The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of the English language learners' interactions while they read the selected text in a cooperative reading group. The driving research questions were as follows: (1) How did members initiate discussion topics, take turns, and finish up their talk for their reading comprehension?, and (2) What characterized the nature of those learners' participation in the context of cooperative reading group? A qualitative study design served the investigator's main objectives. Participants included four English learning students, two male and two female, in grade 4. The data collection method consisted of on-site observations, informal and formal interviews, and videorecordings of reading sessions. The results of this study suggested that second language learners establish a conversation floor for their own language learning community if teacher's support is available for their meaning-making of the text. Based on these results, some pedagogical suggestions are made for teachers to implement a cooperative reading group as one of the effective instructional strategies in Korean English classroom settings.

This research intends to identify some of the common lexico-grammatical errors Korean secondary school students make in learning English. The data used in this research consists of an about 33,000-word corpus of English written by grade 9 and 10 students. The corpus was scanned to retrieve all examples of misuse of such error-prone word forms as BECAUSE, HAVE, MANY, MUCH, IF, and A LOT OF, using the standard text retrieval software tool, WordSmith Tools. These word forms were compared with those in English textbooks used in middle school English classes in order to investigate how close students' use of these forms is to the taught forms. Overall, it is necessary to provide the students with corpus-based learning methods to acquire some problematic word forms, such as BECAUSE, MANY and A LOT OF. Techniques of drawing students' attention to form or noticing features of targeted items can be useful as well. Although this research could not find all the most common errors the students produce in learning English, it could be one way of identifying significant features of learner errors, in particular areas of common difficulty in writing. It could also play an important role in developing more systematic learner language research and designing learner corpus-based teaching techniques and materials.

This study investigated the foreign language listening test anxiety of 66 Korean high school students. The subjects were randomly assigned to Non-test Group (absence of a test atmosphere) and Test Group (presence of a test atmosphere). Foreign language listening test anxiety in both groups was measured by the foreign language listening test anxiety scale I (FLLTAS I) and they answered questions related to the FLLTAS II after taking a listening test. Based on the change in mean scores of the FLLTAS I and II, the data were analyzed with repeated measures and the results suggested that the subjects indeed felt foreign language listening test anxiety and significantly experienced an increase in anxiety levels after taking a listening test regardless of the absence or presence of a test atmosphere and subject's differences in listening proficiency levels. Regarding the relationship between foreign language listening test anxiety and foreign language listening test performance, the results revealed that they are negatively related. Also, a factor analysis showed that 'tension over English listening or English listening tests' and 'lack of confidence over English listening or English listening tests' are the main factors contributing to foreign language listening test anxiety.

This study investigated whether personal question asking of strangers or close acquaintances is cultural behavior that differentiates Koreans from North Americans as conjectured in Yoo (1997). The investigation entailed two research questions answered in surveys collected from 49 North Americans. One was whether North Americans ask the same personal questions among themselves that Koreans ask of them. The other was to find how North Americans would feel if they were asked such questions by acquaintances. The results and findings show that North Americans do ask personal questions among themselves, though the range of topics does not coincide with those among Koreans.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how Korean primary school L2 readers construct intertextual meaning and how they relate their conceptions or beliefs about reading to their intertextualtity. School instructions or home literacy environments in English reading might influence L2 readers' reading conceptions and their reading processes which are in turn associated with their intertextual connections among the multiple texts. Though current literature in L2 reading has focused on great interest in the reading processes of a single story or text, little interest was given to L2 readers' intertextuality among the multiple stories. The researcher first diagnoses four Korean primary school readers' reading conceptions, followed by retrospective miscue reading analyses to investigate their reading processes. Finally, their intertextual connections among the five stories of adventure are examined by conducting think-aloud procedure. The results showed that L2 readers have their own reading conceptions and behaviors, which are influenced by their home literacy environment and school instructions. In addition, Korean EFL readers' conceptions of reading and behaviors are strongly connected with their intertextuality among the multiple stories.

In this global era, many Korean parents want to educate their children in an L2 school to acquire communicative competence. In order to give parents and educators educated understanding of what early childhood English education in an L2 preschool involves, this paper makes a detailed description of a Korean preschool child's L2 socialization process. The data were collected through participant observation, interviews, and field-notes, and analyzed qualitatively. The findings briefly illustrate daily routine activities at home and school became a rich source of linguistic input. In particular, daily interactive activities at school helped the child learn many linguistic and sociocultural rules of American society. Yet, given that most nonnative children - including the informant - displayed some emotional distance toward native speakers and thereby did not actively participate in classroom activities, the findings suggest a need for more structured L2 curriculum. The study also indicates that, for young learners, parental assistance can play a key role in their L2 socialization, and in this sense, parents should be able to understand their children's needs at school and provide necessary assistance.

The value of dialogue journal use for literacy development has been empirically substantiated from both first and second language studies. This experimental study investigated the effect of dialogue journal writing on the writing quality and reading comprehension ability of EFL college students in Korea. Subjects were 207 freshmen in four reading sections of a freshman English course. For a 10-week period, subjects in two experimental groups wrote dialogue journals, and their progress was compared with the progress of subjects in two control groups who answered comprehension questions in a pretest/posttest format. Writing quality was assessed holistically in two essays. Reading achievement was evaluated with two reading comprehension subtests of TOEFL. Results indicated that the journal-writing groups progressed better in the two areas, although not always to a degree that was statistically significant. Some limitation was also noted. It was concluded that the use of dialogue journals could be an effective technique in EFL instruction, as in L1 and ESL instruction, with general and particularly with reading courses.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate text comprehension from a sociocultural perspective and then, to find out more about the ways in which L2 readers comprehend and recall L2 texts. While many analyses of written recall protocols focus on propositional contents or an analysis of syntactic error, Sociocultural Theory provides us with an additional analytic tool: the linguistic properties of the recall protocols. This follows from Vygotsky's fundamental argument that speech, in addition to its communicative function, bears a cognitive, self-oriented function and thus, is used to plan and carry out mental activity. In this paper, we undertake an analysis of the written recall protocals produced by high-school learners of English as a foreign language. We argue that when faced with cognitively difficult situations, L2 readers often externalize their inner order as private writing in order to attain and maintain control of their mental activity in the task of reading and recall. In fact, the linguistic features of the written recall protocols reflect the underlying mental processes which L2 readers deploy in problem-solving situations.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between MI and web-based learning in elementary school English education. For this purpose, this paper first examined MI and instructional models of web-based learning, which was based on constructivism. In order to verify the effects of this experiment, we proposed a web-based English learning and teaching model and applied it to the 5th grade students in an elementary school. After the experiment, we analyzed the effects that MI affects students' English achievement. The results of the study were as followings. First, students' intrapersonal intelligence, linguistic intelligence, musical intelligence, and spatial intelligence had a positive effect to their English achievement. Second, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, and interpersonal intelligence did not have a positive effect on their English achievement. This study indicates that all kinds of multiple intelligences should be thoroughly considered when we design and practice web-based English learning and teaching models.

Despite the Ministry of Education's policy, early childhood English education has been widely conducted among private kindergartens and in private English Education agencies. Although there are a great number of English teachers who are teaching English to young children, few research has been done about their working conditions. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the working conditions of early childhood English teachers, to determine the problems that they are facing in the education field, and to find out the possible solutions to improve their working conditions. Sixty-seven teachers answered the survey. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were done. This research found that teachers have difficulties in attracting children's attention when they teach English in the classroom, and in developing appropriate teaching techniques. It also found that their working conditions were not good enough to keep them doing this job. In spite of poor conditions, they are proud to be teachers. It was found that the subjects wished to have a medical insurance, a secured income, and to be free from extra teaching activities, such as textbooks sales and collecting monthly fees. They would like to have an opportunity to learn new teaching techniques through in-service teacher training. They also insisted that the Ministry of Education should face the current situation by giving them a chance to become certified teachers.

The purpose of this study is to investigate some problems about College Scholastic Ability Test(CSAT) on English listening and suggest its new approaches in the future. A survey, which was composed of 48 English teachers and 63 college students, was conducted to know about their opinions of the listening test. The results are as follows. First, the listening test is very important in learning English language, but it is not required to spend much time and efforts in listening class on account of its unvaried question pattern and lack of transferring into speaking ability. Second, the test should increase the number of the question and its total score. Third, it is necessary to provide the various questions related to the real life of English speaking countries implying not only linguistic knowledge but also non-linguistic knowledge like situation, socio-cultural background, and world knowledge. Fourth, sound phenomena may also be an important part in the listening test.

Since the teaching of English was introduced into the primary school as a required subject in 1997, no achievement test has been administered for the purpose of comparing English achievement of primary school students who are receiving private instruction with that of those who are not. The purpose of this study was to investigate what impact private instruction had on English achievement of third- and fourth-year students in the primary school. For this purpose, an English achievement test was developed based on the 7th national curriculum and two questionnaires were administered: one questionnaire among 743 third- and fourth-year primary school students and the other among 22 primary school teachers. The results showed that students who were receiving private instruction outperformed those who were not on the English achievement test and that teachers had difficulty in handling English class due to the discrepancy of overall English proficiency between tutored students and non-tutored students. The findings suggest that teacher training needs to be intensified to ensure quality English language teaching in the primary school.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of an English program called Global English. The fall, 2003, program at a 4-year university in southwest Korea, was designed for students to attain ability and confidence in both oral and written reports in English necessary to participate actively in everyday and business situations. The study described the educational principles and curriculum in detail and provided an overall evaluation of the program. Students' communicative competence was measured by the computer-based TOEIC both prior to and in the middle of the Global English instruction. Questionnaires were administered to 2,791 students and to 18 native English-speaking teachers to identify their satisfaction with the program. The results from the paired-samples t test indicated that the Global English program significantly affected students' English achievement scores. The students demonstrated satisfaction with the program in the analyses of the questionnaires: The students' motivation, interest, and attitudes towards learning English improved, and their anxiety in speaking English with native speakers was lowered; their confidence increased. On the basis of the findings, educational suggestions were made for improving the Global English program.

In the early stages of reading, word decoding skills are prerequisite to reading. Word decoding involves word discrimination, phonemic decoding, and understanding of meaning. In this process, phonemic awareness enables students to examine language independently to manipulate its component sounds, and to use letter-sound correspondences to read and spell words. The 7th national curriculum of English and the primary school English textbooks fail to provide systematic language structure focus to facilitate efficiently student acquisition of the English phonemic system. Therefore, many students suffer from lack of word decoding development as well as encoding development, particularly in the 5th and 6th grades. This study explores the English phonemic awareness of Korean primary school students. To achieve the purpose of this study, a test for phonemic awareness was developed and Korean students' phonemic awareness was examined. The test deals with six areas: phonemic segmentation, phonemic manipulation, syllable splitting, blending, oddity, and invented spelling. The results are as follows: Firstly, many students showed successful results in phonemic segmentation and oddity. However, they have difficulties with syllable splitting and invented spelling. While students have strengths in the awareness of consonants except for r-l, f-p, and b-v, they suffer from lack of awareness of vowels. Secondly, errors of invented spelling and blending showed that students have differing development stages of phonemic awareness, e.g., some students master the phonemic system perfectly whereas others perceive only the alphabetic sounds. Finally, this research suggests that a balanced approach to reading is necessary in the early reading in the Korean context.

This study compares the effects of three different focus-on-form techniques in order to find out the best way of teaching English present perfect to Korean EFL learners. 120 university students were divided into three different groups depending on the degree of explicitness of instruction: the input flooding group, the input enhancement group, and the rule explanation group. The effects of each type of focus-on-form instruction were measured through the students' learning of the target structure and the comprehension of given reading texts. The results of the experiment show that in the learning of the target structure the rule explanation group was significantly better than the other two groups, and the implicit focus-on-form technique, input enhancement, was more effective than input flooding. The present study also revealed that no one type of focus-on-form technique was more effective than any other types in the comprehension of the reading texts.

The purpose of this study is to analyze teachers' questioning patterns in EFL classes, and propose a new set of classification based on the interaction flow that a question initiates and the teachers' intention of questions in language classroom. Data were collected from five advanced EFL classes. Six categories of teacher questions were observed and two types of interactions following the initial questions were found. The interactions were usually opened by the teacher, which confirmed the general conception, and the types of interactions were mostly chosen by the teacher's preference and the activity the class was doing.

This study investigates how language teachers' pedagogical concerns can find a suitable framework for learner corpora-based error analysis in English classes. It demonstrates the ways in which teachers can benefit from compiling learner corpora and the ways in which they can transfer learner corpus findings to pedagogy. By analyzing the learner corpora and investigating common patterns of learners' errors, teachers can gain insights into learners' interlanguage development and provide feedback in the form of remedial teaching to cater for learners' linguistic needs. Consequently, this will help classroom instruction to be more effectively focused. The method of this study is both quantitative and qualitative in that it starts with a word-based method of analysis and ends with a category-oriented display of results. In addition, some classroom concordancing activities are suggested to present the idea of recycling learners' language output and transforming the output into a new form of input which is assumed to be comprehensible to learners.

This study attempted to look into the second language (L2) learners' attitude toward and perception of their L2 pronunciation, and make suggestions for L2 pronunciation teaching within English as an international language (EIL) perspective which is theoretically supported by the variationist approach and multi-competence model of the sociocultural framework. Based on the qualitative analysis of what English as a second language (ESL) learners had discussed through individual interviews, the study showed how they perceived the importance of pronunciation, as well as revealed what kind of difficulties and obstacles they had faced in improving their pronunciation skills. It also indicated the types of efforts and strategies that the learners employed to improve pronunciation skills. The research findings made known the factors driving L2 learners to commit themselves to refining their pronunciation skills. Having considered the unique status of EIL as well as respected the identity of EIL speaker as multi-competent language user, the study made suggestions as to what should be taken care of for L2 pronunciation teaching.