The present study investigates secondary school student athletes’ specific needs for English learning and analyzes correlation and a cause and effect relationship among the needs-related variables. Two hundred forty six student athletes enrolled in physical education. Junior and senior high schools participated in the study. Data were collected through a survey that inquired about the students’ perceived English ability and learning areas of interest, their needs for ESP education, and aspects to be considered for ESP course design. The results show that the students put more emphasis on verbal communication (i.e., on speaking and listening) than on written communication (i.e., on reading and writing) and that they wanted more practical ESP education reflecting their needs and interests. Additionally, there was significant correlation (p<.01) among the subjects’ learning areas of interest, needs for ESP education, and aspects to be considered for ESP course design; a cause and effect relationship among the above three variables was discovered by goodness of fit test for structure equation model. Based on these findings, it is concluded that secondary school student athletes’ perceived English ability and areas of interest for English learning influence both their needs for ESP education and aspects to be considered for ESP course design.

The purpose of this study is to investigate error patterns in EFL college students’ English writing as well as their change over time, based on the teacher’s feedback. In order to accomplish this purpose, two research questions were constructed; first, what are the characteristics of Korean EFL students’ writing based on the maturity of English sentence by the T-unit analysis? Second, what types of error patterns are produced in Korean EFL students’ writing? Also, how do the error patterns change based on the teacher’s feedback over time? The participants were four Korean EFL college students, and they were asked to pre-write, draft, revise and edit until they completed their final draft. The results of pre- and post-writing test were also analyzed. The major findings are as follows: 1) The mean number of T-unit among participants was 42.25 units, and the mean number of words per T-unit was 10.95 words. 2) The most frequently committed errors were found out as lexical and morphological errors. Moreover, the rate of lexical and sentence structure errors has been dropped, whereas the rate of punctuation errors has increased as the teacher’s feedback progressed over time. Pedagogical and practical suggestions are also made on the effective teaching of English writing in Korean classroom settings.

In this research synthesis, a total of 313 studies on English learning motivation published in South Korea from 2000 to 2017 were reviewed. The data were categorized into four criteria: publication year, research method, participant, and research topic. First, the annual trend clearly demonstrated that the number of motivation research showed a steady growth. The dominant research method was quantitative (207 papers) over qualitative (40 papers) and mixed methods (48 papers). University students (157 papers) were major population in English learning motivation research followed by junior high (36 papers), elementary (30 papers), high school students (30 papers), research synthesis (17 papers), and kindergarten students (3 papers). Most research focused on identifying specific subcomponents of English learning motivation in a particular research context. The study suggests that future research needs to focus more on diverse student group such as home-schoolers. Also, the use of research synthesis needs to be encouraged in order to capture the complex nature of English learning motivation.

Despite the evidence of an association between foreign language (FL) reading anxiety and reading comprehension, only a few studies have investigated how FL reading anxiety interacts with the reading process. This study examined how people with different anxiety levels approach reading tasks differently; that is, the relationships among foreign language reading anxiety, cognitive interference, reading strategy use, and the effects of these constructs on actual reading comprehension. Participants (N=265) were Korean adolescent EFL learners. From analyses of their responses to FL reading anxiety scale, Cognitive Interference Questionnaire (CIQ), a strategy inventory for reading comprehension, and reading comprehension tasks, results suggested that anxiety played a critical role in the interplay of attention and reading strategy use, which were associated with comprehension. Highly anxious students who were occupied with off-task thoughts tended to use more local reading strategies while less anxious students were more focused on completing the reading tasks and employed more global reading strategies. Results also suggested that the significant predictors of reading comprehension were FL reading anxiety as well as the CIQ and Global strategies, which indicated that the less anxious students who were more focused during reading, and those who employed more Global strategy scored higher in reading comprehension.

This study examined how three task activities with receptive (R) reading, cloze (CZ) and receptive-productive (RP) integration differently lead to L2 idiom recall and retention by Korean EFL adult learners when they are enhanced with bolding, L1 glossing and three repetitions. It further looks into what features of the enhanced input tasks influence L2 idiom gains. The theories of input enhancement, receptive and productive task input are the basis for the present study. The results revealed that overall the three tasks contributed to high score of L2 idiom gains in immediate receptive, productive recall and delayed receptive retention, except delayed productive retention. There was no significant difference in idiom recall and retention by the three tasks. The descriptive analysis showed R group performed better on immediate receptive recall, while CZ group led the highest score of immediate productive recall. In terms of retention gap between immediate and delayed tests, the three tasks yielded high percentage of receptive idiom retention. The CZ task yielded the highest percentage of receptive retention but relatively low percentage of productive retention, while the R group retained most memory of productive knowledge. The results suggest some implications for effective L2 idiom teaching materials using input enhanced tasks such as bolding, L1 glossing and repetition.

This study examines student opinions into teacher use of English as a lingua franca as a second language to teach a third language. This research focuses on student recognition of the benefits of specific teacher uses of English as a lingua franca, student preferences of specific teacher uses of English as a lingua franca, and potential attitudinal effects of teacher use of English as a lingua franca. Thirty eight Korean university students participated in this study by completing a questionnaire. The data were analyzed through Mann Whitney U tests, a Borda count, chi-squared goodness of fit tests, and descriptive statistics. The results revealed students held the different uses in a similar and positive light but did not prefer uses that perform a social function. The results also showed students did not perceive of much positive attitudinal benefit (anxiety, connection to the teacher, and motivation). Nor did the students indicate teacher use of English as a lingua franca causes the students to lose face or feel that their mother tongue is disrespected. Classroom implications and limitations are discussed.

This study was an attempt to explore how EFL college-level learners perceive flipped learning or flipped classroom approach which would be practiced with Content-Based Instruction (CBI) courses. As an effort to find a way for the CBI learners to be served more effectively in terms of earning content-knowledge and improving L2-using skills, the new approach of flipped learning has been tapped into first of all by looking into their expectations and concerns that they might have if the new approach would be employed in their CBI classroom. The analysis of the data provided by the 159 participants revealed that they did not show clear preference or strong negative attitude toward the new approach. While the young college-level learners appeared technology-savvy, they did not seem confident enough in the new approach mainly due to the on-line component of the flipped classroom approach, which would require more responsibility of their learning. The study also made suggestions on what should be considered if the new approach can be successfully implemented and help the learners earn better learning experience.

Chinese L2 learners of Japanese are identified as showing difficulties in the production of Japanese geminates. The idea of being difficult-to-listen is embodied in the concept Comprehensibility (Derwing & Munro 2015). This study first reviews the native pronunciation of Japanese singleton vs. geminate contrast. Then, we report findings based on the pronunciation by 20 Chinese learners of Japanese and discuss the issue of comprehensibility in geminate production. While the contrast in the closure duration between singleton and geminate consonants shows a similar pattern to reported Japanese speech, the learners show large differences in the vowel duration preceding and following consonants. We report findings from a linear mixed model that was run with speaker as a random effect. The results show that participants do not make differences in vowel duration, or the difference in vowel duration is reversed from L1 Japanese speakers. Identifying the locus of the source of an L2 accent should be accompanied with intelligibility and comprehensibility. Such identification is important in increasing comprehensibility in speech that is already intelligible.

Collocational competence is important part of L2 English amplifier acquisition. This competence entails learners' ability to use the right combination of words with natural-sounding semantic prosody. It is known to be an integral part of mastering pragmatic function of L2 English vocabulary, which also is a challenge for the learners at the same time (Zhang, 2008). Despite the importance, previous studies on ESL/EFL learners' amplifier use lacked empirical evidence and insight about semantic prosody. The purpose of present learner corpora-based study was to fill the existing research gap by finding patterns of amplifiers. Two existing corpora were selected, coded, and analyzed to fulfill this purpose; they are Korean EFL learners and native speakers of English (NE). Results from analysis found Korean learners' overall underuse in amplifiers. Also, frequently occurring amplifier ranks for each corpus differed. Semantic prosody analysis revealed that amplifier associated with dominantly positive connotation were very, really, and highly. Amplifiers associated with dominantly negative connotation were extremely, absolutely, severely, and greatly. Contrast analysis showed that the only amplifier that Koreans and NEs used amplifier to signal same semantic prosody dominantly was severely (negative). Other than that, Koreans and NE showed salient discrepancies in semantic prosody use. The pedagogical implication of the present study is that vocabulary teaching need to include semantic prosody, and the first step will be to conduct ESL/EFL teacher education about it (Zhang, 2009). It's important to remind them of the value of semantic prosody in language communication (S Lee, 2011).

This study examined how adult native speakers of Korean prosodically structure their speech during spontaneous story telling. It asked participants to produce a spontaneous story from a picture book in L1 Korean. Participants’ phonological phrasing (via pause) was analyzed with reference to eight hierarchical syntactic structures defined in the study. The results suggested three-level hierarchy in phonological structure in spoken Korean: between sentences > between independent clauses > between a dependent clause and the matrix clause = any within-clause boundaries. Korean speakers paused the longest prior to starting a new sentence. They paused statistically significantly shorter between two independent clauses (e.g., coordinate clauses and adverbial clauses), and even shorter between a dependent clause (e.g., complement clauses and relative clauses) and the matrix clause. Interestingly, however, the last type of clausal boundaries, i.e., between interdependent but separate clauses, did not differ from any of the observed within-clause boundaries with respect to intonation structure marked by pauses. These results are consistent with the literature as to across-clause boundaries, but contra the traditional prediction that syntactic hierarchical structure may be mapped onto phonological structure: clausal boundaries are prosodically treated the same as within-clausal boundaries. Crosslinguistic and educational implications are discussed.

Even though many researchers emphasise the interrelatedness of language and culture and the significance of teaching culture in foreign language education, understanding how culture can be taught has proven to be a difficult undertaking in many respects. This problem is hardly new, and the problems of defining what culture is and how to teach it in language classes have been of concern to researchers for decades. Developments in technology have opened up access to cultural resources from all over the world, and to this end, methods of teaching culture using technology have started to appear more regularly in research associated with second language teaching and learning. A glance through the literature reveals, however, that where in the past many teachers focused on teaching a single culture within a language class, in recent years there has been a movement to try to broaden the focus to include general intercultural communication competence, but a systematic approach for methods of teaching culture have been still lacking. However, it is generally accepted that cross-cultural understanding is indeed a by-product of foreign language learning, and language should be taught as an explicit element of cultural practice. Therefore, it is necessary to consider issues about teaching culture in foreign language education such as what role culture plays in language teaching and how it is being taught. Based on current developments in technology, it is timely to think about effective teaching methodologies for integrating culture and language that prepare learners to communicate and collaborate effectively in the 21st century

Intelligibility is considered key to successful and effective human communication. The intelligibility of the English used by its non-native speakers is the subject of much research enquiry, and as English continues to strengthen its foothold in international settings as the global lingua franca, the issue of mutual intelligibility has never been of greater importance. The paper begins by examining “intelligibility” as conceptualized by scholars in the fields of World Englishes (WE) and English as a lingua franca (ELF). While WE scholars approach the subject by investigating the international intelligibility of the new varieties of English, particularly to other non-native speakers of the language, ELF researchers seek to uncover how speakers negotiate and co-construct intelligibility in interaction, and the kinds of accommodation strategies employed in the process. Although the underlying assumptions and the methodologies associated with the 2 fields are not always congruent, the findings contribute towards developing a clearer picture of the subject of intelligibility in global communication. The paper ends by considering the pedagogical implications of the findings of intelligibility studies in WE and ELF.

This paper investigates Korean-Chinese bilingual speakers’ processing of Korean plural marker -tul. It employed masked priming experiments with a word judgment task for Korean-Chinese speakers from Yanbian, China. The masked priming experiments compared the subjects’ response time in three different prime-target pairs: identical condition, unrelated condition, and test condition. The data of the experiments was analyzed in two different ways: subject analyses and item analyses. The subject analyses of the study showed partial priming effects and the item analyses full priming effects. These findings indicate that Chinese-Korean bilinguals seem to be sensitive to morphological structure of a morphologically complex words in Korean and less dependent on the lexical storage of the full form, as is usually found in L2 learners’ morphological processing.

This study is aimed at looking into the effects of debate classes using flipped learning and suggesting a teaching method that uses flipped learning to improve Korean debating skills. With the aim in mind, this study was conducted on a total of 20 foreign adult students (10 in the experimental group, and 10 in the control group) in the spring semester of 2017. Those in the experimental group attended a debate class using both a conventional way of learning and flipped learning, and those in the control group attended a debate class on the same topic using a conventional way of learning only. Everything observed during the debate classes was transcribed and compared between the two groups. The findings revealed that those in the experimental group expressed their views and opinions on the topic more persuasively than those in the control group, and showed a significant improvement in debating skills. In addition, it was found that expressions and strategies used in the debating process were also significantly improved in the experimental group. In a survey and an interview conducted after the debate class, those in the experimental group answered that they were able to understand the topic better and thoroughly prepare for debating using the various materials provided prior to the debate class, and that the flipped learning class had a positive impact on their practical debating skills.

Unlike common nouns, proper nouns do not depend on the situation. So a proper noun is defined as either pointing to a particular object or pointing to a single object. In philosophy, these proper nouns have been known to play an important role in linking objects only to language and language extrinsic targets. For these reasons, however, proper nouns were not considered as important in foreign language education. However, after ‘the pragmatic turn of linguistics’ in the early 1960s, communication-oriented foreign language education became important. Because communication is closely related to the concept of culture, and culture and proper nouns are closely related. The purpose of this paper is to examine the status of proper nouns in the basic vocabulary of the second foreign language curriculum and how these proper nouns are presented in the College Entrance Trial Test/College Scholastic Ability Test. This paper seeks to analyze how often the same proper nouns are repeated in the test, how the proper nouns are translated, and whether such translations are consistent. Im Gegensatz zu gewöhnlichen Substantiven sind Eigennamen nicht von der Situation abhängig. Ein Eigenname ist also definiert als entweder auf ein bestimmtes Objekt zeigend oder auf ein einzelnes Objekt zeigend. In der Philosophie ist bekannt, dass diese Eigennamen eine wichtige Rolle bei der Verknüpfung von Objekten nur mit extrinsischen Zielsetzungen von Sprache und Sprache spielen. Aus diesen Gründen wurden Eigennamen im Fremdsprachenunterricht jedoch nicht als wichtig erachtet. Nach der “pragmatischen Wende der Linguistik” in den frühen 1960er Jahren wurde jedoch der kommunikationsorientierte Fremdsprachenunterricht wichtig. Es ist wichtig zu beachten, dass es eine enge Beziehung zwischen Kommunikation und Kultur gibt. Kultur und Eigennamen haben miteinander zu tun. Der Zweck dieses Artikels ist es, den Status von Eigennamen im Vokabular des zweiten Fremdsprachenlehrplans zu untersuchen und wie diese Eigennamen im College Entrance Trial Test / College Scholastic Ability Test dargestellt werden. Diese Arbeit versucht zu analysieren, wie oft dieselben Eigennamen im Test wiederholt werden, wie die Eigennamen übersetzt werden und ob solche Übersetzungen konsistent sind.

Recently, there has been a growing interest in ‘Flipped learning,’ a learner-centered approach that introduces the paradigm of future education. The aim of this study is to introduce a new method of Flipped learning and to identify its applicability to French grammar class in universities by adequately responding to learners’ needs and expectations. In chapter 2, we examine the necessity of introducing Flipped learning in the teaching of French grammar in universities. In chapter 3, we present the teaching and learning process divided into three steps: pre-class, in-class and after-class. In the pre-class step, learners understand the basic concepts by watching a pre-class video, solve basic questions and prepare authentic materials for discussion. In the face-to-face class, learners ask more questions, engage in a variety of activities with the instructor or their peers, and discuss or lead grammatical conceptualization about contents. In the after-class step, learners complement their weaknesses and deepen their knowledge. The teaching of French grammar based on Flipped learning, compared to the traditional teaching method based on lectures, allows learners to actively engage in their own learning process, to have more opportunities to interact, to gain a deeper understanding of grammar and to improve self-directed learning skills.

The purpose of the present study is to analyze needs of graduate students for English education for their academic study. Online survey was administered to all the graduate students in a university located in Seoul, Korea, and a total of 1,241 students participated in this study. The participants varied in majors including humanities and social sciences, natural sciences, engineering, medicine, and so forth. Crosstab analyses were performed in order to analyze the survey data, followed by subordinate analyses by the participants’ majors. Results indicated that most students perceived the great importance of English for their study, and ‘listening’ and ‘speaking’ were found to be the most difficult areas when students take English-medium graduate courses. In addition, although the frequency of scholarly activities varied by majors, most of the students expressed difficulties in writing research papers and making presentations. Based on the results, the present study suggests that English education programs be expanded and opened in order to meet the different needs by the students’ academic majors.

With the advent of mobile technology, teaching and learning have been more effective with the help of smartphone education applications. This study investigates the effects of vocabulary learning using the smartphone education applications on Korean elementary school learners’ English vocabulary learning and attitudes. A total of fifty-seven elementary school students in the 5th grade participated in the study and were randomly divided into an experimental and a control group. The results of the study manifested that both the experimental and control group showed an increase in the comprehension and production score from pre- to post-tests. The effects of the long-term vocabulary learning, however, were not found to be statistically significant. The average score in the delayed test for both groups slightly increased, which indicated that the treatment was beneficial for learners’ long-term memory enhancement. In the affective domain, interests and confidence ratings were significant for the upper-level experimental and lower-level control group. The results of the survey questionnaire showed that the vocabulary learning using direct examples and pictures for both groups was helpful to improve learners’ lexical competence.

The purpose of the study is to provide an analysis of lexical, syntactic, and cohesive features, which were utilized to distinguish written products of L2 writers in the individual writing task from those in the group writing one using Coh-Metrix. In addition, the study attempts to explore linguistic differences in their written outputs with regard to their L2 proficiency and the correlationships between receptive lexical knowledge and productive lexical knowledge. A total of 105 Korean university students participated in this study. Results show that L2 learners’ written outputs varied in several variables used in this analysis such as lexical diversity and word frequency. L2 learners in the individual task yielded more cohesive texts, and they were able to incorporate more difficult words into their written products. Meanwhile, learners in the group task produced longer texts with using more logical and temporal connectives. When proficiency level was considered, L2 learners at the advanced level did not produce more cohesive texts, but instead produced more syntactically complex texts. The scores of productive lexical knowledge in the individual task positively correlated with those of receptive lexical knowledge from two different vocabulary tests. Meanwhile, the scores of productive lexical knowledge in the group task did not yield the similar results. The results implied that Korean university learners in the individual task were more task-oriented and produced a better written output.

This study investigates the use of the English definite article by Korean middle school students and examines the effects of explicit instruction on the article. Two hundred and seventy-two Korean middle school students were instructed on the core meaning of the definite article, identifiability, through a processing instruction method and were tested on their uses of the target form before and after instruction. The pretest results show that the various non-generic uses of the English definite article pose different levels of difficulty for Korean middle school learners of English. The comparison between the pretest and posttest results confirm the positive effect of teaching the core meaning of the definite article. All in all, the study shows that the non-generic use of the English definite article is teachable through the introduction of its core meaning in the EFL classroom. It provides substantial empirical evidence for the facilitative role of focus on form instruction in the acquisition of definite article in an EFL context.