This study investigated EFL college-level learners’ expectation on and their experience in an online English-medium instruction (EMI) course focusing on how participants interacted with their classmates and the instructor in their online class (zoom session) based on assumptions and rationales of Interaction Hypothesis and classroom interaction research. Analyses of questionnaire, observation, and interview data revealed that participants’ experience of interaction and their perception of interaction opportunities in the zoom session were significantly related to how they would evaluate the course-taking experience. It was also found that cognitive strategy such as participants’ preparation for each class rather than L2 confidence was more relevant to their level of satisfaction with the course. Results of analyses suggested that an online class could be more effective than a face-to-face class in terms of engaging EFL adult learners in an academic course offered in participants’ L2, English. Based on study results, suggestions on how to increase interaction opportunities in online EMI course are made.
This study explores effects of e-book and audio-book on EFL comprehension. It was conducted at a university in Korea with 75 college students. The whole experiment lasted for five weeks in 2020. To determine effectiveness of multiple modalities, participants were assigned to three different experimental groups: e-book, audio-book, and e-audio-book (a combination of e-book and audio-book) groups. While the e-book group was provided with passages in a text format, the audio group received the same passages in an audio format. The e-audio-book group was given both text and audio formats. At the beginning and end of the treatment, pretest and posttest were administered. As expected, the e-audio-book group benefited more than the other two groups in listening comprehension. However, they showed better performance in reading comprehension than the audio-book group only. Additionally, the e-book group performed better in reading comprehension compared to the audio-book group. Based on these findings, pedagogical implications are made.
The study investigated ten Korean secondary English teachers’ views on to what extent core competencies were reflected in textbooks using 18 Likert-type statements. This study also examined their views on how well cultural contents and activities met curricular objectives of teaching culture through open-ended questions and interviews. Results showed that the three items on civic competence had lower means except for the one on ethical use of information collected in class. Teachers replied that tasks for each grade were deficient in helping students feel proud of their own culture and developing positive attitudes toward other cultures. They thought that current cultural contents lacked diversity despite positive improvements in including other cultures over the years and possibility of meeting curricular goals. Consequently, they made various efforts to offer appropriate culture teaching using additional materials and/or activities with diverse teaching strategies and techniques. Some implications are drawn from these results for better culture teaching.
This study investigated if the difficulty of instructional classroom English in primary teacher-guidebooks of English is adequately manipulated by learner-proficiency. Corpora of classroom English were compiled from 20 guidebooks from five publishers, approved following the 2015 Revised National Curriculum of Korea. Extracted materials from grades three and four were compared with those of grades five and six to observe variations in the difficulty. Coh-Metrix, a software application that computes an extensive range of measures on cohesion and language, was used for analyses. With evidence-based assessments on (psycho)linguistic features and patterns of classroom English, we report results both congruent and incongruent with the prospect that the difficulty should increase as learners become more proficient. Overall, although partial difficulty manipulations between the two levels were noted, inconsistent results and invariances were also observed, disclosing much room for improvement of classroom English in the guidebooks. Some implications toward teacher-guidebook development, particularly in its classroom English, are suggested
This study utilized Automated Speech Recognition technology to determine the potential utility and acceptance of such technology in the English as a Foreign Language classroom. Learners were made aware of the Automatic Speech Recognition potential of their mobile devices and provided with some direction in, and incentive for, its use. Participants were then scored on their assessment of the technology according to the Technology Acceptance Model. Participants showed a marked appreciation for the ease and utility of the technology with over 72% agreeing that the technology was both accessible and useful. Support for the use of Automatic Speech Recognition as a testing method was somewhat mixed, with 75% of participants agreeing that the testing was fair, but only 60% reporting that they felt they did well on the test. As a secondary point of interest, this study examined the potential use of Automatic Speech Recognition technology for teaching and testing pronunciation.
This study aims to examine whether CEFR-based CELA can be presented as a placement test for TOEIC. Data collected from 1,142 college freshmen who participated in both tests were analyzed to determine: 1) how hypothetical levels of a CELA score differed from existing TOEIC levels; 2) if there was any significant correlation between test scores and final grades; and 3) how native English professors viewed CELA as a placement test. The analysis revealed that CELA did not perform better a placement test than TOEIC. It did not have a higher correlation with the final grade either. However, the fact that CELA is more aligned with the content and objective of the English course and that most native English professors consider CELA more suitable as a placement test can be seen as positive factors supporting it to replace the existing placement test. Results of this study if curriculum and student levels are different.
Scores from TEPS (Test of English Proficiency developed by Seoul National University) and TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) are widely used in Korea for various purposes, including employment, admission, and certification. However, there is more than one score conversion relationship between these two tests, causing confusion among test takers. Moreover, the conversion relationships were established in 2004 and 2011 and have not been updated since then. With this background, a large-scale score comparability study was undertaken to develop a new score conversion table for TEPS and TOEIC. Data were collected from a total of 1,415 test takers using a single group design. Log-linear presmoothing and equipercentile methods were used for linking, with cross validation across subgroups. Results showed that the old conversions were disadvantageous to a certain test-taker group. A new conversion table between the two tests is then suggested.