This dissertation explored the perspectives of stakeholders within a university-level Spanish Heritage Language (SHL) program in Arizona, focusing on their language ideologies and critical language education efforts. The study, rooted in Critical Language Awareness (CLA) and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (CSP) frameworks, challenges deficit-based…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how high school counselors and AP Spanish teachers in high-poverty schools in AZ recruited Latino students into AP Spanish courses. How high school counselors and AP Spanish teachers recruit Latino students into Spanish AP courses was unknown. Peplau's Theory of Interpersonal Relationships…

The purpose of this qualitative action research study was to explore improving first semester training practices for graduate teaching assistants (TAs) in the Spanish program at Arizona State University's (ASU) Tempe Campus. Adding to research on TA training in higher education, a communities of practice (CoP) framework was combined with concrete…

A great amount of sociolinguistic research in contact situations has centered on phonological and morphosyntactic variables, but studies of discourse-pragmatic features in contact situations are scarce and incipient. Discourse-pragmatic features are syntactically optional elements that are used to guide, structure, or express a stance towards…

As critical approaches to Heritage Language (HL) instruction are increasingly more widespread, it is now more pertinent than ever to conduct research on Spanish linguistic variation that reveals systematicity and refutes hegemonic notions of 'incorrectness'. This variationist study examines the use and distribution of the Preterite and Imperfect…

This qualitative study explored multimodal biliteracy found in the Arizona-Sonora borderland, a region thriving with linguistic and cultural diversity despite having an English-only policy. According to Reyes (2012) biliteracy is to think, speak, read, and write in two or more languages, and there are various modes for reading and writing in the…

Using data from Arizona, United States, the present study seeks to further our understanding of lone other language items (LOLIs) in bilingual discourse and their status as either borrowings or codeswitches by measuring the degree of incorporation that can indicate a LOLI's status as a borrowing or codeswitching. To accomplish this aim, nouns from…

Understanding the way humans communicate linguistically helps to define what proficiency in a particular language is. The general problem is scholars' assumption that the implementation of technology in the language learning environment acts a substitute for the human dynamic in achieving language proficiency. The purpose of this quantitative…

Adult Hispanic ESL students in rural San Luis, Arizona, face a challenging situation. Since San Luis lies on the southwestern tip of Arizona and borders with Mexico, Spanish is the predominant language. English, on the other hand, is mostly heard in classrooms. This can be a predicament for adult Hispanics who need to be proficient in English in…

This is a qualitative case study using ethnographic methods of how one school community has been able to negotiate Arizona's restrictive English only language policies. Drawing from classroom and school-wide observations, extensive interviews, and document collection, this case study explores three key questions in relation to this school's…

Reading fluency has been an area of struggle for students. Certain populations of students, such as English language learners (ELLs), have struggled even more so, affecting their overall achievement. Interventions have been implemented and studied regarding the reading fluency of ELLs, yet reading fluency has continued to be problematic in this…

This study is about how one middle school principal in Arizona uses Spanish throughout her day with students and their immigrant parents. Ordinarily, the use of Spanish to communicate with Spanish speaking students and their parents might not seem noteworthy, yet, in the State of Arizona several policies and laws have been enacted in recent years…

This dissertation describes an ethnographic case study of an elementary school in a border city in Southern Arizona. Its purpose is to explore teachers' professional lives at Cactus Elementary School (CES; pseudonym) through classroom observations, interviews and informal conversations. The majority of the fieldwork was conducted in the 2004-2005…