The purpose of this research is to find out how EFL college learners utilized machine translation while writing their presentation scripts. Specifically, it attempted to examine the characteristics of the English translation outputs by MT and students’ self-edited drafts, and their perceptions toward the use of MT in English writing classes. Six college students were asked to submit one Korean draft, two machine translation drafts, and one self-edited draft, and two in-depth interviews were conducted with each of the participants during the course of the semester. Grammarly (2022), a free online grammar and spelling checker, was used to examine the characteristics of the collected writings, and Miles and Huberman’s (1994) three-step analytic method was employed to analyze the data from the in-depth interviews. The results of data analysis revealed that 1) there were more lexical errors than grammatical errors, and the number of the errors did not show a big difference between the different drafts; 2) Also, students viewed the use of MT in the English writing classes positively but found it difficult to properly use. Based on the research findings, pedagogical implications for the effective use of MT in English writing classes were suggested.
The current study examined the potential contribution of advanced Korean EFL learners’ writing abilities to their reading comprehension abilities. A total of 191 college students participated in this study and were tested on writing and reading comprehension abilities as well as other literacy-related measures including listening comprehension, textreading fluency, and knowledge of vocabulary to control for their effects. In order to account for different aspects of writing and reading comprehension abilities, multiple measures of reading and writing abilities were adopted. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analyses demonstrated that the advanced Korean EFL learners’ English writing abilities had a significant effect on their reading comprehension abilities when other relevant literacy skills were controlled for. Furthermore, their writing abilities mediated the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension abilities. These results highlight the important pedagogical implications on the critical role of writing abilities in enhancing the reading comprehension abilities of L2 learners.
This paper is intended to explore the otherness of ‘non-mainstream’ graduate students specializing in applied linguistics at various departments of English language and literature in Korea. Drawing on Honneth’s theory of recognition and its ideology, it attempted to understand the way their ‘professional identities’ are constructed both within and without the related academic communities. Through interviews and reflection journals, the lived stories of research participants illustrated that their trajectories of growth were not a transmission of knowledge and skills in applied linguistics, and that Honneth’s threefold conceptualization of intersubjective recognition (love, rights, solidarity) was usefully applied to the sociopolitical inquiry of ‘becoming professional.’ They did not feel a sense of affection, were not respected as rights-holders, and did not have mutual esteem and solidarity. The non-mainstream students strived for recognition in the graduate program by voicing their emotions in their qualitative research papers and improving their limited proficiency of English which, however, led to ‘uncritical’ conformity. They lost the emancipatory struggle for their independent and scholarly selves. The model of mutual recognition is expected to show good potential as an analytic tool for understanding the motivational and justificatory basis for social struggles. Further research is suggested to examine how Honneth’s theory can help in understanding people in different disciplines.
Lesson reconstruction is a way of enhancing student competency, and has been receiving much attention. Research was conducted based on lesson reconstruction by applying content and language integrated learning: CLIL. However, drawbacks such as the EFL educational environment and the notional-functional syllabi in much of the English curriculum made teachers teach the 4 skills separately (i.e. listening, speaking, reading, and writing), even though integration of 4 the skills is very much required. Although many researchers have analyzed CLIL so far, little research has suggested the specific methods of reconstructing, designing and implementing lessons in a primary Korean EFL education setting. In this study, the research reviewed the theoretical frameworks of the literature and suggested three potential methods for improvement: 1) designing lessons based on lesson reconstruction, 2), implementing the 4Cs Framework while planning CLIL lessons and, 3) choosing appropriate language based on ‘The Language Triptych’. For implementation, this research suggested that CLIL lesson integrated with other subjects or topics improves students’ reading abilities. This research goes beyond previous theoretical concepts; it suggested the ways of designing and implementing lesson construction based on CLIL lessons. The research also suggests that further research needs to fully consider its pedagogical application and explores how to practice CLIL.
This study is to explore and analyze three current English teachers’ thoughts and attitudes on their TEE practices in elementary English classroom settings. Adopting a qualitative approach, data were collected through interviews, teachers’ journals, and informal communications from the three elementary school English teachers. The analysis of data revealed three main themes: 1) thoughts on effective TEE classes, 2) factors affecting TEE classes, 3) the difficulties of conducting TEE classes. The participants presented their views on effective TEE classes. They also expressed their opinion on the timing and usage of TEE. The teachers said TEE classes are influenced by teachers’ English communication ability and willingness to use English as the instructional language, students’ English proficiency and the class atmosphere. Finally, the participants said that TEE classes were difficult due to the same factors influencing TEE class effectiveness. This study has implications for the direction of TEE implementation in elementary education.
As the era of Covid-19 provoked the demand for online learning environments, research on the use of IT technologies in the teaching of Chinese is also drawing attention. This paper presents an overview of studies on mobile applications for learning Chinese in Korea, China, and the U.S.. This study aims to identify the current status of research on mobile applications for learning Chinese in Korea, and suggests directions for further research. In the review, a total of 135 studies were closely examined based on the year of publication, the subject, the method, and the research topic. After this, the features and overall flow of research in each country was identified. The necessity of revitalizing related research in Korea was highlighted. To this end, this study recommends actively conducting research, specifying the characteristics of the research subject, and extending the general process in studies of mobile applications for learning Chinese. This study expects Chinese education research on using various technologies to be further discussed.
With the metaverse emerging as the next leap in the evolution of the Internet in the post-pandemic era, a wealth of opportunities are expected to emerge in the educational sector. As a pioneer study, this research project is aimed at exploring pedagogical values of the metaverse-based classroom in a university setting. The three research questions for this study are: 1) What are the levels of students’ overall satisfaction in metaverse-based classrooms? 2) What is the user experience of the metaverse platform? and 3) What are the strengths/weaknesses of the metaverse-based classroom as perceived by the students? Twenty university students took a foreign language pedagogy course on Gather.town in spring of 2022 for 11 weeks. Student questionnaire and focus-group interviews were conducted and data analysis revealed two major findings as follows: Firstly, both students’ overall satisfaction of the metaverse-based classroom and user experience of the metaverse platform were positive, excepting only instability problems caused by poor internet connections. Secondly, more perceived strengths than weaknesses were found of the newly adopted program: ‘a realistic classroom setting’ and ‘easy communication in multiple ways’ were mentioned as strengths while the main weakness was ‘newness.’ Pedagogical implications are discussed for teachers interested in adopting the metaverse platform for their future classrooms.
This study aims to analyze research trends in Korean listening education for academic purposes, and suggest for future research directions. For this purpose, this study consulted a total of 57 pre-existing studies, including 32 articles in academic journals, 21 masters’ theses, and four doctoral dissertations conducted from 2005 through December 2021. The results are as follows: First, to examine the trends by year and type, comparing the 2010s to the 2000s when the research began. It was found that the number of studies greatly increased in the 2010s, and the frequency of studies in the 2020s tend to increase further. Second, as a result of an analysis of the trends by topic, it was found that teaching and learning methods were most studied and that there were also many studies concerned with strategy. However, there were relatively fewer studies on evaluation and curriculum. Third, this study aimed to examine trends by research method. It was found that the studies mostly employed the survey method, followed by quantitative mixed method and experimental approaches. Consequently, it was noted that the quantitative research methods were most widely used in the field of listening to Korean for academic purposes, and at the same time, since all studies that used mixed research methods employed another research method along with the survey method, it was found that the use of the survey method was the dominant type of quantitative research method.