The present study examines the interactional organization of EFL collaborative teaching interaction by focusing on the teachers’ co-initiation turns. Drawing on conversation analysis, the aim is to produce a fine-grained description of the interactional structure that sets coteaching apart from those of single-teacher classroom interactions. More importantly, the article also seeks to promote a deeper understanding on effective practices that teachers draw on to collaboratively manage their local classroom contingencies, coordinate student participation, and ultimately, to move towards accomplishing the curricular focus of the lesson. The analysis highlights that through the conjoined initiation turns, the teachers were able to elicit the instantaneous participation from the students to present in front of the classroom. In addition, by adjusting and reformulating the scope of each other’s initiation turns, they are also able to efficiently guide the students toward providing the correct response. Such collaboration, as it occurs in situ in the classroom, realizes a particular type of interactional competence that requires close and sensitive monitoring of both the students’ and the other co-teacher’s actions.
This study examined differences in South Korean students’ motivation to learn English as a foreign (EFL) from elementary to high school, and investigated the impact of private education experience on their English learning. A questionnaire was administrated to 7,957 students in elementary through high school. This crosssectional survey results revealed that EFL students’ motivation to learn English presented different levels of medians depending on their school grades and levels; it showed lowering trends from the elementary to high school levels. However, during the same period, students’ perceptions of the importance of learning English was not in a downward trend. Students with private education experience tended to have a higher level of motivation than did those without private education experience, especially with respect to instrumental, intrinsic, and integrative motivations. Socioeducational factors in South Korea, such as excessive pressure from the College Scholastic Ability Test and hakbul orientation, are discussed.
This study examined the relationship between reading and vocabulary within general and academic context. Forty-seven Korean EFL university students who participated in this research were given a reading comprehension test of general and academic topics. Also, vocabulary tests were conducted to measure the students’ size of vocabulary and their knowledge of general and academic words. The results revealed different findings for each type of vocabulary and reading. First, learners’ size of vocabulary significantly predicted reading comprehension, but the predictive power of academic vocabulary was stronger than vocabulary size. Second, general reading comprehension showed a similar result with the overall reading comprehension score in that academic vocabulary made a stronger contribution than vocabulary size. Finally, a different result was found for academic reading comprehension, and students’ size of vocabulary rather than academic vocabulary was the only significant predictor. The results indicate the different characteristics of general and academic reading, which implicates that each type of reading should be taught in a different manner.
Intelligibility of second language (L2) English has become an important goal in English pronunciation teaching. However, intelligibility research primarily focused on L2 English users and L2 production features; only a handful of studies have examined other effects on the intelligibility of L2 English. In line with the three-part model of intelligibility (Munro, 2008), this study focuses on listener factors by examining how listener experience with Thai English affects the actual understanding of Thai English utterances. Study participants were 40 students at a U. S. university. Data were collected through a questionnaire and a 38-item intelligibility test. While controlling for participants’ English proficiency, Analysis of Covariance confirmed that participants with experience in Thai English outperformed those with no experience in Thai English, as measured by the Thai English intelligibility task. The findings suggest that listeners’ communicative experiences in an L2 English variety improves the intelligibility of that English variety regardless of the listeners’ first languages. Implications for research and pronunciation pedagogy are discussed.
This study investigated the appropriate ways in offering immediate automated writing feedback within the framework of process-based writing pedagogy by comparing relative effects of two different automated writing evaluation (AWE) system application types on improving writing performance. The experiment took an initiative step in elucidating at what point in the process-based writing stages AWE feedback is best to be served. The research is conducted to confirm whether providing an instant language-related feedback whenever EFL students call for will either interfere the development of content indeed – as it has been expected by process-based writing approach, or bring improvement in students’ writing. Two application types, namely non-continuous feedback (NCF) and continuous feedback (CF) group - are differentiated in terms of in which point of the writing stages students are enabled to get access to the AWE system. With the purpose of the study, a total of 20 students participated. The findings revealed that CF group did not receive language-related AWE feedback to the point of distracting the development of their content. Furthermore, CF group significantly outperformed NCF group in overall writing product, especially on the dimension of grammar and content. Students also expressed a positive attitude toward receiving instant language-related feedback via AWE system.
Employing Halliday’s (1994) Systemic Functional Grammar approach, the present study examines the Korean EFL college students’ way of organizing thematic structures in written English texts, with special focus on the influence of learner proficiency. A total of 150 learners’ argumentative essays consisting of 50 essays each from three levels of learner groups were compared with 50 essays from its native counterparts, with inquiry focused on the thematic selection, usage of various theme features, and semantic distribution of topical themes. The results show that textual themes, multiple themes, and first person pronouns as topical themes are highly overused in the learner texts compared to the native essays. Overall, the level of proficiency significantly affects learners’ choices regarding thematic structures although the enhanced proficiency does not involve the improvement in all aspects of thematic organization. From these findings, it is suggested that the EFL writing pedagogy should pay greater attention to the effective use of thematic organization as a means of enhancing textual coherence and embrace level-specific instructions.
By examining two low-proficiency EFL students’ experiences of reading literature, and of writing about what they have read during a semester-long reading/writing course, we investigate literature’s place in EFL writing classes. We also observe whether using literature in EFL writing classes lead to successful synergies among LW (learning-to-write), WLL (writing-to-learn language), and WLC (writing-tolearn content). We adopt a case study methodology. The participants, Mia and Sun, are first-year students who attend a private university in Seoul. Both students favor the inclusion of literature in the reading-writing classroom. Mia experiences the literature-reading-writing connection mainly as language knowledge, with the strong appreciation for WLL perspective. By comparison, Sun concerns for LW dimensions of writing, together with the WLL perspective. This study provides evidence that literature-reading-writing connection serves as a vehicle not only for a rich reading experience but also for the synergistic learning of writing, content, and language.
Because English grammar consists of a long list of features, it is impractical to include all of them in a single grammar test. It would be useful to identify among all those features the best indicators of students’ grammatical knowledge and ability so that we could focus on what were the most representative knowledge and skills and simplify grammar assessment. This study is a preliminary, small-scale attempt to do just that. It surveyed 72 high school teachers and 129 Grade 12 students on their opinions of which features of grammar best represented grammatical knowledge and ability. They were asked to choose five indicators, including the best one, and provide reasons for thinking so. The relative pronoun was selected most frequently as the best indicator of grammatical knowledge and ability, followed by subject-verb agreement, the subjunctive, to-infinitives, and participles. This paper does not claim these five features to definitively represent the best indicators; further research should be conducted.