World language study exposes students to more than just language; they are also exposed to different cultures. After graduating, students will be exposed to different languages and cultures in the workforce, and they must be prepared. Students often leave their language of choice after the one or two semester course requirement; it takes more than…

At a time of heightened discourse on multilingual education in the United States, there is a need to question what is meant by the term and how its understandings may be perpetuating harmful power asymmetries. Specifically, California has declared its goal of supporting multilingual education from kindergarten through twelfth grade, yet the…

California's K-12 student population is one of the most linguistically diverse in the nation, with nearly 40% of students who speak a language other than English. Despite federal and landmark K-12 policies supporting inclusion for multilingual learners (MLs), as revealed by the literature, MLs are often viewed through a white normative…

Within Mexico City a community has formed known as Little L.A. This community came to exist as United States call centers in Mexico employed English speaking repatriated Mexicans. Repatriated in that individuals were either deported by force, some returned by choice, some were US citizens who came back with family members or loved ones. A call was…

The current study attempts to investigate the potential benefit of using a custom-designed virtual reality experience to reduce the social distance between the students and the speakers of the target language. This virtual reality experience provides opportunities for students to acclimate to the Spanish culture and at the same time practice and…

The purpose of this study is to examine the experiences of first-year teachers, recently graduated from an Alternative Route to Teaching (ART) program and hired to teach within Spanish-English Dual-language Immersion strands at local schools. To do so, recordings and observations of classroom practice, teacher interviews, and supplementary data…

This dissertation explores community-based learning (CBL) in university Spanish education. Although Spanish education continues to construct Spanish as a foreign language (Leeman, 2014), recent trends such as changing demographics in the US have led to calls for Spanish education to focus more on US Latinx communities (e.g., Torres, Pascual y…

The increase of Spanish-speaking populations in the U.S. has resulted in an increased demand for culturally competent, Spanish-speaking mental health providers. Yet, little is known about the methods in which academic programs and clinical training sites are preparing their bilingual students to deliver services in Spanish to the Latino…

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of classroom teachers who participated in a science-focused study abroad during their time as a preservice teacher and to explore how they are using their study abroad experiences in science curriculum planning and in classroom instruction. This study is guided by two research questions: 1)…

Theological education among Latin American Baptists began during the epoch of colonial missions as a part of the long-range strategy developed by missionaries primarily from North America. Beyond translation, contextualization had little importance in those beginning stages. Over time, the seminaries were nationalized, yet today the earlier…

The study abroad (SA) context is often assumed to foster pragmatic development in a second language (L2), yet previous scholarship confirms that pragmatic norms are culturally-shaped and often remain imperceptible to uninstructed SA students (Bataller, 2010; Cohen & Shively, 2007; Shively, 2010). Because pragmatics is not traditionally taught…

This study utilized a qualitative approach to explore the supervision experiences of nine participants (seven females and two males) or non-Hispanic bilingual therapists who worked with Spanish-speaking clients and were under the supervision of a monolingual English-speaking supervisor. Their interviews data were audio recorded, transcribed and…

The Spanish-speaking population in the United States is growing. As the population grows, need for competent mental health services may also expand. Counselors are currently underprepared to provide these services (Furman, 2006; Lebron-Striker, 2012). The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the experiences of counselors who work with…

The purpose of this study was to examine factors that promote transformative learning experiences of college-level adult learners of foreign languages. This study was conducted to analyze how college-level adult learners of foreign languages experience transformative learning through educational and non-educational experiences. Mezirow's…

The ever increasing popularity of virtual worlds, also known as 3-D multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) or simply virtual worlds provides language instructors with a new tool they can exploit in their courses. For now, "Second Life" is one of the most popular MUVEs used for teaching and learning, and although "Second Life"…