Given the important status of students as major stakeholders of the National English Curriculum, this study investigated specific needs of curriculum-takers for an English curriculum and compared the results with analyses of curriculum evaluation from curriculum-completers. We implemented a needs assessment survey targeting 68 elementary school students (current curriculum-takers) and an evaluation survey targeting 27 high school students (curriculum-completers) in Korean EFL context. Results showed similarities between students’ needs and evaluation in terms of the ideal time for starting English education and time allotments. However, we found significant gaps between the two groups in several domains related to their specific goals of learning English. While the current curriculum-takers showed a high motivation to learn English for both instrumental purposes and integrative purposes, the curriculum-completers were strongly biased toward instrumental purposes. Our findings provide useful insight into curriculum development and improvement for seeking educational effectiveness in EFL settings. This study also provides helpful resources for conducting needs and evaluation analyses.

Hormones play a crucial role in controlling physiological processes, and thus plants grow and develop in response to environmental cues through the interlocked actions of the hormones. Brassinosteroids (BRs) were found as growth-promoting steroid hormones. Rice, as a monocotyledonous model plants and the major staple crop, has been used to study BR action mechanisms. However, many components of BR pathways and the mechanisms of their molecular interactions have yet to be fully understood. Because the use of the BR biosynthetic inhibitor, Brassinazole (Brz), allowed us to identify important components of BR signaling such as the transcription factor BZR1, we decided to employ a similar strategy to identify novel signaling factors using propiconazole (Pcz), a new potent BR inhibitor. We screened a rice T-DNA mutant population which belongs to Dongjin variety and were developed by the Gene An’s group using pGA2715 T-DNA vector. Using Pcz treatments we searched for resistant plants, which were reflected on their lengths of roots and/or leaves. We isolated a total of 17 mutant lines, which are being analyzed phenotypically and at molecular level. So far, we have been able to found various lines presenting high or low yield compared to their wild type counterparts. We have found differences in panicle organization of these mutants. Our current experiments include the confirmation of Pcz resistance of these lines and molecular studies involving BR marker genes to understand the relation among yield and BR action in rice.