Peer Disruption and Learning: Links between Suspensions and the Educational Achievement of Non-Suspended Students

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-44
Author(s):  
NaYoung Hwang ◽  
Thurston Domina
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Language Arts ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
English Language ◽  
Educational Achievement ◽  
School Students ◽  
Low Achieving Students ◽  
Disciplinary Cultures

To evaluate the net effects of classroom disciplinary practices, policymakers and educators must understand not only their effects on disciplined students but also their effects on non-disciplined peers. In this study, we estimate the link between peer suspensions and non-suspended students' learning trajectories in a California school district where middle and high school students took up to 12 basic skills tests in mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA) over the course of the 2009-10, 2010-11, and 2011-12 school years. We find that Hispanic students, students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, English language learners, students enrolled in special education, and low-achieving students are disproportionately exposed to classmate suspensions. Analyses with student and classroom fixed effects show that student achievement in mathematics increases when their classmates receive suspensions, particularly suspensions attributed to disruptive behavior. We find no association between classmate suspension and ELA achievement. Since these results come from schools in which suspensions are relatively rare events, they may not generalize to settings with draconian disciplinary cultures. Nonetheless, our findings imply that suspensions, when used appropriately, can improve the academic achievement of non-suspended students, particularly for students from vulnerable populations.

scholarly journals Empowering Teenage English Language Learners Through Creative Projects

2020 ◽  
Vol 2019 (1) ◽  
pp. 67
Author(s):  
Mari Nakamura
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Private Language ◽  
School Students ◽  
Japanese Students ◽  
Senior High School Students

Research shows that Japanese students’ motivation for English study tends to decline as they move through their schooling and that secondary-level students’ schoolwork-related anxiety rises as they grow older. In this practice-oriented paper, I first discuss the learning background and needs of junior and senior high school students at my private language school. I then describe small-scale “creative projects” that I design and implement with the aim of fostering the students’ intrinsic motivation for English language learning and to improve their confidence in expressing and discussing original ideas in English. The description of a sample project illustrates the project goal, class profile, and project procedure. My reflective comments regarding the effectiveness of the project in achieving the above-mentioned goals are also provided. Finally, the limitations of creative projects and possibilities of further improvements are discussed. 数々のリサーチが日本の中高生の英語学習への意欲は学年が上がるほどに減退し、彼らの学習についての不安は成長とともに高まると示唆している。この実践報告レポートでは、まず筆者の主宰する民間英語教室での中高生の学習状況と彼らが有する独特のニーズを自己決定理論と内発的動機づけに関する理論の観点を通して紹介する。次に、彼らの英語学習への内発的動機を育み、英語で独自のアイディアを表現する自信を高めるために当校で開発、実施している小規模な創造的プロジェクトを解説する。プロジェクトの描写ではプロジェクトの目的、クラス構成と活動手順を示し、プロジェクトが目的を果たす上での効果についての指導者の振り返りコメントも提示する。また最後に、現在の創造的プロジェクトの限界と今後の改善の可能性を述べる。

scholarly journals Enhancing English Language Learners’ Conversation Abilities via CA-informed Sitcom Lessons

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 121
Author(s):  
Abdulloh Waedaoh ◽  
Kemtong Sinwongsuwat
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
English Language Learners ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Role Play ◽  
Public High School ◽  
School Students ◽  
Leave Taking

The study investigated the effectiveness of Conversation Analysis (CA)-informed sitcom lessons in enhancing conversation abilities of Thai learners of English. The participants included 42 high school students enrolled in an English for Communication course at a public high school in Southern Thailand. Through 15-week sitcom lessons, they were taught how to construct conversation sequences to accomplish such sequential actions as greeting and leave-taking, dis/agreement, new announcement, compliment, invitation, and request, as well as to collaboratively analyze conversations from the sitcoms and role-play them at the end of each lesson. Before and after the series of lessons, the participants were engaged in role-play conversations that were videotaped for subsequent assessment of their conversation abilities. The findings from both comparative statistical and close single-case analyses revealed significant improvements in all the aspects assessed especially regarding grammar and appropriacy. Therefore, it is recommended that EFL teachers should apply CA principles to teaching English conversation, integrating conversations from authentic materials such as sitcoms to strengthen English language learners’ conversation abilities.

scholarly journals The effect of topic selection on writing fluency among Japanese high school students

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Lin Lubold ◽  
Sarah Forbes ◽  
Ian Stevenson
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
English Language Learners ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Writing Fluency ◽  
School Students ◽  
Student Meaning

Written fluency and fluency building activities have been shown to promote linguistic choice and student voice development, increased ability to express ideas using complex grammatical structures and greater intrinsic motivation in English language learners. Since the 1970’s, process-oriented writing has been emphasized, yielding an amplified focus on meaning of student content over linguistic form precision. Current research of writing fluency must delve deeper into questions of student ownership of topic and the outcomes for low-risk activities that support fluency practice and encourage confidence building in students. The purpose of this replication study is to further explore previous findings on the effects of topic selection on writing fluency for high school English as foreign language learners. Building off of the work of Bonzo (2008), this study focused on a timed, non-graded writing activity administered to groups of Japanese engineering students in three departments: mechanical, electrical, and global engineering. The six subsequent samples for each participating student were analyzed using online text-analysis for total and unique word counts, providing data used to perform a t-test. Responses to bi-lingual student questionnaires, with prompts on self-perceived written English ability, self-efficacy and strategies for success while writing, provided additional insight into the facets of fluency. The results of these writing sessions offer both confirmation of and contrast to Bonzo’s original work, demonstrate increased student meaning making, and support the use of free writing activities in English language classrooms as a means by which student written fluency may be improved.

scholarly journals Grammar Errors in the Writing of Iraqi English Language Learners

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 122
Author(s):  
Yasir Bdaiwi Jasim Al-Shujairi ◽  
Helen Tan
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
English Language Learners ◽  
High School Students ◽  
University Students ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Language ◽  
Analysis Model ◽  
School Students ◽  
Grammatical Errors

Several studies have been conducted to investigate the grammatical errors of Iraqi postgraduates and undergraduates in their academic writing. However, few studies have focused on the writing challenges that Iraqi pre-university students face. This research aims at examining the written discourse of Iraqi high school students and the common grammatical errors they make in their writing. The study had a mixed methods design. Through convenience sampling method, 112 compositions were collected from Iraqi pre-university students. For purpose of triangulation, an interview was conducted. The data was analyzed using Corder’s (1967) error analysis model and James’ (1998) framework of grammatical errors. Furthermore, Brown’s (2000) taxonomy was adopted to classify the types of errors. The result showed that Iraqi high school students have serious problems with the usage of verb tenses, articles, and prepositions. Moreover, the most frequent types of errors were Omission and Addition. Furthermore, it was found that intralanguage was the dominant source of errors. These findings may enlighten Iraqi students on the importance of correct grammar use for writing efficacy. 

scholarly journals TRANSLATION OF FALSE FRIENDS AMONG B2 LEVEL ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

2020 ◽  
pp. 253-268
Author(s):  
Edina Rizvić-Eminović ◽  
Melisa Bureković ◽  
Adnan Bujak
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Similar Form ◽  
Implicit Methods ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
School Students ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Correct Translation

This paper investigates how successful B2 level English language learners (ELLs), high school students are in translating a group of most common false friends (FFs) from English to BCS and vice versa and examines whether they are more successful in translating absolute or partial FFs. In line with the classification by Otwinowska-Kasztelanic (2015), false friends are considered to be a class of cognates. They are further sub-classified into absolute FFs, which have the same or similar form and dissimilar meaning in two languages (e.g. eventually, meaning finally in English and eventualno, meaning possibly in BCS) and partial false friends with the same or similar form and one same and another dissimilar meaning. (e.g. argument in English, meaning reason, the same as argument in BSC and disagreement, the meaning for which a different word is used in BCS, rasprava). Due to their deceptive nature, FFs have been researched within different theoretical frameworks - theoretical, contrastive, applied linguistics, semantics, pragmatics and translation studies. By means of a survey and descriptive and inferential statistics, this paper confirms the hypothesis that there is a statistically significant difference between correct translation of FFs from English to BCS and their correct translation from BCS to English. Furthermore, the second hypothesis was also confirmed, namely that the B2 ELLs are more successful in translating partial than in translating absolute FFs. The research results suggest that in teaching FFs as items of deceptive vocabulary both explicit and implicit methods need to be applied

Adolescent English language learners’ digitally mediated multimodal compositions: multimodal enactment across different genres of writing in the EFL context

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joohoon Kang
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Multimodal Texts ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Creative Processes ◽  
Efl Context ◽  
Multimodal Composing ◽  
Multimodal Compositions

Purpose This paper aims to investigate adolescent English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ digitally mediated multimodal compositions across different genres of writing. Design/methodology/approach Three Korean high school students participated in the study and created multiple multimodal texts over the course of one academic semester. These texts and other materials were the basis for this study’s qualitative case studies. Multiple sources of data (e.g. class observations, demographic surveys, interviews, field notes and students’ artifacts) were collected. Drawing upon the inductive approach, a coding-oriented analysis was used for the collected data. In addition, a multimodal text analysis was conducted for the students’ multimodal texts and their storyboards. Findings The study participants’ perceptions of multimodal composing practices seemed to be positively reshaped as a result of them creating multimodal texts. Some participants created multimodal products in phases (e.g. selecting or changing a topic, constructing a storyboard and editing). Especially, although the students’ creative processes had a similarly fixed and linear flow from print-based writing to other modalities, their creative processes proved to be flexible, recursive and/or circular. Originality/value This study contributes to the understanding of adolescent English language learners’ multimodal composing practices in the EFL context, which has been underexplored in the literature. It also presents the students’ perspectives on these practices. In short, it provides theoretical and methodological grounds for future L2 literacy researchers to conduct empirical studies on multimodal composing practices.

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