Foreign language education in the United States has historically produced poor outcomes, with very few language learners achieving communicative competence. The increasing global demand for multilingual professionals makes the issue a salient one. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore the perspectives of U.S. middle school…

This mixed-methods explanatory sequential study aimed to identify the most commonly used World Language curriculum models in New Jersey high schools, assess the level of curriculum coherence in Spanish programs, and examine their impact on student learning. Surveys and interviews with high school Spanish teachers revealed that, while theoretical…

This qualitative case study used practitioner research methods to address the question: How does a Mexican American teacher create counter-hegemonic spaces in a Spanish Language Arts classroom utilizing critical race and borderlands theories? The research focused on how I as a teacher-built trust and respect through "place"--here, the…

There is a severe shortage for Spanish bilingual K-12 teachers in CA. At a northern California public institution of higher education, advising is seemingly prescriptive, transactional and dehumanizing. Spanish bilingual students do not have access to critical information adequately preparing them to complete program admission requirements for…

A vast amount of Latina/o/x students enroll in US public schools with the potential to become bilingual in English and Spanish. However, this potential is often dismissed, ignored, and their Spanish is perceived as a problem to be overcome. Despite this, some Latina/o/x bilingual students decide to become Spanish as a Heritage Language (SHL)…

Personalized Learning Environments (PLEs) are student experiences where the pace of learning and the instructional approach are optimized for the needs of each student. Standards-aligned learning objectives, instructional approaches, and instructional content (and their sequencing) may all vary based on learner needs and interests. Learning…

A problem exists in the inequitable opportunities experienced by nonnative accented students in terms of academics, belongingness, and self-efficacy because of accent bias in the United States high schools. The purpose of this qualitative interpretative phenomenological analysis was to explore accent bias for nonnative-accented students in a high…

This qualitative research study used the case study method of one-on-one interviews to collect and examine the experiences of former English learners (ELs) who were unable to finish high school in southeastern Louisiana. This study aimed to identify specific factors that, using Everett Lee's theory, pushed or pulled these ELs from school and…

Spanish-speaking students, also identified as Hispanic or Latino/a/x, have been reported to have lower high school graduation rates, and lower enrollment and retention rates in higher education than their peers. Research exists describing technology and emergency remote teaching (ERT) as widening the achievement gap, however Spanish-speaking…

This qualitative case study examined communication strategies and interactional resources that junior and senior high school Spanish teachers use more often in their oral activities in central Pennsylvania public schools. A mismatch in students' knowledge and use of Spanish motivated the investigation. Twelve Spanish teachers were the purposely…

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…

Research suggests that students' personalized digital English language practices beyond the classroom can support subsequent in-school academic language development (Alm, 2021). The purpose of this study was to understand the out-of-school and in-school language experiences that bilingual Mexican students identified as supporting their English…

The purpose of this comparative study is to determine whether the linguistic input approach based on Krashen's (1989) comprehensible input (CI) and supported by Kolb's (2015) experiential learning (ELT) and Siemens' (2005) connectivism theory (CT) to improve eighth graders' Spanish speaking and writing linguistic proficiencies. Previous research…

This mixed methods study draws upon theoretical perspectives from usage-based linguistics (UBL) and variationist sociolinguistics to explore four learners' use of second language (L2) Spanish present tense indicative verbal inflectional morphology (i.e., simple present conjugations). The study compares the frequency and distribution of students'…

The present dissertation sets out to investigate the acquisition of variation in future-time expression by English speakers L2 learners of Spanish in a high school setting. I explore the variable use of the morphological future, the periphrastic future, and the present indicative to express the future time in Spanish by the participants. A total…