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Recent studies show that English learning students are a growing population within the United States school system. Language barriers have been shown to negatively influence reading scores as well as math scores, and math scores are a predictor of future academic success in many subject areas. This qualitative action research study demonstrates the difficulties many upper-elementary English learning students have understanding number sense (numeracy) in a math classroom setting in Minnesota, United States. The purpose of this study was to explore whether intentional teaching of math vocabulary could alleviate the difficulties upper-elementary English learning students have in understanding, applying, and having confidence in using number sense during math instruction in the general education classroom. In this way, the study aims to assist in overcoming the achievement and opportunity gaps impacting the English learning student population. Interview, observational, and document data were collected from upper-elementary English learning students in my math classroom during the 2022-2023 school year using purposive sampling methods. Qualitative data on vocabulary instructional methods were also collected and used to inform math vocabulary instruction throughout the school year during which the study took place. The results of this study showed that English learning students' understanding, ability, and confidence in math vocabulary improved their math performance in the classroom and decreased their misconceptions surrounding number sense. Although confidence was only improved with single-step word problems, or with a single number sense ability within a multi-step word problem, the overall findings indicate that learning math vocabulary through the use of structured dialogues contributed to greater understanding of number sense components within math word problems and increased students' ability to visualize and explain how to complete the steps needed to do in a math word problem. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

For high school science teachers working with students who are in the beginning stages of English learning, it can be difficult to engage English learner (EL) students in using language that is accessible to understand complex scientific concepts. Improving EL students' access to science education is an important component of diversifying professional fields related to STEM. Encouraging the use of students' home languages is a generally accepted strategy for science content learning (NASEM, 2017; 2018), but the recommendation as it stands lacks depth for practical implementation. The design for this study was a single, longitudinal, embedded case study which used a single group of individual students as the embedded units of analysis (Yin, 2003), sampled over four data collection points. The case study took place in a Physical Science and Language Development class that covered basic high school chemistry and physics concepts and incorporated language skills central to science and engineering practices. Over 33% of the student body at Taft High School (pseudonym) were considered EL students. The theory of social semiotics was used to frame how students were co-constructing meanings about the science concepts presented in the class. Student language was parsed into utterances and coded for language forms and functions. Emphasis was placed on STEM-specific language related to Explanations, Questions and Reported Speech (reading out loud from a science text). In addition to form and function codes, word counts were used to identify the most common words for each student per class. Results of this study show that student language use changed depending on the nature of the class topic, particularly related to incorporation of mathematical representations of science data. Student roles also shifted across classes as they engaged differently with different tasks. All students were able to utilize Spanish and English to participate in scientific sensemaking, particularly when they had resources such as a textbook and a manipulative object to refer to in their discussion. Implications include a need for more robust materials in students' home languages, fostering partnerships beyond co-teaching relationships, and further research investigating similar science education contexts. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Gestures and other bodily movements are frequently used as instructional strategies in second language classrooms. Research has demonstrated that gestures are an effective strategy to improve L2 vocabulary recall. However, previous studies have only used vocabulary items that are known to participants in their native languages. Additionally, previous research has only investigated if gestures improve L2 recall, but whether such recall results in improved passage comprehension has not been studied. In this study, adolescent Spanish-speaking participants learned vocabulary items in English. Half of the words were concepts known to the participants in L1, but the other half were concepts that they had not yet learned in their native language. Half of the participants learned the vocabulary items while making representative gestures, while the other half learned the words by copying them down. After four days of instruction, participants took vocabulary and comprehension assessments over the words they learned. Results suggested that gestures were no more effective for learning L2 vocabulary as conventional second language teaching strategies, and that participants who copied the words learned abstract concepts better than those who made gestures. All participants demonstrated improved comprehension of sentences containing target vocabulary, but there was not a statistically significant difference between conditions. The results of this study suggest that gestures are not a useful strategy for students learning a second language in content-embedded classrooms. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Second Language (L2) teacher education serves as a pivotal site for examining language ideologies that shape teacher candidates' conceptualization and enactments of L2 pedagogy. Informed by the theory of language ideologies (Kroskrity, 2004, 2010) and the concept of language socialization (Ochs & Schieffelin, 1984), this dissertation research investigates naturally occurring interactions between teacher educators and teacher candidates to reveal language ideologies circulating within the L2 teacher preparation program at a Midwestern state university. Drawing upon an ethnographic perspective (Green & Bloome, 2004), this study examines the nature of classroom negotiation and contestation of language ideologies within the program by focusing on three critical issues. First, what language ideologies circulate through the engagement between teacher educators and teacher candidates? Second, how are these language ideologies constructed and negotiated? Third, how do these language ideologies mediate teacher candidates' conceptualizations of L2 pedagogy? The findings demonstrate that native-speaker ideologies and bi/multilingual language ideologies circulating within the program represent the complexity, multiplicity, and contradiction of language ideologies. Native-speaker ideologies are manifested in teacher candidates' beliefs that interaction with a native speaker is a preferred and valuable condition to facilitate L2 acquisition and development. These ideologies also underpin their construction of the notion of linguistic authenticity. Bi/multilingual language ideologies are reflected in teacher candidates' conceptions of content-and-language instruction as a bi/multilingual learning space for bi/multilingual students by promoting the employment of students' primary language to support the comprehension of academic content and language and legitimize their bi/multilingual identities. These ideologies are also manifested in teacher candidates' constructs of language assessment, pedagogical approaches to language variation, and corrective feedback practices. The findings highlight that as agents of socialization teacher educators play a key role in promoting or challenging language ideologies. In a similar vein, the materials selected as the resources of learning for teacher candidates also function as socialization instruments that influence the formation or transformation of teacher candidates' language ideological orientations. Through the understanding that classroom discursive interactions, teacher educators, and course materials play a key role in shaping and reshaping teacher candidates' language ideologies, this study offers L2 teacher preparation programs insights and information that could improve efforts toward promoting pedagogical approaches that allow teacher candidates to critically problematize the hegemonic language ideologies that do not value language multiplicity and diversity. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Responding to a gap in postmethod pedagogy in English-language teaching, this study details the implementation of a pedagogy of plausibility (PofP), a place-based ecopedagogy that privileges local knowledge and language practices. A PofP is informed by four pedagogic pillars: (a) teaching with particularity, (b) teaching with practicality, (c) teaching with possibility, and (d) teaching with connection. From these emerge 10 macrostrategies to help guide principled, pragmatic curricular choices. A PofP utilizes content-based learning projects (CBLPs) to operationalize content and language learning. This project examined how 27 students from Utah Valley University's (UVU's) Department of English Language Learning experienced the transformative learning opportunities afforded by a PofP, as well as the curricular convergence achieved through a learning experience at UVU's Capitol Reef Field Station in Capitol Reef National Park. Grounded in methodological commitments to critical pedagogy and critical feminist research, this study used an ecolinguistic approach to critical discourse analysis to examine data from archived student texts collected from Spring 2015 to Fall 2016, including autobiographical sketches, individual and focus-group interview responses, survey responses, nature-journal entries, essays, and teacher/researcher field notes. Findings of the study suggest that students' semester experience of PofP was one of "feeling" and "emotion" in relation to learning-in-the-world activities. These experiences contributed to developing an ecoethical consciousness through deeper learning about place. The study findings portray students feeling their way through challenging emotional learning opportunities with implications for student identity. CBLPs encouraged students to reimagine their roles to engage with the world as potent social actors. Furthermore, the data intimate that providing opportunities (through strategic assignments, materials, and interviewing techniques) for students to disrupt, challenge, and remake unsustainable ways of being through project work provides a large measure of the emotional "stickiness" that underpins a PofP. In sum, findings confirm that our cognitive processes for both language and content learning are deeply embedded in our social and spatial worlds. By involving students, this study makes valuable contributions to English-language teaching and holds important implications for how transformative postmethod pedagogies are theorized and practiced. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]