This study investigates the effects of the types of tasks and feedback on Korean adult EFL learners' fluency, accuracy, and complexity. A qualitative approach was also added to determine the perceptions that learners and teachers have about task-based instruction (TBI) and feedback types with learning journals, interviews, and stimulated recall. Although the experiment had the limitations of a small size of subjects and short length, certain findings are worth noticing. For both levels of group learners (lower intermediate and higher intermediate), fluency was highest in the descriptive tasks receiving implicit feedback. For accuracy, the rate was highest when both groups performed descriptive tasks receiving explicit feedback. For complexity, only higher intermediate level learners showed substantially higher rates in narrative tasks with explicit feedback. Planning time and the freedom to choose the topic (picture to describe) presumably might have affected fluency and accuracy in descriptive tasks. Accuracy was found to have been more affected by explicit feedback that primarily provided corrections on morphosyntactic errors. In addition, the qualitative research on the perceptions that L2 learners and teacher had about their experience with TBI and feedback provides insightful perspectives that are hoped to contribute to designing more effective TBI and interactional corrective feedback. (201)

This study aims to examine how collaborative action research has contributed to a teacher’s professional development. It built a framework from the teacher identity perspective, aimed at deriving further insight into the effects of collaborative action research as a professional development program. It is a case study of a Korean primary school English teacher who conducted collaborative action research to improve the quality of teaching English writing. The qualitative data were collected from teaching logs, written accounts and semi-structured interviews, then analysed. The study found that the teacher experienced growth in teacher identity based on his capacity building through collaborative action research. The factors affecting the growth of teacher identity are positive attitudes to address vulnerability in teaching English, participation in the collaborative action research, continuous reflection and establishing ownership during the research. Theoretically, this study suggests the development of teacher identity perspective and its application to design, execute and evaluate teacher education programs for in-depth understanding. Practically, it provides implications for English teacher education.

The present study explored the experiences of six elementary teachers as they had strived to develop expertise in teaching English since it was introduced as a regular subject in 1997. The focus was on what they have done for their professional development, what they perceive to have influenced on the acquisition of expertise, and how they reflect on their professional growth over time. Two rounds of life story interviews were conducted with each teacher, and they were all recorded on digital audiotape and transcribed verbatim. Interviews centered on uncovering teachers’professional histories, teacher education experiences, past and current work with children, conceptions of themselves as an English teacher, critical incidents in their teaching careers, and their future career plans. Five themes emerged from the content analysis of the interview data. They include teacher development as social development; the unique challenges of being and becoming an English teacher; learning for and from students; developmental concerns and needs in teachers’ career cycle; and the impact of policy changes on teachers. The study concludes with some implications for educating in-service teachers.

The present study investigates attitudes, opinions, or characteristics of a group of heritage language learners of Korean in terms of teacher's language use in the US university foreign language classroom compared to those of non-heritage language learners. Data were collected through direct, first-hand observations, students' self-reports and questionnaires. Looking at the process of learning a foreign language, this study considers how foreign language teachers can address the complex histories of language learners by drawing on a qualitative as well as quantitative analysis of a foreign language class. The results of this study reveal that there were indeed no inter-language group (between heritage and non-heritage learners) differences in the perceptions of teacher's language use in the classroom. Both heritage and non-heritage learner groups have quite strong reactions to the teacher's use of L2 for the purposes of giving instructions, evaluating/commenting their oral performances, and building relationships. During the learners' reaction component of the study, most learners indicated that students' ability in the L2 most consistently affected the amount of L2 that teachers could use.

This study investigates how wikis can promote EFL student writing by providing a real audience and authentic purposes for writing. The activity described in this paper is writing a narrative story on a wiki. Thirty-eight college students participated in this activity. During the activity the students constructed and negotiated meaning collaboratively. They posted a total of 153 versions and made 530 changes over four weeks. This study identifies the students' idiosyncratic writing and editing patterns that appeared on the wiki in the dimension of level, type, and purpose. The study employs both qualitative and quantitative data analysis for a more robust data analysis and triangulation of the data. The final product of the students' writing on the wiki exhibited that peer editing was effective in enhancing the quality of writing. While students viewed writing as a solitary and private activity in many EFL writing classrooms, the students in this study perceived writing as a social and communicative activity when engaged in the wiki writing activity.