The purpose of the study was to explore the role of journal as a way to encourage pre-service teachers to reflect on their own learning experiences and to determine the extent of reflection through journal writing. Journals were kept by pre-service English teachers during a teacher preparation course where the focus was on the understanding of second language acquisition. Sixteen participants were juniors in an undergraduate teacher development program in a university in Korea. The journal entries the trainees kept were analyzed through content analysis method in relation to the dual role as learners and prospective teachers. Within this research framework, it was found that the pre-service English teachers reflected internally on their English learning experiences and could connect the concepts and abstract ideas to their personal experience of learning English. Also, pre-service teachers were able to display their reflective capabilities through the exercise of journal writing in spite of their limited L2 writing skills. From the findings it is suggested that journals can be used as a valuable tool for the teachers-in-preparation, both in developing reflective teachers and in generating powerful insights which later would influence their own classroom behavior and motivation as a teacher.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of prompt types on EFL learners’ writing performance. 6 university students and 10 university students were provided with bare and prose prompts and the fluency of their writings was measured by analyzing the length of product (word count) and mean length of T-units (MLTU) was used to measure syntactic complexity. Furthermore, independent T-tests were administered in addition to qualitative analysis in order to determine whether the differences between the two types of prompts were significant. The results showed that while high school students’ writing wrote longer texts and had higher MLTU on the prose prompt than the bare prompt, a large portion of their writing was copied from the prompt when they were provided with the prose prompt. The university students’ writing showed that they wrote longer texts and had higher MLTU on the bare prompt than the prose prompt. In addition, they had responded after the test that they were able to write more freely when they were given the bare prompt. The findings of this study suggest that test developers need to consider the effects of prompt types and examine the quality of the writings more carefully.

Various studies have been conducted to minimize the subjectivity and increase the accuracy in assessing written texts, and the present study focused on the scoring rubrics which were the basic criteria for evaluating writing. Three different scoring rubrics (holistic, analytic and multiple-trait scoring method) were compared in evaluating argumentative essays written by Korean high school students. The present study aims to investigate the rater-reliability of the three scoring methods, holistic, analytic, and multiple-trait scoring methods. Scores of the five raters which were obtained from using the three scoring methods were compared. It was found that there were significant mean differences in the three scoring methods. Raters gave the relatively low scores when they used the holistic scoring. Next, the highest inter-rater reliability was found in the multiple-trait scoring. All the three scoring methods showed an acceptable level of reliability above .07. However, raters showed the highest reliability when they used a multiple-trait scoring rubric. Also, high correlation was found among components of analytic and multiple-trait scoring methods, indicating that the multiple-trait scoring rubric can replace the analytic scoring rubric. Finally, raters expressed a favor over the multiple-trait scoring. The result of this study suggests some implications for writing assessment in Korean secondary English classes.

Foreign language education in Korea has a long history. Since the introduction of Chinese characters in the 2nd century, many foreign languages have been taught in Korea. European languages were introduced in the late part of the 19th century, but the teaching of them experienced a setback during the Japanese colonial period. After liberation in 1945, English became the most important foreign language, while other foreign languages were called “second foreign languages”. German and French were the two most popular “second foreign languages” in the early years after liberation, but Japanese increased its weight as German and French gradually lost their appeal to high school students. Chinese is also steadily gaining in popularity. A corollary of this change was the government’s retraining program to convert German and French language teachers to Japanese or Chinese language teachers. The present paper discusses these and other changes in the status of “second foreign languages”, and recommends that the government take some drastic measures to revive the balanced development of “second foreign-language education”.

In the paper, the development of college English teaching and testing in China in the past two decades will be reviewed focusing on the promulgation and implementation of the National College English Teaching Syllabuses since the 1980s and the launch of the National College English Test (CET) in the late 1980s. The second part of the paper focuses on the achievements made and problems encountered in the development of college English teaching and testing. The English proficiency of college students in China will be presented by referring to the CET Syllabus. Examples of students’ performance in the CET will be given to illustrate their communicative competence. The imbalanced development of the English proficiency of college students across the country will also be discussed and possible explanations given for the discrepancy. The paper will then move on to a discussion on the impact of language testing on teaching with special reference to the washback of the CET on college English teaching in China. Both beneficial and detrimental effects of the CET on teaching and learning will be presented and the social consequences of the large-scale standardized test will be discussed in some detail. The paper ends with a brief introduction to the recent reform of the college English teaching and testing in China.

Test design can be compared with the design of buildings and other structures in architecture. Both activities require the development of detailed plans and blueprints that generate the actual buildings or test forms. When the blueprints are created, architects know what to what use the building is going to be put. Without knowledge of purpose they simply would not be able to design a building. Similarly, test designers need to know what inferences we intend to make from scores, and what decisions are to be made on the basis of those scores. Tests without purpose generate validity chaos. Similarly, when buildings change their use, architects must retrofit the building and follow standard procedures to ensure that health and safety regulations are being met, and that the proposed changes make the building fit for its new users. We argue that test designers must follow similar principles if the purpose of a test is to be changed or extended, or used on a group of test takers for whom it was not originally intended. We term this process test retrofit, and use the example of immigration testing to illustrate the argument.

Benefactive verbs in Japanese can be classified into 1) ‘site ageru’(「してあげる」, 2) ‘site kureru’(「してくれる」), and 3) ‘site morau’(「してもらう」) depending on the direction of action. ‘Site morau’ sentences are syntactically and semantically similar to passive sentences in the sense that a benefactive of an action is in the subjective position and an agent is in the dative position. However, they morphologically take an active form. Thus, they share characteristics of both the active and passive voice. This article investigates the condition in which a ‘site morau’ sentence changes into a causative sentence. In addition, it analyzes the semantic similarities and differences between causative sentences and ‘site morau’ sentences. It also shows that ‘site morau’ sentences can be changed into causative sentences, since causative sentences have semantic properties of both ‘giving’ and ‘receiving’. Lastly, ‘site morau’ is subcategorized into 1) typical ‘site morau’, 2) moderate ‘site morau’, 3) causative ‘site morau’, with each type studied in depth.

The purpose of this study is to establish English as elective subjects for 11~12 grades in Korean high schools. This study was conducted in the form of survey including a total of 1,923 participants, consists of 728 high school English teachers, 984 high school students, and 939 parents. The questionnaire consisted of nine questions, and which were designed to elicitate the participants perception and needs on English as the elective subjects in high schools. The results of the study indicate that 1) we need the subjects that include 4 skills(listening, speaking, reading, and writing), 2) binding listening and speaking skills together will meet the need of students and parents who want to choose conversation-only subjects, 3) on the other hand, binding reading and writing skills together will meet the needs of the students who want to prepare for establishing the academic basis in the future. 4) Various proficiency in English between students requires various level of the elective subjects in high school English. On the basis of these results, this study suggests we need 1) the subjects which deals with 4 skills on the basis of traditional concept, and 2) ‘listening and speaking’ subjects and ‘reading and writing’ subjects. And the subjects should have various levels between the highest level to the lowest level.

This article investigates the content knowledge and beliefs of primary school teachers about reading instruction from the Shulman’s ‘pedagogical content knowledge’ view, and explores the realities of reading instruction in the classroom. For the purpose, questionnaires were used. The questions were consisted of three areas: items for in-class reading instruction, teacher’s belief on reading, and teacher’s content knowledge about reading. The data revealed that the primary school teachers have insufficient content knowledge for reading instruction, particularly in word analysis skills such as phonemic awareness, letter sound relationships, word frequency, and other topics related to reading. However, teachers’beliefs were different from their knowledge. Whereas their content knowledge about phonics, reading aloud, or story-based reading method is lower, they believe that those skills are effective for reading. It was also found that the realities of reading classroom were different from teachers’ beliefs. Although teachers believe that rich print environment facilitates the learners’ reading development, the print environments were little provided and they did not refer to print for their teaching. The result of analysis suggests that teacher training which focuses on reading instruction needs to be emphasized for effective reading instruction.

This article focuses on English language assessment for young learners in Korea questioning how far the special needs of young language learners (YLL) are being catered by the current English language assessments. First of all, this paper identifies the distinctive characteristics of young learners and the related assessments and provides several examples in the European context to explore how European programs apply the distinctive conditions of YLL on the assessing practices at schools. Secondly, four tests of oral proficiency which are currently administered in Korea (SEPT-general vs. SEPT-Junior; ESPT-general vs. ESPT-Junior) are explored to compare how the assessments for YLL take account of the special characteristics of young learners. Test content is analyzed on item types, test criteria and level descriptors. Lastly, suggestions are made based on the analysis of the assessments. It is hoped that this research paper provides meaningful implications on the YLL test development in Korea.

This study examines the effects of Korean EFL learners’ motivation and anxiety on their English speaking skills with a structural equation approach. The participants of the study are 193 college students enrolled in English conversation classes. The questionnaire on learning orientations, attitudes toward the community of native speakers of English, motivational intensity, class satisfaction and anxiety are given to the college students and their English speaking skills are assessed in terms of IATEFL’s criteria: Range, ease of speech, attitude, delivery, and interaction. Reliability and factor analysis are employed to confirm the internal consistency of questionnaire items and the validity of construct, and a structural equation model is run to examine the relation of Korean EFL learners’ affective aspects to their English speaking skills. The findings of the study are as follows: (1) while Korean learners’ attitudes toward native speakers of English and their community do not contribute to their desire to learn English, their learning orientations are found to affect their desire to learn English. (2) class satisfaction and desire to learn English are found to affect learners’ efforts to learn English, while anxiety is found to negatively contribute to leaners’ motivation intensity. (3) both integrative orientation and anxiety have direct effects on English speaking skills, integrative orientation affirmatively but anxiety negatively. Based on the findings, some suggestions are given for effective second language learning and teaching.

This present study borrows the framework of action research as a tool for improving the quality of instruction in a university reading comprehension course by reflecting previous and current teaching practices, by incorporating students’ feedback and preferences, and by intervening students’ beliefs and strategy use. In doing so, the study examines the potential effects and problems of strategy-based instruction in the reading comprehension tasks that integrate TETE in collaborative, task-based learning environment. The students were assigned to the training of two different types of strategies in terms of language processing: paraphrasing vs. translation strategies in a TETE class. A total of 107 students from two reading comprehension courses were asked to take a TOEFL and answer a self-report questionnaire both at the beginning and at the end of the semester. While students’ use of metacognitive and cognitive strategies increased significantly, their use of translation strategies and beliefs about translation were persistent to change as the students seemed to regard translation an important tool for reading comprehension. A follow-up interview and course evaluation were also used for triangulating the quantitative findings. It is suggested that the role of L1 in language classes should be revisited and the English-only policy be reconsidered.

The present study aims to develop a web-based model for English teacher evaluation, which purports to encourage a teacher to get actively involved in his or her own professional development through critical reflection upon teaching. The evaluation model using portfolio is based on the assumption that the teacher should play a key role in the evaluation process in order to bring about change in teaching. Another theoretical premise of the model is that data on teaching should be gathered from multiple sources such as observation, student performance and self-appraisal. The web-based model encourages stakeholders, e.g., administrators, headteachers, parents, to take part in the evaluation process. The model reflects the findings of a questionnaire survey on teachers’ perceptions on teacher evaluation and their needs. It is suggested that a number of factors related to administration, technology and content should be considered for the effective application of the model. Some suggestions are also made concerning evaluator training, time constraints, institutional support, and further research.

The purpose of this study is to compare questions types of Korean EFL textbooks of the seventh national curriculum (current textbooks) with those of the sixth national curriculum (previous textbooks). This study found that there were significant differences in question types of receptive skills, listening (monologues, dialogues), and reading (narrative, pragmatic) between current and previous textbooks in terms of the level of comprehension. There was no significant difference in question types of expository reading passages between current and previous textbooks. Although higher-order questions are also important to make language class more interactive and communicative, this study as well as previous ones shows that questions of literal comprehension were heavily used in current textbooks, especially in listening. Although current textbooks presented more questions of inference and personal response than previous textbooks, those questions were minimally used. Both reorganizatinal and evaluative questions were rarely used in current and previous textbooks. In short, because current textbooks still rely on lower-order memory questions, they do not require substantive thought from students. Thus, this study suggest that EFL textbooks use less literal comprehension questions and more communicative questions such as reorganization, inference, evaluative and personal response.

This paper examines the use of English determiners in chat with the focus on determiner-related errors. For this, the comparisons were made in the use of determiners between chat and the grammatical judgment test, which was followed by the investigation of the role of task type on the determiner use in chat. The results show that deletions of determiners are significantly more common in the meaning-focused activity (i.e. chat), and that students commit more errors in the form-focused activity (i.e. the grammatical judgment test). It was also found that task type was a significant factor to cause the difference in the frequency of determiners, implying that the convergent task might be more appropriate to use to look at students’ competence regarding determiner use than the divergent task. However, the overall ratio of deletions was so high that it seems to be hard for researchers to obtain the precise picture of learners’ developmental state through the chat transcript.

The purpose of this current study aims to examine how much Korean EFL students incorporate their given peer responses into their final versions of writing in two different types of CMC environment, chatting and bulletin board, and whether there was any improvement in participants’ writing quality in the final drafts. 38 Korean EFL participants wrote first drafts, received peers’ responses through either chatting or bulletin board, individually revised their drafts based on their peer responses and wrote their final drafts. The overall results revealed that regardless of using either chatting or bulletin board, the participants incorporated higher portion of their given responses into the revised drafts. Although no significant differences were obtained with respect to two different modes, chatting and bulletin board, in terms of writing improvement in participants’ final drafts, there were significant differences found within chatting and bulletin board classes with both holistic and analytic measurement. Therefore, the present study suggests the importance of utilizing both CMC tools in writing environment for EFL students and applying them at appropriate steps in the writing process.

Gardner’s socio-educational model of second language acquisition has received substantial attention from L2 researchers. Several scholars, however, came to question the applicability of the model into foreign language learning (FLL) situations because Gardner’s model was based on studies that have utilized samples selected from Canada, which is presumed to be a typical context of second language learning (SLL). Therefore, the present study investigated the generalizability of Gardner’s socio-educational model into FLL situations by using two samples of Korean learners of English selected from the USA (i.e., ESL sample) and Korea (i.e., EFL sample). To this end, a multi-sample Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis was performed to examine the factorial similarity of Gardner’s model across the ESL and EFL sample. Results of the SEM analysis indicated that the socio-educational model may also hold for learners of L2 in FLL situations. Further multi-sample analysis identified parameters that were not invariant across two samples of Korean learners of English, hence highlighting a call to fine-tune the Attitudes/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) for use in the context of FLL.

English Tag Questions (ETQs) are frequently used among native speakers in various situations. Though ETQs look simple and easy to learn, some ESL students with particular language backgrounds report that it is difficult to learn and utilize ETQs naturally. One of my hypotheses is that the familarity of ETQs depends on whether ELS students have similar syntactic structure in their native languages to English. To investigate this inquiry, I have compared syntactic structures of tag questions from five different languages: Polish, Deutsch, Chinese (Mandarin), Japanese, and Korean. In addition to the syntactic analysis, I have also surveyed Chinese, Japanese, and Korean ESL students, who comprise major population of ESL students, for their reflections on ETQs; whether they can differentiate the meaning of some basic syntaxes of ETQs. The results showed that there were significant differences in the responses of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean students: Chinese students are much better in general than Japanese or Korean students. This paper contends that ETQ is one of the idiosyncratic features of English, and suggests that the syntactic and pragmatic differences of various languages should be considered in order to teach ETQs effectively.

This study was designed to examine Korean EFL college students’ expectations about their native-speaking English teachers’ roles and to compare them to those of their instructors. It has also sought gender effect on students’ expectations. Data were collected using a modified version of the Survey of Educational Expectations, developed by McCargar (1993), from 346 students and 34 instructors. The questionnaire included 47 items in 11 domains of English teacher roles: instructional strategies, cultural sensitivity, subject knowledge, warmth, classroom management behaviors, questioning strategies, response to students’ errors, educational approach, teacher-student relationship, organization skills, and teaching methods. Results indicated overall similarities between students’ and teachers’ role expectations, while analyses of individual items showed much greater differences. A clear difference was found in teacher response to student errors. Students expected their native-speaking English teachers to correct their errors, while the teachers clearly disagreed with this expectation of students. The results also showed the gender differences in students’ responses. The findings of the study suggested educational implications to reduce classroom tension and dissatisfaction when there appear student-teacher mismatches in L2 teacher roles.