This study investigated spelling errors in English stories written by 206 students in an elementary school implementing Korean/English immersion education. Errors were analyzed using crosstab and MANCOVA. Findings are as follows. Spelling errors occurred in 4 categories in order from the most frequent to the least: substitution, omission, addition, and transposition. The error occurrences differed depending on grade level changes: lower grades (Grades 1-3) vs. higher grades (Grades 4-6). The students in both grade levels made more errors in substitution and omission: these error types were significantly decreased as they progressed to the higher grade levels. Errors in addition and transposition showed much fewer occurrences for both grade levels, and these errors did not show a significant decrease because of their rarer occurrences. Overall, the students’ spelling ability increased remarkably as they progressed in grade levels in the immersion environment.

This study investigates the effect of strategies-based English reading programs on reading proficiency and affective domains of underachieving elementary school students. Eight fifth-grade students were selected and assigned to either the phonics/vocabulary learning group or the vocabulary/sentence learning group for two hours a week for 16 weeks. To address the research questions, data were collected from four main sources: English reading tests, questionnaire surveys, students’ learning logs and in-depth interviews with the students. The results of the study revealed that the English reading programs had positive impact on the students’ understanding of the relationship between letters and sounds, word recognition ability, and sentence reading. As students accumulated successful reading experiences, their self-confidence, interest in reading, and class participation increased while anxiety decreased. The study also revealed that there were differences in using strategies among students in each group, with higher level students tending to use higher-dimensional strategies with more variety than less able students. In conclusion, the leveled English reading programs customized for underachievers appear to be effective in assisting underachievers in their English reading skills.

The purpose of this study is to investigate elementary school teachers’ and students’ experience of teaching and learning English grammar and how they perceive English grammar education with regard to its role in learning English and the need and ways of including grammar instruction into the curriculum. Questionnaires were administered to 123 teachers and 1513 6th grade students. In addition, written interviews with 20 teachers were done through e-mail. Major findings from the analysis of this survey are three-fold. First, most of the teachers and the students had experiences of teaching and learning English grammar and they perceived that English grammar knowledge plays a positive role in learning English. Second, majority of both the teachers and the students believed that grammar instruction should start in 5th grade, but there is a gap between the teachers and the students with respect to grammar teaching approaches; the teachers prefer the inductive method, while the students prefer the deductive one. Third, many teachers considered that grammar instruction would not have a negative effect on English classes based on the communicative language teaching approach, but they believed that activities for grammar instruction should be well designed in order to keep students interested in learning English. Based on these results, several suggestions for improving English education in elementary schools are made.

This research aims to develop and apply an English class program for elementary school students from multicultural families, in order to allow children from multicultural families who lack an understanding of language and culture (both their mother tongue and Korean) to participate successfully in regular English classes. For the purpose, 6 third-year students from multicultural special classes were observed and analyzed to identify difficulties experienced during regular English classes. Their difficulties were classified into lack of background knowledge and basic English words, insufficient use of learning strategies, lack of academic language understanding, and lack of self-confidence. To solve these difficulties, an English class program for elementary school students from multicultural families was developed and applied, based on the theory of multicultural education and the sheltered instruction model. The results are as follows: The introduction of an English class program for elementary school students from multicultural families is presumed to have had a positive effect on students’ English abilities and confidence. Based on this program, more special English teaching programs for the children from multicultural families are expected to be developed for their successful English learning.

This study examined the effects of teaching contextual inference and word association strategies on 5th grade elementary school students' vocabulary knowledge development. A total of 56 students participated in the current study, as divided into either the contextual inference group or the word association group. The vocabulary proficiency levels of the participants were also considered and the students in each group were further divided into either the upper level group or the lower level group. The participants experienced six treatment sessions, and in each session they had to study five vocabulary items using each of the two vocabulary learning strategies. The posttest and delayed posttest results indicated that both strategies were effective for the vocabulary knowledge development of the upper level group as well as the lower level group. Some possible implications for elementary school English classrooms in Korea are discussed.

The present study explores the effects of peer intimacy on Korean primary English learners' collaborative group work in terms of writing achievement and peer interaction. Fifty six elementary school students engaged in small group work on English writing tasks. They were grouped in three different types: high intimacy level group, low intimacy level group, and random group. The study results indicated no significant group differences in the students' abilities and attitudes of English writing. However, the three groups differed in the quantity and quality of peer interaction. The high intimacy group produced the largest number of utterance and the most collaborative interactions. The low intimacy group, on the other hand, produced more utterances but less collaborative interactions than did the random group. Overall, the study results suggested that peer intimacy may have no immediate effect on students' learning through small group work but it possibly has delayed effects in prolonged group work by mediating the quantity and quality of peer interactions. Limitations of the study and pedagogical suggestions are provided.

This study was designed to develop a scale to measure primary school English teachers’ professionalism based on affective factors. The Swailes' (2003) scale was used to best reflect the local context where teachers in primary schools teach English to young learners. Three surveys were sent to a total of 1,008 primary school English teachers. Three different focus groups were used to refine the survey items in the modification process from the first to the third survey. The data were analyzed using exploratory factor and confirmatory factor analysis. These results showed the validity of fifteen items for investigating primary English teachers’ professionalism: four items related to 'professional commitment', three related to 'professional autonomy', three items related to professional belief in public service, three items to profession as referent, and two items to professional regulation. It is hoped that the scale items developed in this study can be used to identify the standard of professionalism of primary English teachers and provide policy makers or school decision makers with data that can be used to enhance professionalism within the community of primary English teachers.

It's long been noted that a serious discrepancy exists between elementary school English classes and middle school English classes. This study explores the differences in the teacher talks of elementary and middle school classrooms. To this end, three elementary school English classes and three middle school English classes are tape-recorded, and their teacher utterances are analyzed according to forms of utterances, functions of utterances and language types. The result shows that elementary school English teachers use significantly more command forms and feedback than middle school English teachers while they use significantly more non-class related utterances more than elementary school teachers. They utter class-related managerial and disciplinary categories significantly more than middle school English teachers while they do miscellaneous categories significantly more than elementary school teachers. In terms of languages teachers use in the classroom, elementary school teachers speaks English significantly more than middle school English teachers. Elementary school teachers tend to use plain Korean to individual students while using formal Korean to the whole class. Middle school teachers tend to use formal Korean irrespective of whole group, small group and individual students.

The present study investigates affective factors which affect primary English teachers' professionalism. For the analysis of the study, quantitative data was obtained from 576 primary school English teachers who responded to a questionnaire. Qualitative data was also collected from three different focus group interviews and ten individual interviews. A quantitative data analysis shows that collective teacher-efficacy is the best predictor of primary school English teachers' professionalism among the three factors of self-efficacy, organization-based self-esteem, and collective self-efficacy. This result is consistent with interview data which shows that more positive than negative comments are observed in regards to collective teacher-efficacy. Pedagogical implications have been discussed.

This study suggests effectiveness of G-Learning (teaching and learning methodology utilizing interactions derived from game play) English afterschool class, which had been implemented for 3 months to 496 elementary school students in 5th grade at 31 elementary schools spread in the whole regions of Gyeonggi province. To achieve the goals of this study, two hypotheses were set in this study: 1) after conducting G-Learning English class, students' achievement in English study will increase, and 2) after conducting G-Learning English class, students' interest and confidence to English study will increase. Pre and post proficiency tests were conducted to verify the effectiveness of the G-Learning English class. A survey was also carried out with the participants of the class. The results showed that the students' achievement in reading was increased from 24.7 to 36.4 and vocabulary increased from 21.1 to 33.5 with statistical significance. The increase of the test score in three proficiency groups was as follow: high group was 9 points, middle group was 25 points, and low group was 38 points. Moreover, as for the affective factors toward English study, students' interest improved from 3.28 to 3.54 and confidence improved from 3.17 and all the aforementioned results showed statistical significance.

The purpose of present study was to explore the reading fluency of elemenatary school students in Korea. To achieve the purpose of this study, 150 sixth grade students were selected from two schools of Gyeonggi province and their reading fluency was evaluated. Assessment of reading fluency was administered as follows: students were asked to read orally a reading text for one minute, which was developed for this study and the teacher checked their reading performance according to assessment criteria developed by Zutell and Rasinski (1991). Reading fluency dealt with four subcategories: decoding accuracy, reading rate per a minute (WCPM), expression, and comprehension. Mean score at each subcategory and its aspect were analyzed, expression element were compared between the lower and higher group, and finally co-relation between reading fluency and comprehension were examined. The results showed that while most students gained higher score in decoding accuracy or reading rate, their expression was lower. Among four sub-categories of expression, i.e. expression and volume, phrasing, smoothness, and reading rate, score of expression and volume was the lowest. Most students read text with little expression or enthusiasm in their voice. On the basis of the result, some ideas for teaching fluency were suggested.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of group-based consultations on pre-service primary school teachers' English teaching competence. Twenty nine pre-service teachers in groups of four or five received two rounds of consultations on their micro-teaching demonstrations from two native English instructors. The consultation procedure was three steps: preparation, micro-teaching observation and feedback. The self-evaluation checklists and micro-teaching evaluations were analyzed quantitatively to find how much improvement between the first and second micro-teaching had been made. The results indicated that consultations helped the pre-service teachers to improve their English teaching competence in general. The comments written by the consultants and the pre-service teachers about their micro-teaching observations were examined qualitatively. The results showed that consultations enabled the pre-service teachers to realize the strengths and weaknesses in their teaching behavior. Also, the observation of peer teaching and group discussion helped them to gain useful teaching skills and insights on what a good English lesson should be like.

본 연구는 경기도 G교육청 주관 수업 컨설팅 과정을 성찰적 수업(reflective teaching) 컨설팅 과정을 문화기술지 방법으로 드러낸 연구로서 컨설팅에 참가한 영어교사의 갈등과 고민, 그리고 좋은 수업을 만들어가는 영어수업컨설팅 과정을 묘사한 성찰적 영어수업컨설팅 사례연구이다. 연구의 목적은 성찰적 영어수업 컨설팅 과정을 통해 교사들의 수업전문성 신장 가능성을 조명해 보기 위한 것이다. 연구에 참여한 5명의 초등영어교사는 컨설팅 과정에서 자신의 수업 관심영역의 전문성 확보를 위해 다양한 경로의 교수법을 탐구하고 좋은 수업 만들기에 대한 고민을 성찰적 수업컨설팅 과정에서 보여주고 있다. 성찰적 영어수업 컨설팅 과정을 분석한 결과 시사점은 다음과 같다. 첫째, 성찰적 수업컨설팅을 전문적으로 운영할 수 있는 인적 물적 환경조성의 필요성, 둘째, 수업컨설팅 의뢰자의 요구를 반영 할 수 있는 전문적 컨설턴트 확보. 셋째, 다양한 컨설팅 사례를 나눌 수 있는 계속적인 컨설팅 사례연구 공유. 넷째 동료코칭 등 자발적인 컨설팅 참여와 이를 지원하는 전문적인 학습공동체 문화 구축 등이다.

This paper analyzes the effects of six month intensive English teachers’ training on communicative language teaching. The subject includes twenty teachers who showed greater improvement in the pre and post comparison of their English teaching demos out of 37 elementary school English teachers attended in the training. The in-house evaluation criteria have been used to select twenty teachers who enhanced their teaching skills greater than others‘ To look into details of the teaching enhancement, Foreign Language lnteraction (FLint), Communicative Orientation of Language Teaching (COL T) and Target Language Observation Scheme (T ALOS) have been used to investigate changes of interaction, teacher language, activities and methods. The findings ofthis paper include that the positive effects of six month teachers’ training show pal1icularly in the area of designing and implementing activities. Teacher's c1assroom languages have changed into more non-directive and affective after the training. Teachers allow more rooms of students' engagement by using more question, confirmation and feedback discourse routÎne after the training.