ESL students' perceptions of web-based prewriting activities /

Although much research has explored computer mediated communication for its application in second language instruction, there still exists a need for empirical results from research to guide practitioners who wish to introduce web-based activities into their instruction. This study was undertaken to explore collaborative online task-based activities for the instruction of ESL academic writing. Nine ESL students in their midtwenties, enrolled at a community college in Ontario, engaged in two separate online prewriting activities in both a synchronous and an asynchronous environment. The students were interviewed in order to explore their perceptions of how the activities affected the generation and organization of ideas for academic essays. These interviews were triangulated with examples of the students' online writing, nonparticipatory observations of the students' interactions, and a discussion with the course instructor. The results of the study reveal that a small majority of students felt that brainstorming in writing with their peers in an asynchronous online discussion created a grammatical and lexical framework that supported idea generation and organization. The students did not feel that the synchronous chat activity was as successful. Although they felt that this activity also contributed to the generation of ideas, synchronous chat introduced a level of difficulty in communication that hindered the students' engagement in the task and failed to assist them with the organization of their ideas. The students also noted positive aspects of the web-based activities that were not related to prewriting tasks, for example, improved typing and word processing skills. Directions for future research could explore whether online prewriting activities can assist students in the creation of essays that are syntactically or lexically complex.

Vegetational history and geochronology of several sites in South Southwestern Ontario with discussion on mastodon extinction in Southern Ontario /

This study has three purposes: to establish a chronologically controlled vegetational history for a number of sites in south Southwestern Ontario; to utilize the resulting data to support and/or add to the current understanding of Quaternary geology and stratigraphy, and the glacial and postglacial history of the Great Lakes in south Southwestern Ontario; and to attempt to propose a possible explanation for the extinction of the mastodon in Southern Ontario. Palynological and geochronological analyses were conducted on material collected from eleven sites (east to west): Verbeke Mastodon Site, Woloshko Mastodon Site, Walker Pond II, Pond Mills I, Lake Hunger Bog, Bouckaert Site. Mabee Site, Cornell Bog. Colles Lake I, Folden Mastodon Site and Forest Pond. Individual geochronologically controlled (where possible) vegetational histories were reconstructed for each of the sites investigated. The results of the individual studies, when considered in overview. indicated the existance of an established closed boreal forest throughout south Southwestern Ontario by 10,000 years B.P. This evidence for a significant climatic change coincident throughout south Southwestern Ontario supports the proposed age of 10,000 years B.P. for the Pleistocene/Holocene Boundary (Terasmae, 1972). Remnant patches of 'open spruce parkland' persisted in small local 'wet' areas. It was in these areas that the mastodon was restricted during early Holocene time. With continued encroachment by the surrounding boreal forest, possibly speeded up by this browser's destructive feeding habits, the spruce enclaves shrank and the mastodon became extinct in south Southwestern Ontario. The results of this thesis basically support Dreimanis' (1967, 1968) proposed 'Environmental-Climatic' theory for mastodon extinction. It is suggested that increased dryness during the present interglacial compared to the climate of earlier interglacials may be the key to unravelling the problem of mastodon extinction in eastern North America.