This study investigated the effects of negotiation in the process of providing written corrective feedback (WCF) by comparing three different patterns: non-negotiation, minimal negotiation, and extended negotiation. The data were collected from three intermediate academic English classes at a university in Korea. Each class was exposed to different degrees of negotiation while they received WCF for two target forms, the past verb forms and the English articles, in their written production (text re-construction tasks). Their accuracy improvement was measured by text-reconstruction writing tasks and error correction tests. The study found that the use of negotiation affected accuracy improvement of the target forms; however, its effectiveness varied depending on the target forms and measurements. For the past tense, negotiation, regardless of its amount, resulted in more accuracy improvement than non-negotiation in both text re-construction tasks and error correction tests. However, for the English articles, negotiation operated differently: extended negotiation significantly brought about more accuracy development in both measurements, but the difference between minimal negotiation and non-negotiation was only observed in the error correction test, not in the text re-construction task.
Much research has not been conducted on how classroom-based research articles concerning teaching effectiveness in the ESL/EFL classroom have changed over time, in spite of deep interest in the field. Therefore, this study aims to examine the characteristics of research articles on effective teaching in the ESL/EFL classroom, focusing specifically on articles from TESOL Quarterly. For this purpose, this study searched articles using three key terms; effective teaching, ESL/EFL, and activity. Articles which included those terms were investigated, depending on research topic and publication year, and four key facts were found; the importance of teachers’ input (older articles), a focus on group or peer work (newer articles), teachers’ education, and the use of students’ native languages. While students preferred teachers’ reliable and explicit input in the past, modern articles tended to recommend more frequent interactions among peer groups in the English learning classroom. Limited resources in teaching contexts asked for additional qualifications from ESL/EFL teachers, thus emphasizing teacher education as an important factor for effective teaching. Lastly, the use of students’ native language had a positive influence on learning English. The findings of this study suggest some implications for how effective teaching in Korean context could be implemented.
This study explores how experiential knowledge (EK) and received knowledge (RK) are integrated in pre-service language teachers’ written reflections to solve pedagogical problems, adopting constantcomparative analysis method outside of Grounded Theory. For this end, forty-one entries of reflective journals, written for problem solving by seven pre-service English teachers in Korea, were collected in a course entitled ‘English Language Teaching Theory into Practice’. One month after the course ended, each entry was re-reflected by the participants to identify whether it inclucded their EK and RK. All the statements in each entry, which had been reported to include EK or RK explicitly or implicitly, were repeatedly read until themes related to problem solution emerged. The results show that EK and RK can be significant resources in the practice of reflection for problem solving. However, the results also indicate the difference: EK is more applicable for the statements of a basis of problem determination or of a cause of a problem while RK is more employed to state a solution to a problem. Implications of this study were presented and discussed.
This study explores how the shared reflections of two university instructors influenced their approaches and perspectives of English language teaching. The primary source of data was derived from the two teachers’ e-mail mediated, collaborative reflective journals and two dialogical interviews served as a secondary data source. A qualitative, narrative inquiry approach was employed to gather data in a direct and in-depth way. The data were selectively coded to investigate the teacher’s reported beliefs, behaviors, and interactions as well as how they relate to the process of professional development. The findings indicate that the process of sharing and reflecting upon their pedagogical philosophy and strategies supported their ongoing efforts to develop professionally. Moreover, this study addresses the notion that more attention should be paid towards improving reflective teaching among teachers as a means of enhancing professional development.
The purpose of this research is to examine the relationships among English learners’ motivation, strategies and achievement, with a group of 51 Korean three-year college students. The students responded to the questionnaire of learning motivation and strategies. Also they took a mock TOEIC. Multiple regression analysis allowed for the analysis of learners’ motivation and strategies to predict a single dependent variable, their English achievement. The findings revealed that, first, ‘internal motivation’ was found the highest predictor of their English study, while ‘instrumental motivation-individual’ was the lowest motivation type for students. Second, participants used ‘social strategies’ most frequently in studying English, and they used the others in the order of ‘compensation strategies’, ‘affective strategies’, ‘cognitive strategies’, ‘memory strategies’ and ‘metacognitive strategies’. Last, the impact of learning motivation and strategies on the TOEIC scores was not statistically significant, but the relationship of learning motivation and strategies was found to be positive. Implications for the practical classroom and suggestions for further research are suggested.
This study is to describe the nature of planning as a cognitive writing process in L2 writing. It aims to examine how Korean EFL learners generate ideas and organize them. It also investigates the relationship between planning and the final product. Given a worksheet for planning, 39 university students were asked to write an argumentative essay during class. Based on their planning notes, five brainstorming types were identified: using the prompt/writing the position, mini-outlining, listing, mind mapping and free writing (in the order of frequency). In addition, the dominant use of L1 was found both in the brainstorming and the outlining. It was found that there was no statistically significant correlation between the amount of brainstorming and the quantity and quality of L2 writing. Only the amount of brainstorming in L2 had a statically significant correlation with the quantity of L2 writing (but not with the quality of L2 writing). In the case of outlining, a statistically significant correlation was found between its amount and the quantity of L2 writing. However, no statistically significant correlation was found between the amount of outlining and the L2 writing quality.
The study aims to examine whether teaching English through multiple intelligences can suggest one of the solutions for underachievers to facilitate their English learning and restore their learning attitudes. To explore this, the study investigated two research questions: (a) What are the effects of English instruction using multiple intelligences and stories on underachievers’ reading abilities? and (b) How English instruction using multiple intelligences and stories influences on their learning attitudes? The participants of the study were seven fifth-grade underachievers in one elementary school in Seoul. They were first tested what their strong intelligences are and engaged in customized activities based on their multiple intelligences test results during the experiment English classes. The data collected include the read-aloud test, the reading comprehension test, the affective test, students’ learning log and the interview of students and teachers, and these were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The results of the study showed that English instruction using multiple intelligences and stories had statistical significance in increasing underachievers’ reading abilities and changing their learning attitudes positively. This study is valuable in that it strongly calls for the need to consider multiple intelligences and provide customized activities for underachievers to facilitate their English learning and restore their learning attitudes.
This study investigated the use of the amplifier very in high school English textbooks and native corpora by comparing its frequency distributions and collocation patterns. The native corpora, used as the reference of the study, were COCA and BNC, with their built-in sub-corpora further grouped into spoken and written corpora. The High School English Textbook Corpus (HSETC) was compiled from a total of 53 high school textbooks, with the spoken corpus (HSETC-S) from the texts in listening and conversation and the written corpus (HSETC-W) from the reading passages. Analyses using AntConc3.4.4 revealed no prominent differences between HSETC and reference corpora in the frequency of the amplifier very, while the written corpus (HSETC-W) had more occurrences contrary to the native corpora. The combination patterns and their occurrences of HSETC were slightly different from those of COCA and BNC with the gap increased with the spoken corpus (HSETC-S). Pedagogical implications and suggestions are made on ELT materials development and teaching practices.
This study purposed to see the effectiveness of a media literacy activity in a Japanese conversation class. For this class, teaching/learning contents and methods were developed utilizing the concept of media literacy. Specifically, a CF production activity was created and its effectiveness was compared with other conventional activities such as free talking and debating. The results showed that the CF production activity resulted in high scores and most students found the activity fun, cooperative, and creative. However, when compared with other course contents, it didn’t show much improvement in the students’ Japanese language proficiency. The results suggest that there is a need to do more research on the concept of media literacy and related methodologies in Japanese language education in order to decrease the gap between ‘having fun and developing creativity’ and ‘improving Japanese language skills’.
This study investigated how Japanese learners of Korean perceive the similarity of stop sounds between the Korean and Japanese languages. The results found, compared to the beginner’s group, the advanced group showed a lower rating value for the similarity for the same stimulus sound, and the learners with a higher perception ability distinguished lower similarities, even among the inner groups of the beginner’s and advanced group. This study also investigated how the related information in the native language affects how the learners perceive lenis consonants in word-medial position in the Korean language, as Japanese stop sounds are divided into two sounds depending on [±voiced] feature, whereas Korean stop sounds do not have a voiced sound in word-initial consonantal context, but the lenis consonants go through voicing in word-medial position. In result, Japanese learners tend to perceive the lenis consonants in word-medial position much better than other sounds, and it was shown that the related information in native language had played a positive role in perceiving Korean word-medial consonants.