diskursmarker) beinhaltet die Arbeit eine Klassifizierung der komischen Szenen in den Mystery Plays sowie eine Untersuchung der literatur- und kulturhistorischen Kontextfaktoren, die eine Annäherung an Sprechsprachlichkeit in den Texten bedingt haben könnten.:1 Introduction 1.1 Premises and aims 1.2 Outline of the study 2 Comedy play texts as a speech-related genre 2.1 Speech-like genres and 'communicative immediacy' 2.2 Play texts vs. 'real' spoken discourse 2.3 Conclusions 3 'Comedy' in the mystery cycles 3.1 The medieval sense of 'comedy' 3.2 Medieval attitudes to laughter 3.3 Laughter and the comic in the mystery cycles 3.3.1 Humiles personae – sympathetic laughter 3.3.2 Divine triumph over evil – Schadenfreude 3.3.3 Funny games of violence – grim irony 3.4 The potential for 'communicative immediacy' in the mystery 'comedies' 3.4.1 Context and sources 3.4.2 Stylistic guidelines 3.5 Conclusions 4 Speech-like features in the mystery 'comedies' 4.1 Methodological premises 4.1.1 The data 4.1.2 Speech-like characteristics and linguistic features 4.1.3 Challenges and obstacles 4.2 Interactivity in pronominal address – (im)politeness, power and dominance 4.2.1 Second-person pronouns 4.2.1.1 Overall distribution 4.2.1.2 Family relationships 4.2.1.3 'Official' relationships 4.2.1.4 A special case: address in funny games of violence 4.2.2 Summary 4.3 Interactivity in pair structures – cooperation and conflict 4.3.1 Questions 4.3.1.1 Overall distribution 4.3.1.2 Functional analysis 4.3.1.3 Discussion of results 4.3.2 Imperatives 4.3.2.1 Overall distribution 4.3.2.2 Functional analysis 4.3.2.3 Discussion of results 4.3.3 Lexical repetition 4.3.3.1 Overall distribution 4.3.3.2 Functional Analysis 4.3.3.3 Discussion of results 4.3.4 Turn-initial discourse markers 4.3.4.1 Overall distribution 4.3.4.2 Interactional uses 4.3.4.3 Discussion of results 4.3.5 Summary 4.4 Features of sharedness and function – emotion and emphasis 4.4.1 Interjections 4.4.1.1 Overall distribution 4.4.1.2 Emotive-expressive uses 4.4.1.3 A special case: swearing 4.4.2 Vocatives: Terms of endearment and abuse 4.4.2.1 Overall distribution 4.4.2.2 Analysis 4.4.3 Demonstrative pronouns and deictic reference 4.4.3.1 Overall distribution 4.4.3.2 Analysis 4.4.4 Summary 4.5. Discussion: Speech-like features in the Middle English mystery plays 5 Final remarks 6 Bibliography 7 List of abbreviations 8 List of tables 9 List of figure

Exploring Work Perceptions in High Poverty Schools: Middle School Teachers' Thriving, Vitality, and Learning at Work

The teaching profession has both retention and recruitment problems. High teacher turnover, paired with teacher shortages, has and will prove costly for all schools, particularly those in high poverty areas. Research in other professions suggests that attitudes and perceptions of work matter in both performance and in retention, yet, too often, school leaders and policy makers ignore teachers’ perceptions of their working environment. This study uses “thriving” – experiencing a sense of both learning and vitality at work – to investigate the work perceptions of middle school teachers in the high poverty setting to understand what contributes to the positive and negative experiences teachers face. The study employed an empirically tested survey tool to measure thriving, administering the instrument to 101 teachers, working in the high poverty (Title I) setting at five middle schools, in the same district, in the southern United States. I conducted follow-up interviews with ten high and eight low scoring participants to add teachers’ descriptions of what contributed to their thriving, learning, and vitality in schools. Correlated as well to factors from research on effective schools, the study suggests that teachers are less likely to thrive because of a lack of vitality, in part because of student interactions, and those scoring low on thriving are less likely to see teaching in their future. Learning varied less than vitality across the sample, but interviews revealed that thriving corresponds to more experiential views of learning as opposed to more episodic ones. I conclude with proposing a thriving teaching model to situate this study’s findings in the broader teacher retention context by providing implications of the model and proposed next steps to guide future research.PHDEducational StudiesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144143/1/nsorlo_1.pd

Transition Towns and the Transition Model: An Investigation into the Movement\u27s Use of Strategic Planning

The Transition Movement has spread around the globe in less than a decade, reaching 32 countries and 421 communities, with hundreds of projects, and harnessing the collective genius of tens of thousands of people. Despite the spread of the movement, no in-depth research of multiple initiatives within the movement has been done prior to this study. The main question investigated by this research is what tools and processes are Initiatives in New England using for SP and visioning, and how does this relate to their ability to transfer leadership and grow

Urban League of Central Carolinas – Civil Rights Organizations in a New Era: An Action Research Study of One Organization’s Pursuit of New Strategies

What leadership approaches and operational strategies should traditional civil rights organizations, like the Urban League, undertake to in this post-civil rights era? Specifically at the local level, what expectations must the Urban League of Central Carolinas satisfy to reassert its leadership in Charlotte? In recent years, an increasing array of social enterprises across different sectors has emerged to address failures in civil society. Civil rights organizations have long served a niche in the battle for an equitable society. However, the role of civil rights organizations in community revitalization has been diffuse and subject to fundraising constraints. I undertook this action research study to assist the Urban League of Central Carolinas in developing earned-income strategies based upon their assessment of market needs, resources and socio-political realities. The pursuit of such strategies will enable the agency to create new partnerships, renewed community engagement and greater financial sustainability. This study demonstrated the recurring nature of strategy development and execution. Interestingly, both external and internal environmental factors surfaced the following lessons: (1) Civil rights organizations remain relevant. There remains an important role for the ULCC (traditional civil rights organizations) in ameliorating the conditions of social and economic inequality; (2) Leadership by the ULCC must be fluid, vigorously asserted and continuously exercised. In addition, capacity building, engaged leadership and strategic alliances are necessary steps; (3) The depth and breadth of problems such as poverty, homelessness, and educational failures require comprehensive solutions, collaborative efforts and shared leadership; (4) Social enterprise strategies require organizational change and generative governance; and (5) Action Research practitioners must be alert to organizational readiness. Undertaking A/R efforts asks us to pay keen attention to team development and team process as key elements of one\u27s methodologies. This study contributes to the field of community development and social change by broadening our understanding of the ways in which community-based organizations and their leaders evolve in response to economic and social influences. Such an understanding may enable us to improve organizational practice and improve local policy decisions. The electronic version of this dissertation is available in the open-access OhioLINK ETD Center, www.etd.ohiolink.edu