Acknowledgements
I would like to thank first the staff, teachers and students in the ESL and the
MCLS departments at Kent State University who took part in or assisted with the surveys.
I would also like to thank my advisor, Dr. Kristen Precht, for her considerable
contribution to this project. Especially, I want to thank Jason Csehi for his thoughtful
insight and assistance with editing and revision, and Yung-Yi (Karen) Hung for her
additional help with the statistics. Finally, I am very grateful to my lovely family and
friends for their invaluable support and encouragement.