A new in-service teaching certificate system, the TEE Certificate system, was launched for Korean teachers of English with the aim of encouraging them to use English in their daily teaching practice. This study attempts to investigate key issues regarding the current development of the TEE Certificate system and addresses the implications for a successful TEE policy in Korea. It employs document analysis produced by the Ministry of Education, Science and Teclmology and to key Regional Offices of Education and semi-structured interviews with 15 supervisors, 11 teachers and 2 TEE Certificate examiners. The research findings suggest that there is a gap regarding the aims of the TEE Certificate system among stakeholders, leading to the different attitudes toward it. Those who have positive perceptions of the system see it as a tool for encouraging Korean teachers of English to develop their English language teaching competence. On the other hand, those who have negative attitudes see the negative aspects such as another type of burden on teachers and even the possibility of a form of lay-off. The new strategies of how to use the system are required to make it play a proper role in terms of the provision of an English-fi'iendly learning environment and supporting teachers' professional development.

This study aims to examine how collaborative action research has contributed to a teacher’s professional development. It built a framework from the teacher identity perspective, aimed at deriving further insight into the effects of collaborative action research as a professional development program. It is a case study of a Korean primary school English teacher who conducted collaborative action research to improve the quality of teaching English writing. The qualitative data were collected from teaching logs, written accounts and semi-structured interviews, then analysed. The study found that the teacher experienced growth in teacher identity based on his capacity building through collaborative action research. The factors affecting the growth of teacher identity are positive attitudes to address vulnerability in teaching English, participation in the collaborative action research, continuous reflection and establishing ownership during the research. Theoretically, this study suggests the development of teacher identity perspective and its application to design, execute and evaluate teacher education programs for in-depth understanding. Practically, it provides implications for English teacher education.

To increase thennotolerance of forage crops, transgenic rice plants as a model for transformation of monocots were generated. A cDNA encoding the chloroplast-localized small heat shock protein (small HSP) of rice, Oshsp21, was introduced into rice plants

Brassinosteroids (BRs) play important roles in many aspects of plant growth and development. BR-induced AtBEE3 (brassinosteroid enhanced expression 3) is required for a proper BR response in Arabidopsis. Here, we identified a poplar (Populus alba x P. glandulosa) BEE3 homolog encoding a putative basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH)-type transcription factor through microarray analysis. Transcripts of PagBEE3 were mainly detected in stems, with the internode having a low level of the transcripts and the node having a relatively higher level. The function of the PagBEE3 gene was investigated through the phenotypic analyses with PagBEE3-overexpressing (ox) transgenic lines. This work mainly focused on a potential role of PagBEE3 in stem growth and development of polar. The PagBEE3-ox poplar showed thicker and longer stems than wild-type plants. The xylem cells from the stems of PagBEE3-ox plants revealed remarkably enhanced proliferation, resulting in an earlier thickening growth than wild-type plants. Microarray analysis revealed that the expression of many genes involved in xylem cell proliferation and development was altered in the PagBEE3-ox plants. Therefore, this work suggests that xylem development of poplar is accelerated in PagBEE3-ox plants and PagBEE3 plays a role in the stem growth by increasing the proliferation of xylem cells to promote the initial thickening growth of poplar stems.