Applied Linguistics

Do second languages speakers (L2) of any language make decisions that are measurably different from first language speakers (L1)? One way to explore this question is through the expression of probability. Probability can be expressed
numerically (“75%”) or verbally (“probable”) and both numerical and verbal probability expressions have been studied extensively in medical, legal, and management contexts. In terms of utilization, verbal probability expressions are preferred more than numerical probability expressions despite their lack of precision because of their ease of use (Kuipers, Moskowitz, Kassirer, 1988), their ability to express a wider range of possibilities (Zwick, 1987), and the fact that using verbal probabilities rather than numerical probabilities costs decision makers very little in terms of accuracy (Hamm, 1991a; Wallsten, Budescu, & Erev, 1988). Decision making research to date, however, has assumed that participants in these studies speak the same language(s). Using verbal probabilities to investigate possible decision-making variability between L1 vs.
L2 speakers is a way to explore: 1) If there are differences in decision making between L1 and L2 speakers: 2) If there are differences, are they significant: 3) If there are differences, do native speakers assign higher or lower probabilities than
non-native speakers for the same event? In this study, findings from 180 L1 and L2 subjects are reported. Subjects were provided the same verbal probability expressions (VPEs) and asked to assign numbers to ten VPEs – “rare,” “very unlikely,” “unlikely,” “likely,” “possible,” “probable,” “good chance,” “frequent,”
“usually,” and “very probable” (Theil, 2002). Within subject and between subject tests were conducted and results show dissimilarities between L1 and L2 speakers’ numerical valuations.

The ability to read and write, i.e. literacy, was once consid- ered a trade secret by the professional scribes who depended on it for job security. The ability to read and write is still the most commonly understood notion of literacy, but techno- logical developments require that the definition of literacy be expanded and modified. While a modern set of professional scribes ensure their job security by guarding trade secrets, a generation of people raised on electronic and visual media could benefit from more than a passive understanding of me- dia. If literacy is composed of the “passive” ability to read and the “active” ability to write, then any definition of “liter- acy,” including media literacy, would be comprised of active and passive components. Yet, definitions of media literacy are generally limited to the development of passive skills. It would be akin to saying that “literacy” equals only reading comprehension. But why would people write if no one could read? In order to examine the relationship between literacy and media literacy and how each is understood, the discus- sion below has been divided into four parts. First, definitions of literacy are examined. Next, definitions of literacy to defi- nitions of media literacy are compared. Third, the results of a study in which participants self-report on their understanding of “literacy” and “media literacy” are shared. Finally, impli- cations of the survey results are discussed. These results point to the need for further research in order to examine the differ- ences in how literacy and media literacy are understood and ultimately taught.

Often language is analyzed in regards to its use, but it is often how we use language that dictates how it is structured. Here we will view the differences and similarities that occur between the structure of spoken and written English in regards to morphology, syntax and semantics. The two texts being compared and are a New York Times article entitled, "I'm Chelsea Handler. And You're Not." and the spoken dialogue from the E! Network's late night talk-show, Chelsea Lately.

Although researchers often acknowledge the importance of linguistically rich interactions in the academic language development of emergent bilingual students, few studies have explicitly examined the role of linguistic peer support and the underlying structure of social relationships in the second language learning experiences and outcomes of immigrant adolescents in schooling contexts. This mixed methods study investigates the role of peers—including bilingual peers—in the development of oral academic English during adolescence. Using social network analysis, this study describes the unique contribution of peer linguistic resources to the oral Academic English Proficiency of 102 adolescent Spanish-speaking immigrant students. Findings show that having bilingual peers who collaborated on academic tasks with participants, in English or Spanish, contributed to academic English proficiency beyond individual pre-dictors of second language acquisition (age, time in the United States, gender, and maternal education). Peer social network composition indexed the opportunities adolescent English learners encountered at school to learn and use academic English.

In chapter 4, Carhill-Poza examines the linguistic implications of segregation in US high schools. She reveals the ways in which policies designed to support language development instead create boundaries for access to educational opportunities and the development of peer relations critical to identity development and learning English. Although the organization and structure of schools and classrooms institutionally marginalized the participants in her study, some were, as Carhill-Poza’s work demonstrates, able to overcome the unintended negative consequences of programmatic groupings and labeling based on students’ command of English, as assessed by the school system. Her work suggests a critical need for critiquing and reforming the assumptions about second-language acquisition that undergird current education policy for adolescents.

As schools are called on to educate an increasingly diverse student body to higher levels of academic skill, examination of the role of social resources and social contexts in the learning outcomes and experiences of students classified as English learners is urgently needed to better understand the many factors beyond instruction that contribute to adolescent English language development. Four descriptive case studies of Spanish-speaking newcomer immigrant youth in New York City public high schools examine how schools structured peer linguistic resources. Findings suggest that school policies designed to support language development created boundaries that isolated language learners from mainstream and bilingual peers and had profound repercussions for access to opportunities to use and learn academic English. Hyper-segregation is used to describe the multilayered social separation experienced by emergent bilingual students in this study.

Technology is often brought into schools and classrooms to support an increasingly linguistically diverse student body in reaching higher levels of academic and linguistic skill in ESL classrooms. This yearlong qualitative study describes the affordances of technology-enhanced instruction for emergent bilingual students at an urban secondary school in the U.S. with implications for ESL and EFL classrooms.  Building on ideologies of emergent bilinguals and their teachers as capable learners and innovators, the use of iPads and other technologies led to innovation in teaching and learning practices in ESL classrooms as well as some unintended consequences. For students learning English, the immediate and sustained use of online resources via iPads created opportunities to use and learn English by enabling access to multimodal course content and translation support in the classroom, facilitating comprehension and critical thinking around classroom content, and extending access to teachers and resources outside the classroom. However, the use of global and digital technologies in the classroom also led to a more prominent role for the native language in student learning.

Background: In schools, a major obstacle to drawing on emergent bilingual students' knowledge and skills in their first language is a widespread lack of awareness about language use among adolescent English learners, including how peer talk can connect knowledge and abilities in both languages to school-based learning. Although research often acknowledges the importance of engaging students' home language and culture to bridge to academic litera-cies in English, few have explicitly examined bilingual peer talk as a resource for language learning during adolescence.

Flipped learning has gained traction in diverse classroom settings over the past decade as a student-centered form of blended learning that allows teachers to focus class time on interaction while extending learning opportunities outside the classroom. Despite its compatibility with current approaches to teaching ESL, little is known about how flipping the classroom is enacted with English learners in K-12 settings. This study used Delphi interviews to better understand flipped learning in ESL and sheltered classrooms in an urban secondary school. Findings show that this community of practice understood flipped learning as a dynamic student-centered approach to teaching diverse students that may draw on technology to support student learning, participation, and assessment. Classroom practices were analyzed with the school community to understand how they embodied the affordances and limitations of flipped learning for English learners at this school.

Despite their demographic importance in U.S. classrooms, little is known about how the strengths and needs of English learners are engaged through technology, particularly as it is embodied by one-to-one devices such as iPads and Chromebooks. An exploratory study of English learners in technology-enhanced classrooms was undertaken at an urban secondary school with a strong ongoing commitment to student-centered uses of technology. The study used quantitative classroom observations and student surveys to explain variation in English language development among English learners and across classrooms. Findings show that the features of technology-enhanced classrooms that best supported language development were aligned with student-centered and strengths-based teaching; the use of technology in the classroom alone was insufficient. Our findings also bring to light individual characteristics of English learners that shaped their language development in technology-enhanced classrooms. These individual characteristics include academic engagement and language use with friends, as well as student work and being over-age for their grade.

Across many education systems, technologies like computers and tablets are now ubiquitous. But the mere presence of these technologies is insufficient to improve learning, and implementation without careful thought may reinforce inequalities for disenfranchised groups such as immigrant children and youth. In the United States, immigrant students comprise a sizable portion of classrooms. However, little is known about how the experiences of immigrant youth inform their learning with school-based technologies. The present study was carried out over a 3-year period in an urban secondary school. It analyzes qualitative fieldwork data to understand how immigrant students' lived experiences affected their engagement with school-based technologies and how teachers sought to respond to students. Findings challenge the idea that technology unproblematically supports all students in learning "anytime, anywhere" and highlights the way that factors such as work, language, and family resources shape how technology is used for learning by immigrant youth.

Although researchers often acknowledge the importance of linguistically rich interactions in the academic language development of emergent bilingual students, few studies have explicitly examined the role of linguistic peer support and the underlying structure of social relationships in the second language learning experiences and outcomes of immigrant adolescents in schooling contexts. This mixed methods study investigates the role of peers—including bilingual peers—in the development of oral academic English during adolescence. Using social network analysis, this study describes the unique contribution of peer linguistic resources to the oral Academic English Proficiency of 102 adolescent Spanish‐speaking immigrant students. Findings show that having bilingual peers who collaborated on academic tasks with participants, in English or Spanish, contributed to academic English proficiency beyond individual predictors of second language acquisition (age, time in the United States, gend...

As schools are called on to educate an increasingly diverse student body to higher levels of academic skill, examination of the role of social resources and social contexts in the learning outcomes and experiences of students classified as English learners is urgently needed to better understand the many factors beyond instruction that contribute to adolescent English language development. Four descriptive case studies of Spanish-speaking newcomer immigrant youth in New York City public high schools examine how schools structured peer linguistic resources. Findings suggest that school policies designed to support language development created boundaries that isolated language learners from mainstream and bilingual peers and had profound repercussions for access to opportunities to use and learn academic English. Hypersegregation is used to describe the multilayered social separation experienced by emergent bilingual students in this study.

In U.S. schools today, one in five children speaks a language other than English at home and more than 4.4 million students are classified at school as having limited proficiency in English (NCES, 2015). At the same time, a globalizing workplace and standards-based school reforms have increased the academic demands of schooling in ways that many worry may exacerbate the well-documented achievement gap between English learners 1 and English-proficient students (Fine, Jaffe-Walter, Pedraza, Futch, & Stoudt, 2007; G andara & Hopkins, 2010). As schools across the U.S. and around the globe rapidly adopt models of instruction that integrate technology into classrooms, research is urgently needed to understand the potential of this approach for emergent bilinguals (Margolis & Su arez-Orozco, 2014). Although there is a significant and growing body of research on promising practices to meet the needs of students who are not yet proficient in academic English in the secondary grades (Echevarría, Vogt, & Short, 2014; Walqui & van Lier, 2010), little is known about the effects of technology-enhanced learning on adolescent English learners and their teachers. Both the linguistic demands of the new standards and the use of technology to address them are relevant areas of concern for teachers of the growing population of emergent bilinguals in the U.S. and abroad. In contrast to teaching English in the previous century which focused heavily on the four skillsdreading, writing, speaking, and listeningdtexts and language learning in today's classrooms are inherently multimodal and multilingual (García & Wei, 2014). In fact, in the U.S., the new standards explicitly identify multimodal texts as a key component of literacy (CCSS, 2010; Kibler, Vald es, & Walqui, 2014) and technology skills have been mandated in K-12 education since No Child Left Behind (2000). Language and content learning can be scaffolded by the multimodal and hybrid language practices of emergent bilingual students, but this area of expertise is frequently neglected in the pedagogical knowledge teachers of English receive (e.g. Bunch, 2013; Fillmore & Snow, 2005). Given the changing expectations for educating emergent bilinguals and the many different program types for teaching English that coexist in today's classrooms, teachers of English are challenged to redefine teaching and learning in their classrooms with technology.