“My heart want to say something”: exploring ELL vocabulary use through e‐mail

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to report on one high school English-language-learner's (ELL) breadth and depth of vocabulary as he communicated with his teacher through e-mail across geographic boundaries for over 18 months. Design/methodology/approach -The authors began by separating 358 e-mails into three time periods (first beginning, second middle, and third end) to calculate breadth using lexical density (type-token ratios). Then, we sampled e-mails based on personal and impersonal topics within these time periods and linguistically analyzed them for lexical cohesion, semantic usage, and derivational morphology. Interviews with participants before and after the analysis served as member checks. Findings -The quantitative results showed a steady improvement in the breadth of the student's vocabulary over time. Qualitative analyses revealed four major uses of vocabulary within the context of e-mail and the teacher-student relationship. Practical implications -Given our findings, we offer educators insights into ELL strategies and vocabulary assessment, not only with e-mail but in all written communication. Social implications -A social writing tool like e-mail can be useful for learning English in a safe, non-threatening environment. Moreover, a trusting social relationship between communicators that develops over time can expedite the language learning process. Originality/value -Very few studies have looked at the strategic ways ELL students use vocabulary to learn English through e-mailing.

Unintended consequences of a strategically ambiguous organizational policy selectively restricting mobile device use at work

“…FtF communication, without the help of a mobile device, was also problematic for multilingual teams. Despite the overwhelming evidence for the use of mobile technology as a crucial language translation and learning tool (see Chapelle, 2003; Chinnery, 2006; Hwang, Piazza, Pierce, & Bryce, 2011), many of the non-English-speaking workers were left without any way to receive information or communicate with others. “There is no one to translate for him [points to a coworker who speaks another language].…”

Assessing the Nexus of EFL Learners’ Academic Self-concept and Their Formal English Vocabulary Knowledge

“…The correlational analysis design with a simple regression analysis was used to look at the relationship between the two variables (Creswell, 2012;Jack R. Fraenkel & Wallen., 2009). A quantitative study (Ackermann & Chen, 2013;Hayes, 2011;Hwang et al, 2011) was conducted among undergraduate EFL learners in an Islamic State University in Indonesia. The use of this method was in line with the characteristics of the research data.…”

La integración de las TIC en la formación bilingüe: perspectivas en la formación del profesorado

“…Por ejemplo, la creación y moderación de wikis obliga a los estudiantes a producir trozos de discurso escrito que, cuando están adecuadamente moderados por compañeros y profesores, favorecen el desarrollo lectoescritor individual y colectivo (Kuteeva, 2011) ya que los estudiantes prestan una atención muy especial a la ortografía siempre y cuando se trate de contextos de dominio público (Fan, 2010). Lo mismo sucede con el e-mail, que puede ser perfecto para desarrollar sistemas de comunicación en lenguas extranjeras de manera exigente (Hwang, 2011), especialmente en encuentros con otros hablantes como e-pals (www.teachertidbytes.com/web_resources/computers.html). Más recientemente, se han comenzado a utilizar los teléfonos móviles que permiten cierta independencia y gestión propia del aprendizaje (Stockwell, 2008;Basoglu y Akdemir, 2010;Valk et al, 2010;Katz y Yablon, 2011).…”