The purpose of this study was to study how L2 motivations in both Dörnyei’s (2005, 2009) L2 Motivational Self System and Gardner’s (1985) socio-educational model were related to intrinsic and extrinsic subscales in the self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985) in Korean college contexts. This study investigated the relationships among the motivational variables by the use of the correlation method and the effects of L2 motivations on motivated behavior through multiple regression analysis. The findings showed Gardner’s (1985) integrativeness and ideal L2 self were strongly correlated with the more self-determined types of motivations, while L2 learning experience and ought-to L2 self were associated with the less self-determined ones in the self-determination theory. In addition, Dörnyei’s (2005, 2009) L2 Motivational Self System and the extrinsic motivation subscales, identified regulation and external regulation, explained Korean college students’ motivated behavior better than Gardner’s (1985) integrativeness. The theoretic discussions are made at the conclusion.
This study adopts a flow theory perspective to investigate the learning engagement levels of 224 Korean high school students during EFL classes and the factors that may relate to differences in their engagement. Engagement was defined as the simultaneous experience of concentration, interest, and enjoyment. The experience sampling method was employed to measure 10th and 11th graders’ appraisals of instructional activities. Each participant was sampled twice randomly during each of three observed lessons. Momentary levels of engagement were examined in relation to students’ appraisals of activity qualities (importance for future goals, difficulty, possessed skills/competence in the area of the activity), and contextual factors (gender, grade, teacher, ability-track). Descriptive analyses, ANOVAs, and t-tests revealed that only 13% of the students were optimally engaged in lessons that were predominantly teacher-centered; increased engagement was associated with students’ appraisals of activity importance for future goals and with feelings of competence; and learner group engagement differed according to who taught them. Some teachers seemed to use an approach more conducive to engagement.
This study explores university students’ revising behaviors in the peer assessment process. The data for this study were collected from 18 college students taking English critical writing courses. The results of this study show that the students’ feedback on critical writing significantly affect their revising behaviors. That is, the students’ feedback had substantial variability in the process of revising and improving their critical essays. Specifically, it was found that the students revised their essays more in surface levels by self-reflection and peer feedback and more in meaning levels by teacher feedback. In addition, the students’ perceptions of peer assessment appeared to be related to the extent of their experience of peer assessment and their revision work by peer feedback. The students considered peer assessment useful and helpful for improving their writing skills. This peer assessment induces learning and promotes further learning beyond what the students currently know or are able to do. The results inform L2 writing test developers and researchers about the extent to which peer assessment affects students’ learning and improves their writing abilities. Based on the findings in this study, the implications related to the assessment policy are also discussed.
This study aims to investigate English teachers’ anxiety at three different school levels in Korea with special attention to situations where anxiety is generated. A mixed method was adopted to explore English teachers’ anxiety. Quantitative data from 912 English teachers was obtained through an online survey and qualitative data was collected from focus group interviews which were conducted with three different groups of primary (n=4), middle (n=3), and high school (n=3) teachers. Quantitative data analysis showed that there were no significant differences in the level of anxiety according to three school levels, although the anxiety of English teachers gradually increases from primary to high school. On the whole, there were significant differences in anxiety according to teaching experience; teachers with less than three years of teaching experience showed the highest anxiety. Three themes emerged from the analysis of the qualitative data: fear of negative evaluation, different sources of anxiety relating to teaching experiences in the three school levels, and classroom English vs. spontaneous English. These three themes showed that English teachers’ anxiety needs to be understood in the context of anxiety-provoking situations where they are being evaluated by their colleagues about their teaching methods and English language proficiency. Pedagogical implications are discussed based on the findings of the study.
The world Englishes framework gravitating around many recent models of English has initiated sharp interest in adopting intercultural awareness and its teaching/learning in English language instruction. This is because English has become ‘a heterogeneous language with multiple norms and grammars’ (Canagarajah, 2006) and no longer an international language but an ‘intercultural language’ (Sifakis, 2004). Intercultural English language teaching (IcELT) aims to create interculturally multidialectical English users among world Englishes by not only developing cultural tolerance and linguistic and cultural diversity but abating the so-called native-speakers’ linguistic and cultural dominances. For this, this article suggests eight workable IcELT guidelines which could facilitate users’ IcELT competence. This article, for its organization, first addresses why IcELT in relation to the world Englishes framework should be dealt in the contemporary ELT arena. Secondly, it suggests the eight IcELT guidelines along with some classroom techniques; thus, teachers of English language will benefit in his/her future lesson plans.
This study investigated L2 production, perception, and the relation of production and perception by examining 20 Korean learners’ production and perception of the English contrasts of /ʃ/ vs. /ʃi/, /ʧ/ vs. /ʧi/, and /ʤ/ vs. /ʤi/ in word final position. Of the 20 Korean learners, 10 (5 males, 5 females) were low in English proficiency and the other 10 (5 males, 5 females) were high. Our findings from production and perception experiments showed that the relation of L2 production and perception varies according to learners’ proficiency levels in L2. A significant correlation between L2 production and perception was attested within the high group learners. Thus, the high group learners with higher production accuracy generally exhibited higher perception accuracy. Unlike the high group, the low group learners’ production and perception patterns did not show any significant correlation between the two. In general, the low group displayed higher accuracy in production than in perception. In addition, within the low group, the heavy influence of L1 constraints on L2 perception was attested while L2 production was not in accordance with L1 phonology.
Laufer, Elder, Hill, and Congdon (2004) proposed the vocabulary strength framework reflecting the process of vocabulary knowledge development with a hierarchical order of four strength modalities: passive recognition, active recognition, passive recall, and active recall. Employing this framework, the present study aims to empirically examine its generalizability to EFL contexts and further explore its availability to validating the TEPS vocabulary section. Three sets of web-based tests for three proficiency groups (beginner (n=37), intermediate (n=31), and advanced (n=30)) are developed with words from three frequency bands (3000, 5000, and 7000). The test includes four sections representing four strength modes and an optional TEPS section for the two upper groups. A one-parameter Rasch model analysis reveals that item difficulties agree to the hierarchical sequence of difficulty order in the framework. Different vocabulary growth rates were found across modes and word bands. The TEPS item difficulties that are closer to recall than recognition may give a theoretical account of the measuring construct that the TEPS items tap upon.
Automated error detection and feedback systems are becoming an important component of online writing practice services for ESL/EFL (English as a second/foreign language) learners. The main purposes of the study are to: (a) collect samples of essays written by ESL learners with different native language (or L1) backgrounds that are error-coded by an early version of an automated error-detection system (CritiqueTM) and trained human coders; and (b) identify some unique patterns of writing errors for different first language (L1) groups. Data analyzed in this study included 18, 439 TOEFL◯R CBT essays error-coded by CritiqueTM and a much smaller, combined sample of 480 TOEFL◯R CBT/TOEFL iBT◯R essays error-coded by trained human coders. A comparison of error rates across five different language groups showed some unique patterns: (a) the Arabic and Spanish groups were the highest on both spelling and punctuation errors; (b) the Korean and Japanese groups had the highest article error frequency; and (c) the Chinese group had the highest number of errors related to verb conjugations or adjective and noun inflections. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of understanding the nature of L1-related writing errors and enhancing the automated error detection and feedback systems.
This study explores the morphological awareness of different graders with different vocabulary levels. A total of 275 elementary students (148 5th graders and 127 6th graders) across small, midium and large cities are selected to test their morphological awareness. First, they were divided into 30%, 40% and 30% of students according to their vocabulary levels. Second, they were tested on the recognition tests, the production tests and the distributional tests of English derivational morphemes divided by the prefixes and the suffixes appeared in the English textbooks. The results are: The recognition and production tests show significant differences for both vocabulary levels and different English levels across different grades. However, the distributional test shows no clear difference like the other two tests. Based on the results, the study draws the conclusion that morphological awareness is developing in the order of recognition, production and distribution of morphologized words in sentences. In other words, recognition of forms precedes the production of forms, and the production is followed by the functional awareness of morphologized words.
This study examines the difficulty of reading text in elementary school English textbooks. Four elementary school English textbook series published by three publishers were evaluated by Word Critical Factor (WCF). WCF considers cognitive demands for word recognition; it assesses the match of linguistic content in the text with the phonetically regular and high-frequency words that are associated with particular stages of reading development. For the analysis, all of the words that appeared in the reading and writing sections from four elementary school English textbooks were analyzed by two criteria, that is, the ratio of high frequency words and phonetically regular words among 100 running words, and the number of unique words in each textbook. The results showed that all four textbooks’ difficulty levels were very high considering the learner’s reading ability. This was due to the textbooks having a low repetition of words and also the complicated vowel patterns that were above the reading abilities of students. All of these factors combined are what have caused the difficulties presented in English textbooks. In conclusion, although the reading text introduces a variety of genres and activities for the development of reading skills, most reading text could not assist the reader’s cognitive processing.
The purpose of this study is to investigate university students’ perceptions on their English conversation classes taught by native English speakers. Its focus is on finding out how well the students understand and how actively they participate in class, what causes difficulty in their understanding or participation in class, and whether their class helps them in terms of affective aspects and English skills. A survey was conducted on a total of 465 university students in Korea, and the collected data were analyzed to compute basic descriptive and inferential statistics. Some of the important findings are 1) over 50% of the students understand their classes well; 2) a little over 30% actively participate in class; 3) about 30~50% of the students perceive their class help them affectively; and 4) about 50% of the students perceive their class help them improve their English skills in general. These results are discussed along with other findings related to the causes of the difficulties that the students experienced. Suggestions are provided on the basis of the results and their implications.
The Korea Immigration & Integration Program (KIIP) by the Ministry of Justice offers social integration education in order to educate immigrants about Korean language and culture. This paper presents a case study on the development of Korean language textbooks for KIIP. Korean Language and Culture for Immigrants (Intermediate Levels 1 and 2) is used as a teaching material at 308 social integration education institutions. This paper introduced its development procedure and method, its development directions, the organization of its syllabus, and the content of its units. Its development process involved analyzing purposes of social integration education and of needs of incumbent teachers to develop a teaching material to meet the goals of social integration. Efforts were made to closely connect the content of Korean study to that of culture study with a focus on making culture study lead to an overall understanding of South Korean society and to serve fully as a preparation process to acquire Korean nationality. This paper will hold its value as a guideline to be consulted for the development of Korean language textbooks for immigrants and help teachers make efficient use of textbooks according to the objectives of education in a social integration program.
During the last decade, an increasing number of immigrants came to Korea mainly for getting jobs and following their spouses, and the Korean government attempted to introduce several policies and projects. Among those policies and projects, the bilingual teacher development program was launched for developing bilingual teachers to teach their cultures and languages to multicultural and general students as well. The purpose of this research was to find out what multicultural immigrant women who participated in a bilingual teacher development program wanted to obtain from the program, and possibly to suggest aiming at developing a teacher training program for the future. Twelve pre-service bilingual teachers who were being trained in bilingual teacher development program participated in the pre- and post-questionnaire surveys. The results of the study are as follows. First, 12 pre-service bilingual teachers fully understood their roles as bilingual teachers and they think they are prepared to carry out those roles through the training program and the practicum. However, after the practicum they recognized they need to deepen their knowledge on child psychology, counseling and material development. Next, the pre-service teachers were satisfied with the training program and the courses they took in the program would be helpful to work as a bilingual teacher. However, they demand more practicum in the training curriculum. Some suggestions are made for improving the current system of practicum in the bilingual teacher training curriculum.