This study aims to explore relationships between non-English majors’ instrumental motivation, interest, and their learning behaviors in a Korean EFL context. Two questionnaires of instrumental motivation and interest were administered to 113 freshmen who were enrolled in a language certificate program for non-English majors. Three of the respondents were invited to a semi-structured interview for in-depth understanding of their perceptions about the program and learning. Results of factor analysis showed the validity of the Promotional and Preventional Instrumentality and the Course and Task Interest as important factors. Pearson correlation and regression analysis were carried out on the data. Results showed that the instrumental motivations were positively correlated with the interest factors and learning behaviors. While instrumental motivations were predictors for learners’ intended effort, learners’ interest in course predicted their achievement test score. The findings suggest that characteristics of context and strong obligations of non-English majors might affect their motivation, interest, and learning behaviors. Limitations and implications of the study were also discussed.

The purpose of this study was to investigate changes of language anxiety in EFL classroom and relation between the change in anxiety and learners’ performance. The participants were 76 first-year non-English majors from various disciplines of a Korean university. Demographic information questionnaire, English performance test, and Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale were administered to the participants at two time points during a 12-week interval. Mean differences of quantitative data from Time 1 and Time 2, effects of gender and self-perceived proficiency level on anxiety, and the relationship between anxiety and performance were statistically analyzed. The results revealed significant decrease in English anxiety over time, significant effect of self-perceived proficiency level on anxiety, and negative correlation between variation of anxiety level and successful performance. This study suggests that reducing learners’ anxiety level might help their language improvement, and self-perceived language proficiency might be correlated to changes in language anxiety in EFL classroom. Possible implications for English instructors and limitations for future research were presented.

This present study concerned whether prompts and recasts that occur during interaction could play a role in L2 development. Adopting an untimed grammatical judgment test and an elicited oral imitation test to measure explicit and implicit knowledge, this study examined the relative effects of prompts and recasts on L2 development of past tense forms. The participants were pre-intermediate learners enrolled in English as a foreign language (EFL) classes at a university in Korea. The learners were assigned to two prompt groups, a recast group, and a control group. The analysis of the untimed grammaticality judgment test revealed that the participants promoted their explicit knowledge of the past tense forms of regular and irregular verbs when prompts were provided. The analysis also showed that the learners who received recasts improved their test scores but only in irregular past tense forms. No significant group difference was found among the treatment groups and the control group in the results of the elicited oral imitation test used to measure implicit knowledge of the target forms. These results indicated that prompts were beneficial for short-term L2 grammatical learning of EFL learners of pre-intermediate level. The implications and limitations are discussed in terms of the role of prompts in driving L2 development.