The purpose of this study was to examine L2 learners’ perceived writing anxiety and the usefulness of freewriting in improving L2 writing fluency. Seventeen L1-Korean preservice English teachers enrolled in a teacher education program at a university participated. An L2 writing anxiety survey, 170 freewritings, and 17 reflective writings were analyzed. The participants showed a moderate level of L2 writing anxiety, mostly due to a lack of confidence. Across 10 freewriting practice sessions, participants’ words per minute gradually increased, with high and low fluency groups showing a similar upward trend. Participants’ written reflections revealed that they perceived the freewriting practice useful in boosting confidence and improving skills. Expressing ideas freely without concern for accuracy alleviated their L2 writing anxiety most. Participants reported they had difficulty writing in English continuously for several minutes, and disliked absence of teacher feedback.

The aim of this study is to explore the relationships between EFL learners’ reading motivation, proficiency, and strategy use. Fifty-seven students at a Korean university participated in the study. Two self-report questionnaires and a reading comprehension test were used to measure the learners’ motivation to for reading in English, reading proficiency, and reading strategy use. No significant correlation was found between reading motivation and reading strategy use or between reading motivation and reading proficiency. However, students’ performance on the test was positively related to their reported reading strategy use, showing a moderate correlation. In addition, the study found that although proficient students and less proficient students used almost the same kinds of strategies to support their reading comprehension, more proficient students used strategies more frequently than less proficient students.