The purpose of this study was to investigate the continuity of reading passages of Korean high school English textbooks with the 2015 Revised National Curriculum using Coh-Metrix, a software that analyzes English texts in a range of linguistic features. Twenty-one English textbooks were analyzed: 11 High School English, five High School English I, and five High School English II. Only reading passages in textbooks were analyzed. Coh-Metrix indices related to basic counts, lexical features, syntactic features, cohesion, and readability were analyzed. Results revealed significant differences between High School English and High School English I and II, but no such differences exist between High School English I and II. This study implies that continuity of reading difficulty in terms of lexical, syntactic, and readability characteristics among High School English, English I, and English II textbooks should be considered.

This study examines the relationships between referring expressions and their referents in English and Korean language. Using the Accessibility as well as the Givenness frameworks (Ariel, 1991, 1994; Gundel et al., 1993), this study investigates the distribution of the referring expressions in each language and how they are related to the framework. Unlike most languages, in Korean, third-person pronouns are rarely used and definite constructions are not used, with the absence of definite and indefinite articles. With these differences in mind, this study aims to examine whether the framework of Gundel et al. (1993) bears its universality to account for the actual use of the distant languages such as English and Korean. Following Mulkern (1996) and Lee (2010), this study restricts its data in political news media discourse from the contrastive perspective. The data consists of ten English political news articles and twenty Korean political news articles published in 2017. The result confirms that both languages follow the general convention of news discourse to introduce a new entity with full names and prefer family names in subsequent mentions. However, further investigation is needed in terms of the use of pronouns in Korean because the distribution from this study differs from Lee's (2010).More contrastive research on different languages in different discourse contexts would shed more light on the universality of the Accessibility and Givenness frameworks.

Since the Korean pronoun system does not specify gender indication, Korean speakers of English tend to have difficulties when they use English pronouns. This paper explores how absence of obligatory gender marking in Korean affects gender errors in the production of English. Gender pronoun errors made by Korean learners of English were analyzed using recordings of English conversations of seven Korean subjects. Findings of this study revealed that Korean English learners struggled with the use of gender pronouns due to differences in gender pronoun systems between Korean and English. Both gender-neutrality and pro-drop practices do not require Korean speakers to pay close attention to gender factors when using pronouns in their native language, resulting in native language interference. Considering that the Korean language lacks specific gender orientation in its usage of pronouns whereas English requires clear gender specification, findings of this study imply that native language gender concept can influence second language use.

The study investigates which grammar features need high priority of pedagogical intervention to develop implicit knowledge, unlike grammatical features in need of explanation of explicit rules. Two types of data were collected from 29 Korean college students: a sentence completion test in English and a meta-linguistic knowledge test (requiring students to both correct the underlined error and explain the grammatical rule) in Korean. Through statistical analyses, including a Wilcoxon signed rank test, this study finds significant differences in test achievements for tense, time prepositions (for and since), subjunctive moods, dative alternations, quantitative adjectives (many and much), gerunds, and third-person singular -s in the simple present tense. Based on results obtained, this study proposes which specific grammar features need intensive pedagogical intervention for production skills, including sentence writing and speaking. Several practical suggestions are provided for EFL instructors and researchers to make more effective use of speaking and writing activities as well as formative testing.

The purpose of this research was to examine how Korean college students’ motivation toward English learning has been changed over time as they took technology-utilizing classes. In order to accomplish this, two research questions were proposed; First, how has the students’ motivation changed over the whole school year? Second, how has the students’ motivation changed in terms of their English proficiency levels? Sixty college students were required to take a simulated TOEIC test for their English proficiency levels, and to respond to the ARCS questionnaire developed by Keller (2008a, 2008b) to measure their motivation levels. An independent samples t-test was employed to compare the statistical means from the samples, specifically to find out the relation of students’ motivation and t he e ffect o f t echnology-utilizing c lasses. The r esults o f d ata analysis found out that the longer the treatment period of technology-utilizing instruction, the greater the effect on the learner’s motivation; second, the technology-utilizing instruction has a significant effect on the students’ motivation regardless of their proficiency levels, but it turns out to be more effective in improving the upper group students’ motivation toward learning. Based on these findings, practical implications for the implementing technology-utilizing instruction in the EFL classroom were suggested.

The study investigated ten Korean secondary English teachers’ views on to what extent core competencies were reflected in textbooks using 18 Likert-type statements. This study also examined their views on how well cultural contents and activities met curricular objectives of teaching culture through open-ended questions and interviews. Results showed that the three items on civic competence had lower means except for the one on ethical use of information collected in class. Teachers replied that tasks for each grade were deficient in helping students feel proud of their own culture and developing positive attitudes toward other cultures. They thought that current cultural contents lacked diversity despite positive improvements in including other cultures over the years and possibility of meeting curricular goals. Consequently, they made various efforts to offer appropriate culture teaching using additional materials and/or activities with diverse teaching strategies and techniques. Some implications are drawn from these results for better culture teaching.

The purpose of the study is two-fold: (a) to investigate L2 learners’ receptive and productive collocational knowledge concerning the learners’ lexical proficiency levels, and (b) to explore the degree of their productive collocational knowledge. A total of 358 Korean university students participated in this study and completed a Vocabulary Size Test, two receptive collocation tests, and one productive collocation test. The results revealed that there was significance among the scores of three collocation tests. It is also observed that receptive and productive collocational competence tends to increase as L2 learners’ vocabulary size develops. Regarding productive collocational knowledge gains, significant differences were found among collocation combinations but no interaction effect was found between combination types and vocabulary levels. The findings indicated that L2 learners need to be aware of the importance of learning collocational knowledge while teachers need to attempt to help them notice high-frequency collocations that regularly occur in various contexts.

Learner initiative and very young learner talk have not been fully investigated despite the growing recognition of their importance in English education. Therefore, the present study examined the sequential development of talk-in-interaction observed in an after-school English program in a Korean kindergarten classroom by investigating how children contributed their behaviors to class participation using the methodological framework of conversation analysis. Data was collected from one intact classroom interaction between a native teacher and 28 seven-year-old children. The analysis highlighted a noticeable interactional phenomenon, learner initiative, which was revealed through children’s turn position in the Initiation-Response-Follow-up (IRF) sequence. In particular, this study presented evidence that learner initiative could be displayed through learners’ self-selected turns: initiating repair of the teacher’s previous utterance, asking a question, and displaying knowledge of words. These findings were discussed in relation to the view of learners as active agents through the process of interaction and suggested pedagogical implications of very young learners’ classroom interaction.

Considering critical roles of teachers in education, an increasing number of studies have investigated language teacher identity. Although many studies have reported nonnative English-speaking teachers’ identity, few studies have explored native English-speaking teachers’ (NESTs’) professional identity. Taking poststructural approaches towards identity, the present study investigated how two NESTs working in Korean universities perceived themselves professionally and how their identities were realized in class. Data were collected through interviews, class observations, and material collections. Findings showed that the NESTs constructed multiple identities differently shaped by various factors, such as previous experiences and college majors. One NEST had identities of a role model for foreign language learning and a caretaker, while the other showed weak identities as a teacher with identities of a writer and a babysitter. Despite such differences, the NESTs commonly manifested an overarching identity as a guide who desired to create safe and comfortable learning environments. These findings confirm close connections between teachers’ professional identity and practices.

The present study investigated students’ preferences for the types of tasks used to assess English speaking performance. It further examined whether students’ task type preferences affected their perceptions of test effectiveness. One hundred eighty-two high school students responded to a self-report questionnaire. A series of frequency analysis and paired samples t-tests were used for the analysis. The results showed that students’ most preferred task types and their least preferred ones overlapped with each other, suggesting that the task types of English-speaking performance tests used in schools are limited. The four key reasons determining students’ task type preferences were identified, including task difficulty, emotional comfort, practical value, and interest. In addition, the results indicated that students’ task type preferences could affect their perceptions of task effectiveness. Overall, the results suggest the need for developing more varied task types for English-speaking performance tests as well as helping students become familiar with English speaking performance tasks. Pedagogical implications were discussed along with study limitations.

The present study investigated Korean-accented English (KoE) intelligibility and conducted experiments in Korea, Japan, and the USA to test the benefits of listener’s familiarity and identify the key phonological features of KoE. In the experiments, the participants were asked to transcribe the target (KoE) of 100 English statements each containing a target word representing one of the nine features. The transcription data were administered to four groups, depending upon the degree of KoE familiarity (length of exposure). The results indicated that KoE was most intelligible to native English speakers with lower familiarity and least intelligible to the Japanese participants with low KoE familiarity. Although the listeners’ familiarity did not necessarily either facilitate or impede the intelligibility of KoE, the listeners with higher familiarity with KoE tended to recognize the voiced consonants of KoE better. The findings also indicated which KoE characteristics affected the overall intelligibility level, suggesting ways to prioritize KoE features in English language learning in Korean classrooms.

This study investigated how Korean high school students use English connectives in argumentative writing. The participants were 71 high school second year students. Analysis of data focused on three aspects of connective use: 1) the frequency and kinds of connectives used, 2) commonly used words in each category of connectives, and 3) frequently used positions of connectives. Considering the possible effect of topical knowledge and general English ability, the analysis included the comparison between two topic groups and between two language ability groups. The results showed there was a high similarity between different topic groups and ability groups in the use of connectives, but a significant difference was also found in some limited features. Based on the results, the study concludes that Korean high school students, regardless of the writing topic and language ability, share common features in the use of English connectives. Some suggestions are made for further research and writing instruction.

The standardization of the veterinary terms carried out so that Japanese or Chinese terms established in the Japanese Emperor Era modified into Korean character (Hangeul). The standardization of the terminology has been performed in veterinary medicine as well as various fields of study such as medicine, food sciences, biology, chemistry etc. The most appropriate terms were selected according to ‘the principle of establishment on veterinary medical terminology’ following a comparison between veterinary medical and medical terminology, and references with various dictionaries and specialty publications. Thereafter, the opinions of various organizations and academies on the selected terms were converged through the public hearing. The standardization of the veterinary terms has made progress, for example the publication of ‘Veterinary Anatomical Terminology (2013)’, which is Korean version of NAV/NEV. The Korean-English terms for veterinary medicine, which has contained approximately 46,900 terms, published at 2018. Veterinary terms are widely related with not only medicine and pharmacology but also with various fields of the society including livestock industry, food industry and quarantine. Therefore, the discretion should be required in the selecting appropriate Korean veterinary terms. The standardization of the veterinary terms should be progress in the regularly revision in a timely manner.

In the era of the 4th industrial revolution, creativity plays a pivotal role in the competitiveness of a country. The importance of creativity education therefore cannot be overemphasized. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of discussion-based English reading and writing activities on Korean high school students' creativity, English writing, and self-assessed creative thinking. The participants were 45 high school students in Seoul, Korea. They were divided into two groups: the discussion-based English reading and writing group (n=24) and the traditional English instruction group (n=21). The experiment was administered during two semesters of the 2017 academic year. The major findings are as follows: First, the experimental group showed significant improvement on the creativity test, especially in the areas of fluency, flexibility, and original thinking. Second, the experimental group outperformed the control group on the writing test. Third, the experimental group showed positive changes in their self-assessed flexible thinking, convergent thinking, and intrinsic motivation. All of these indicate the beneficial effects of the discussion-based English reading and writing activities. Based on the results, some pedagogical suggestions were made for the effective integration of creativity education into the teaching of English as a foreign language.

The purpose of study was to investigate university students’ attitudes towards English language learning apps and examine whether there is any significant difference in their attitudes depending on their personal variables such as their gender, major, grade, nationality, and so on. This study also explored students’ perceptions of English language learning apps that they have used. Participants were college students living in Korea and China. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire and an interview. Results showed that both Korean and Chinese students generally held positive attitudes towards English language learning apps, although Chinese students showed more positive attitudes than Koreans. The main reasons that they liked to use English language learning apps were their convenience, ubiquity, and rich resources. On the other hands, it was revealed that the lack of communication and feedback was the main problem of using such apps. Both Korean and Chinese students stated that it was an effective way to use English language learning apps to practice pronunciation, vocabulary, listening, and reading skills. Findings of this research suggest that English language learning apps should be developed to inspire users/students’ learning interest and foster learner autonomy.

This study sought to investigate factors affecting the English writing performance of 30 Korean ESL students overseas. Also, examined were the relationship between L1 and L2 education levels and L2 writing performance, the relationship between English language proficiency and L2 writing performance and between length of residence and L2 writing performance. The participants were asked to write essays in their L1 and L2 along with a questionnaire. To analyze the data, two-way ANOVA and correlation were performed. The results showed there was no significant relation between L1 educational level and L2 writing performance, but there was a significant relation between L2 educational level and L2 writing performance. Also, English language proficiency and L2 writing performance were highly correlated. The length of residence of the participants in the U.S. and their L2 writing performance showed a weak correlation. Similarly, their L1 writing performance was not related to their L2 writing performance. These imply that students need to have adequate proficiency of English to write in their L2, and they need to receive a considerate number of years of formal education in their L2 for the success of L2 writing.

The present study attempts to provide empirical and qualitative evidence to support the feasibility of rubric-referenced self-assessment to promote learning in a Korean high school EFL context. Over four rubric-referenced self-assessment lessons, with the help of a teacher’s instructions, students wrote a first draft and assessed it using a scoring rubric. Drawing on this self-assessment, they wrote a second draft, also followed by a self-assessment as well as a self-assessment diary. As quantitative data, the scores of the first draft of the first class were compared with those of the second draft of the fourth class. Survey questionnaires, interviews, self-assessment diaries, and essay self-assessments served as qualitative data. The findings are, first, rubric-referenced self-assessment showed positive effects on students’ writing quality. Second, students came to perceive the effectiveness of rubric-referenced self-assessment. Lastly, rubric-referenced self-assessment positively influenced students’ learning strategies and attitudes. These results imply that rubric-referenced self-assessment promotes learning in a Korean high school EFL context, leading students to become self-regulated learners that take responsibility for their own learning.

This study investigated the relative effects of input-based versus output-based activities on the learning of English unaccusative constructions. A total of 73 high school students were randomly assigned into two experimental groups and one control group. Of the two experimental groups, the input-based input enhancement group (IE group) experienced a reading passage with the learning targets visually enhanced. The output-based dictogloss group (DG group) performed the dictogloss task with the identical passage given to IE group. The control group (CG group) did not experience the learning targets at all. Results showed that IE group statistically significantly outperformed CG group both at the immediate and the delayed posttests, while there was no significant difference between IE group and DG group. In terms of the generalizability of the learned knowledge, however, it was DG group that outperformed CG group at the immediate posttest. Again, there was no difference between IE group and DG group. More detailed findings are provided, along with some implications for English classrooms in Korea.