The study explores the identity construction of non-regular English conversation teachers (non-RECTs) in an elementary and a middle school in Korea. Drawing on positioning theory and the notion of community of practice, the study illustrates how non-RECTs resist, modify, and reconstruct their teacher identity through positioning themselves and others, and different modes of participation in the school contexts. It is a three-year longitudinal study with two female non-RECTs. The primary data gathered through interviews and informal talks, documents, and e-mails were also included for triangulation purposes. The findings suggest that the non-RECTs self-positioned themselves as qualified teachers who can effectively implement communicative language teaching into the classroom, but their positioning was challenged and rejected by regular teachers. The participants resisted their marginalized positions as temporary instructors and claimed their legitimacy by establishing themselves as positive contributors to the communicative curriculum. The findings show the non-RECTs’ identity construction is a struggle between the different views on legitimacy and a negotiation among multiple and conflicting identities.
The purpose of this study is to explore the nature of pre-service language teachers’ reflection for problem solving, focusing on facets of problem solving. For this purpose, this study collected and analyzed twenty pre-service English teachers’ ninety-four entries of reflection guided by semi-structured guidelines for problem solving: pre-reflective, reflective thinking, and post-reflective. For the analysis of the data, this study adopted constant comparative analysis to identify and categorize features in the data from the perspective of qualitative approach. This study found three dimensions of problem solving and three or four segments under each dimension. Dimensions represent the possible procedural steps of problem solving: ‘problem-determination’, ‘problem-analysis’, and ‘solution’. In terms of cognitive purposes, four possible segments emerged: ‘description’, ‘elaboration’, ‘justification’, and ‘evaluation’. In contrast, concerning perspectives on viewing problems, this study identified three segments: ‘thou-view’, ‘i-view’, and ‘alternative-view’. The variation in the employment of the dimensions and segments was found to represent diverse patterns of problem solving in pre-service language teacher reflection. The findings of this study suggest some implications for pre-service language teacher education.
Previous research developed lists of the most frequently used phrasal verbs in native English corpora. This study aims to discover how these high frequency phrasal verbs were presented in high school English textbooks in Korea. A high school English textbook corpus comprising 189,203 words taken from the listening scripts and reading passages of eight different textbook series was developed for the study. A corpus-based analysis of phrasal verbs revealed that each textbook series covered only 30% of most commonly used phrasal verbs in native corpora. In addition, the phrasal verbs used in the different textbook series rarely overlapped, suggesting a lack of systematic selection process. Among the recursive phrasal verbs appearing in the textbook series, high frequency phrasal verbs were more likely to be recursive and evenly distributed. A comparative analysis conducted with a referential corpus revealed that the textbooks employed fewer phrasal verbs than their comparative counterparts. In terms of meaning, 91% of high frequency phrasal verbs in the textbooks delivered their most frequent meanings while the rest 9% did not. The results of this study support the necessity of pedagogical guidelines for phrasal verbs.
The study aims to look into linguistic differences of essays among different scoring groups depending on TOEIC scores. In order to investigate such research questions, the Gachon Learner Corpus collected from over 25,000 essays was used. Each essay was classified into 5 different scoring groups. Statistical results were extracted based on 22 linguistic features using open-source natural language processing tools. Unlike the micro-oriented features of Crossley, Kyle, Allen, Guo and McNamara (2014), macro-oriented features were used. Since micro-feature approach needs more features than macro-feature one does, micro-feature based approach is more efficient in feature extraction process. The current study’s observation revealed that the statistically observed behaviors were varied among different scoring groups. Higher scoring groups had different strategies in language use when showing higher linguistic abilities, compared with those of lower scoring groups. Unlike the observation in Cumming, Kantor, Baba, Eouanzoui, Erdosy, and James (2016), the linguistic complexity feature(s) like syntactic complexity was not clearly distinctive between lower and higher scoring groups.
Flipped classroom is a pedagogical approach that inverts the flow of the traditional classroom. Due to recent interest in the effectiveness of the flipped learning, research on flipped learning has become pervasive. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to explore the applicability of flipped learning approach to the teaching of English vocabulary for Korean EFL learners. The participants of the study were 40 Korean high school students in Seoul and they were divided into two groups (flipped classroom and traditional classroom). The major results and findings of the study are as follows: The flipped classroom promoted the vocabulary acquisition of Korean high school students in terms of receptive and productive knowledge, which was shown to have a long-term effect. In addition, the flipped classroom had a positive effect on students’ learning attitudes and self-directed learning. Furthermore, the participants’ perceptions of the flipped classroom were very positive. Thus, the implementation of flipped learning will enable Korean instructors not only to explicitly teach vocabulary but also to encourage self-directed and interactive learning to take place in class. Given the beneficial effects of flipped classroom on the vocabulary learning, there is a need for further investigation of the flipped classroom on various skills of English.
The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of writing workshop in a primary EFL context using children’s literature featuring social problems as the language input for learners. To accomplish the objective, two research questions were set up: 1) What aspects are shown in the development of primary EFL learners’ literacy skills through writing workshop using children’s literature? 2) What are some impacts in promoting social sensitivity through writing workshop using children’s literature featuring social problems? The data collected from diverse sources including worksheets, surveys, teacher’s logs, interviews, and self-reflection responses yielded two major findings. The first finding showed that participants learned how to utilize literary texts in their writing. In other words, the text used in the study played a motive for the participants in initiating and developing their writing. The second finding revealed the potential of cultivating social sensitivities of language learners through reading based writing workshop. For example, the participants identified the problematic situation by sympathizing with the characters from the texts, and tried to offer solutions. Also, democratic civic qualities of students were ascertained through the process of writing workshop. Based on the results, educational implications were provided.
The study investigates the effect of different types of visual images, i.e., static images versus dynamic images, on English vocabulary learning. Eighty-four students in the fourth grade of an elementary school participated in this study, and they were divided into two experimental groups and a control group. One of the experimental groups utilized static images, and the other group, videos as dynamic images in vocabulary learning. The control group was provided with the definition or the explanation of each target word in L1. The results of the study manifested that the static image group showed higher scores for the post test than the dynamic image group. The comparison of the pre and post affective tests demonstrated that the static image group showed an improvement in confidence in language learning and the dynamic image group showed positive change in the attitude of all three areas: interest, confidence, and aroused motivation. The analysis of the open-ended questionnaires showed that many participants in the static image group tended to use pictures as retrieval cues to remember vocabulary.
This study investigates the opening stage of English class in the elementary school. It specifically explores the significant features of the interactions among teachers and students. A non-native Korean English teacher, a native English teacher, and 25 elementary students participated in the study. Twenty-three opening parts of the English classes were collected, transcribed, and analysed for the study. Data analysis showed that 1) the openings consist of greetings, reviewing, promoting motivations, and giving class objectives, 2) students had authentic communication, in that they moved out of the I-R-F sequence and even took the lead in the conversation as in Waring (2009)’s study, and 3) there were three types of learner initiatives in the class opening, which were reported by Waring (2011). It is also worth while to note that students self-selected, volunteered to respond, and began a sequence on the assigned turn regardless of their English competence. Some implications were suggested for meaningful interactions in the opening stage of English class in the elementary school.
Le but de cette étude est de mesurer la pertinence et la faisabilité des classes « inversées » dans la conception de curricula de français dans les universités coréennes. Plus précisément, l'objectif était de répondre à quatre questions de recherche: (1) Quelle est l'attitude générale des étudiants coréens de français, face à leurs professeurs, leurs pairs et vis-à-vis du français? (2) Quelles sont les attentes des étudiants coréens vis-à-vis des classes «inversées»? (3) Quelles étapes de la conception des parcours sont les plus déterminants? (4) Dans le parcours proposé, quels sont les éléments les plus pertinents et quels sont ceux qui restent à améliorer? Selon le résultat de l'enquête, les étudiants coréens avaient des aprioris plutôt méfiants envers leurs pairs et leur professeur de français, mais aucun à l'égard de la matière elle-même. En outre, ils reconnaissaient l'influence prépondérante de l'enseignant dans leurs études de français. La prise de parole et la grammaire étant désignées comme les parties les plus difficiles de leur apprentissage. Enfin, beaucoup d'entre eux ont montré leur grand intérêt et des attentes élevées quant à l'efficacité de la classe dite «inversée».
Le but de cette étude est de découvrir les méthodes d'enseignement-apprentissage intégré de la langue et de la culture française pour développer la capacité de communication basée sur la compéhension du contexte de la culture pour les étudiants en spécialité de français. Les étapes de recherches suivantes sont : (1) établissement de l'objectif ducours, sélection et organisation des contenus en tenant compte des résultats des études précédentes et (2) suite à la description du contexte culturel, réalisation de la tâche intégrant la langue et la culture française, ainsi que les quatre compétences à savoir expression orale, écoute, lecture, écriture.
Nous prévoyons les résultats suivants grâce à cette étude. (1) Les éléments culturels contribuent à motiver les apprenants dans l'enseignement-apprentissage des langues étrangères; (2) Les documents authentiques aident les apprenants à comprendre la langue et la culture cible mais aussi à acquérir une capacité de communication; et (3) Les apprenants développeront la compétence interculturelle par des procédures comparatives entre la culture de leur pays et la culture cible tout en accomplissant la tâche.
The purpose of this paper is to discover some features of Chinese translation of Korean onomatopoeia, which include onomatopoeic and mimetic expressions. The study analyzed 115 expressions from the 16 works of hangari (pot) which is written by Chung Ho-sung, one of the most well-known Korean writers. The Chinese translations were found to be classified into five different types: 1) maintaining onomatopoeia; 2) switching into patterns; 3) providing explanations; 4) deleting and 5) differentiating interpretations. The result showed that Type 3 (providing explanations) was most frequently used, being responsible for 39% of all the Chinese translations. Type 1, maintaining onomatopoeia, was responsible only for 26% of the translations, confirming that Korean has much more abundant onomatopoeia than Chinese. The other three types ranged from 10% to 14%, which requires some particular attentions of the translators. Finally, the study suggests a specific classroom activity which can facilitate effective learning of onomatopoeic translations of Korean into Chinese.
The purpose of this study is to seek how to improve KSL curriculum through the analysis of SSL curriculum. This study compared SSL and KSL curriculums in terms of education system, policy, language assessment, purposes and learner groups, operation cases, and teacher education. Some of the findings are as follows: 1) Swedish curriculum system is relatively simple compared with the Korean counterpart; 2) for policy, the Swedish national test is administered every three years in elementary and secondary schools, which gives learners a motivation to learn Swedish; 3) for purposes and learner groups, SSL curriculum is focused on the functions of language learning rather than culture and social identity compared with KSL curriculum; 4) for assessment, SSL specified the contents and levels of evaluation depending on grades while KSL curriculum does not have a complete assessment. and 5) for teacher education, the two countries recognized the necessity of professionalism in teaching: Sweden started new curriculum since 2011, where 4-5 year SSL teacher programs for youths have been operated, but KSL teacher education mainly targeted programs for adults and qualified teachers.