The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of two different types of vocabulary activities on Korean EFL learners’ vocabulary learning and perceptions. The participants of the study were 30 Korean middle school students in Seoul, and they were divided into two groups (typography and web-based authoring). The former employed the word meaning and spelling image association technique and the latter used a multimedia vocabulary authoring tool for 42 target words. The major findings of the study are as follows: (1) Both the typography and the web-based vocabulary authoring groups showed significant improvement on the posttest of vocabulary test, which indicated the equal effectiveness of the two vocabulary activities; (2) with respect to different English proficiency levels, the low-level group showed much higher improvement of the mean difference between pre and post tests than the higher group; and (3) the participants’ perceptions turned out to be more positive when they participated in creating English word spelling image than authoring multimedia vocabulary learning materials. The results suggest the beneficial effects of active student involvement in the vocabulary learning process. Pedagogical and practical suggestions are made on the effective teaching of English vocabulary in Korean classroom settings.
The purpose of the study was two-fold: to investigate the effects of a group-based book reading plus self-efficacy and outcome expectancy intervention on reading amount, perceived reading ability, reading behavior, and social cognitions and to examine influencing factors of book reading behaviors. Sixty-three sixth graders completed a ten-week book reading intervention in two experimental conditions: one with book-reading activities only and the other with a book-reading plus social cognition intervention. The control group (n=32) studied English in their regular English classes. Questionnaires were administered three times to assess the participants' social cognition, reading behavior, and perceptions of reading English books: right before and right after the intervention, and at eight weeks post intervention. The results showed positive effects of the intervention on reading amount, perceived reading ability, and reading behavior. Of the two experimental groups, the group that had received the book-reading plus social cognition intervention showed more positive results. At eight weeks post intervention, intervention effects on goal efficacy, reading behavior, and attitude toward reading were maintained. Social cognition was found to affect reading amount and behavior for the experimental groups. Research and practical implications are suggested.
This study investigates the effects of collocation task types on Korean high school students' collocation learning and learning attitudes. A total of 118 Korean high school students participated in the experiment, and they were divided into four groups: control group, receptive treatment group, productive treatment group and combination treatment group. In order to investigate the effects of collocation task types on students' English proficiency, each group of students was classified into a high proficiency group and a low proficiency group. The students took a pre-test before the experiment and a post-test after the experiment. After the post-test, the post-questionnaire survey was conducted to examine the students' learning attitudes. The results of the study were as follows: (1) The three types of collocation tasks were effective in learning receptive and productive collocations; (2) in the delayed retention test, it was revealed that the effect of the three types of collocation tasks on both receptive and productive collocation learning lasted; and (3) the result of post-questionnaire survey showed that learning collocation through collocation tasks had positive influence on most students in terms of raising their interest and increasing their self-confidence.
This study examines opportunities for Korean EFL students at a Korean university to use English as their L2 in their informal social networks. Through interviews as well as analysis of the students’ interactions in an informal environment, the study focuses on the major factors affecting the construction of these opportunities. The findings show that the students expanded their social networks with English speakers during their first year of university. More importantly, the study indicates that the same students sometimes had difficulty constructing interactions in English in these networks. This difficulty can be attributed to various factors, including the learners’ history as an L2 learner/user and some norms in the community where the learners were situated. However, the analysis of L1/L2 selection and its negotiation in their interactions shows that the construction of L2 interactions also appears to be mediated by certain factors, such as accommodated goals of interaction and specific discourse strategies. Research implications are provided at the end of the research paper.
The goal of the present study was to investigate the effects of technology-enhanced instruction types, vocabulary activity types, and learners' cognitive style on vocabulary knowledge. With regard to the types of technology-enhanced instruction, the results of post-vocabulary tests indicated that both blended learning and web-based instruction had positive effects on vocabulary learning. In particular, the blended learning group outperformed the web-based group showing greater improvement. With regard to vocabulary activity type, the results did not reveal a significant difference between groups with different types of vocabulary activities. When comparing the results from test items assessing the receptive and productive knowledge of vocabulary, both groups made greater improvements in their receptive knowledge of vocabulary than productive use of vocabulary. Concerning learners’ cognitive style, the analysis of the test scores indicated that there was no significant difference among groups. Finally, pedagogical implications were provided at the end of the paper.
This study explores elementary school students’ perceptions of English pop songs in regular English classes at a Korean elementary school. Seven 6th graders participated in the study and they were divided into three groups based on their English proficiency level. Data were collected from their interviews, written logs, and group discussions for a qualitative analysis. The results indicate that low level learners associate pop songs with the auditory factor only, while intermediate and high level learners associate the songs with both auditory and visual factors. It is also found that each individual learner exhibits his or her own music preference in selecting pop songs for learning. In addition, the socialization effect, which evokes the sense of unity, is found among the English learners who attended the pop song lessons. Finally, the study presents the results that learning pop songs contributes to self-directed learning of English. Pedagogical implications on using pop songs for a teaching material are discussed.
The present study explored a reading-based speaking task for its potential to develop EFL students' fluency. Based on an L1 speaking model by Levelt (1989, 1993), the task was developed in a way that students can maximize their fluency in a scaffolding-rich condition: one in the stage of message generation and the other in linguistic encoding. The use of reading texts for the development of speaking fluency was also hypothesized to induce authentic interaction among interlocutors. How the reading-based speaking task functions as hypothesized was tested with five Korean college students who participated in a 4-week reading-based speaking program. The analysis of the group activity transcripts and interviews revealed that scaffolding in message generation took place in three types of language episode: a personal experience episode, a vocabulary-related episode, and a contentclarification/ elaboration episode. Linguistic encoding in L2 speaking was scaffolded via shared context, which enabled the participants to develop and utilize a paraphrasing skill. Finally, the participants’ engagement in speaking activities increased, affecting their willingness to communicate and their motivation to improve speaking.
The purpose of this study is to illustrate a general collaborative model of team-teaching in a university general English program. While positive effects of team-teaching and some suggestions for teamteaching practices have been reported previously, there has been less attention paid to an instructional model where native teachers and Korean teachers collaborate with each other for the best classroom experience for students. A qualitative research guided the design. Twenty teachers’ team-teaching classes were observed and video-taped for analysis. The findings showed that the two teachers’ constant negotiations of meanings in any stage of the lessons and in classes with diverse linguistic goals was helpful to the students’ understanding. Also, in the stage of presenting particular language expressions (duringlesson), complimenting each other with native teachers’ intuition and Korean teachers’ analytic skills was suggested as an important instructional move. When activities were introduced, modeling by the two teachers and bridging roles by the Korean teachers were a tremendous contribution and recommended for model collaborations. An instructional model and educational implications have been suggested.
Peu de recherches ont été réalisées sur les cours numériques en français. Donc, ce papier a pour but d'examiner les effets de cours numériques offerts dans les classes françaises d'université. Nous avons une expérience d’avoir donné trois types de classes numériques comme la grammaire française, la traduction et l'écoute. Ces trois ont été organisés par une méthode hybride, en ligne et en présentiel pendant un semestre. À partir de cette expérience, nous avons retenu quelques particularités liées aux cours numériques. Il existe quelques points positifs aussi bien que négatifs. Parmi les points positifs, nous pouvons mentionner les possibilités d'inciter les étudiants à développer leurs potentiels et de faire travailler en coopération avec d'autres. Les points négatifs sont liés à l'incapacité de vérifier comment les étudiants travaillent ou s'ils travaillent réellement en ligne. Et le professeur doit être toujours vigilant aux questions posées par les étudiants. Cela donne un fardeau au professeur.
This study proposes how to teach aspectual derivations of the verb in the Russian language based on the prefixation and suffixation. The author argues that for the intermediate/advanced learners the traditional aspectual pair system needs to be replaced by the aspectual cluster system and the derivations of the imperfective verbs through the suffixation needs to be taught based on the classification of the infinitives. The hierarchical structure of verb stem in Russian is as follows: superlexical prefixes (po-, etc.) > -yva- > superlexical prefixes (ot-, etc.) > intermediate prefixes (do-, pere-) > -nu-/-a- > lexical prefixes > stem. The study also proposes that the syntactic structure needs to contain the split AspPs (PerfP1 > ImpfP > PerfP2 > PerfP3) outside of the vP and another AspP inside the vP in order to derive the above-mentioned hierarchical structure.