The study is aimed at exploring impacts of self-assessment on students’ self-regulated learning and satisfaction at a university setting. Twenty-one students taking a foreign language pedagogy course participated in the study. Weekly self-assessment was assigned for 8 weeks to see if it improved students’ self-regulated learning. Student questionnaire was collected twice on the 7th and the 15th week; in addition, in-depth interviews were conducted to gather students’ perceptions of self-assessment in terms of its benefits and drawbacks. Findings based on quantitative and qualitative analysis are as follows. Firstly, significant positive impacts of self-assessment were found in all three domains of self-regulated learning: cognitive, motivational, and behavioral. Secondly, students found self-assessment overall satisfactory and useful in their studies. In-depth interviews further revealed that self-assessment helped to regulate their study behaviors effectively, which, in turn, led to a better understanding of the subject matter and greater participation in class activities. At the same time, however, some students expressed some burden as a drawback of self-assessment. Pedagogical implications and research suggestions for future study were discussed.

With the metaverse emerging as the next leap in the evolution of the Internet in the post-pandemic era, a wealth of opportunities are expected to emerge in the educational sector. As a pioneer study, this research project is aimed at exploring pedagogical values of the metaverse-based classroom in a university setting. The three research questions for this study are: 1) What are the levels of students’ overall satisfaction in metaverse-based classrooms? 2) What is the user experience of the metaverse platform? and 3) What are the strengths/weaknesses of the metaverse-based classroom as perceived by the students? Twenty university students took a foreign language pedagogy course on Gather.town in spring of 2022 for 11 weeks. Student questionnaire and focus-group interviews were conducted and data analysis revealed two major findings as follows: Firstly, both students’ overall satisfaction of the metaverse-based classroom and user experience of the metaverse platform were positive, excepting only instability problems caused by poor internet connections. Secondly, more perceived strengths than weaknesses were found of the newly adopted program: ‘a realistic classroom setting’ and ‘easy communication in multiple ways’ were mentioned as strengths while the main weakness was ‘newness.’ Pedagogical implications are discussed for teachers interested in adopting the metaverse platform for their future classrooms.

With traditional in-person classes canceled due to the pandemic, teachers moved classes online, adapting new teaching methods. With this background, this study is aimed at exploring if flipped learning conducted through fully online systems improves students’ self-directed learning attitudes. Comparing a conventional flipped learning model with asynchronous online before-class sessions to offline during-class ones, this study replaced offline during-class sessions with synchronous online ones and tried to see if a variant form of flipped learning will be effective in promoting students’ self-directed learning attitudes over time. Twenty-two English major students participated in a variant of flipped learning for eight weeks. A pre- and a post-test were administered using a survey questionnaire adapted from Lee and Pyo (2018)’s four characteristics of self-directed learning attitudes: autonomy, responsibility, creativity, and self-concept. The research findings are as follows. First, there was a significant increase in all four characteristics of self-directed learning attitudes in the fully online flipped classroom. Second, two themes, ‘greater work efficiency online’ and ‘a unique group mechanism online’ were found from open-ended questions, and explain well why the online-only flipped learning model is conducive to developing students’ self-directed learning attitudes.

The study is aimed at investigating whether learning readiness contributes to university students’ group discussion in English in a flipped classroom. The research questions are: 1) Is there a change in learning readiness before and after flipped learning?; 2) Is there a change in students’ participation in group discussion before and after flipped learning?; and 3) Does learning readiness contribute to participation in group discussion? A total of 52 students participated in the study. Student survey questionnaires and quizzes were collected for data analysis. Wilcoxon matched pairs signed rank test, a non-parametric test for repeated measures t-test, and multiple regression analysis were utilized to answer the research questions. The statistical analyses produced the following results: 1) there was a significant change in students’ participation in learning readiness and group discussion; and 2) learning readiness and quizzes greatly contributed to group discussion. These findings corroborated the previous research that learning readiness is essential for self-directed learning in a successful flipped classroom. This suggests that teachers devise ways to help students engage in online activities for greater learning readiness.

The usefulness of self-assessment for evaluation purposes has been controversial among language testers and teachers, pointing to the long-held psychometric concerns of its low-leveled reliability for assessment. This study aimed at exploring the possibility of enhancing the reliability of self-assessment used in a college English classroom (n=32) by diagnosing a cause of deteriorating the reliability quality of self-assessment and seeking measures to offset the negative factor for future use. In order to achieve the goals of the study, internal consistency reliabilities were obtained before and after an improvement was made in the self-assessment. Students’ feedback on the self-assessment was sought through a focus-group interview. Next, a multiple regression analysis was conducted to see if self-assessment can be a significant predictor in students’ final grades in the course. The independent variables used for this study were final exam, midterm exam, and five self-assessments. The results of the analyses are as follows: 1) from the focus-group interview on the 6th week of semester, a subjectivity problem of self-assessments was found and a new set of items in a quiz format were added for its modified version, 2) Cronbach’s α’s of self-assessments have drastically gone up from its original ones (.514-.546) to modified ones (.614-.850), and 3) four variables were included in the final model predicting students’ final grades: final exam, midterm exam, third and second self-assessments. Based on the findings, a new perspective on reliability issues in self-assessment was proposed.

To date almost no research has been reported on language teachers" assessment practices in university, with the belief that those practices are up to teachers" individual decision-making as part of instruction. The present study investigated the long-ignored English teachers" assessment practices (testing and grading) through university student perception indices, found in the questionnaire and interviews, by looking at how students feel about their teacher"s current assessment practices. The research findings revealed that students were concerned about their teachers" low quality of tests, absence of communication channels for checking test results and grades with teachers, and undemocratic testing ambience. Implications for future research and assessment were suggested to look for possibilities of bringing in critical language testing (CLT) to the university classroom.

Given the crucial role of teachers’ forming and modifying a curriculum in a school system, it was questioned if the results obtained from an analysis of learners’ needs could serve the ultimate goal of meeting students’ needs and desires in their language learning. For the grand research question, needs were sought from both parties (111 students and 5 teachers) through the survey and interview research design and elaborated for the potential differences and their underlying reasons. The research findings indicated that, first, needs for the current curriculum were not agreed upon between the two education agents. Students wanted to have more practical characteristics of a curriculum with an addition of courses improving communication skills and an increased interaction with foreign teachers. However, teachers were on a different agenda in the pursuit of a program renewal. The distinctive themes found from the interviews with teachers were in the following: 1) doubts over the worthiness of students’ needs, 2) tenacity to their specialty in the teaching, and 3) anxiety and pressure for changing needs in institution and society. It was concluded that teachers’ needs were better met with students’ needs being left outside the decision-making process, which has been a long-lived ideological problem at a university.

Past 20 years have witnessed the shift of focus in language teaching from teacher-oriented to learner-centered approach. Although there have been several research studies on cooperative learning, they were limited to the defining of its constructs and pedagogical values, and the surveying of teachers’ beliefs and their practices at school. This paper looks into the experiences that a teacher had in the attempt to change her teaching practice with cooperative learning techniques applied in an EFL reading class. It was also an effort to improve from her previous teaching method which had been grammar-translation mixed with a task-based approach. The process of a teacher’s implementation of a newly adopted class approach including decision-making, operating, interpreting/reflecting is shared through the first-person action research. Various data sources were presented to assess the legitimacy of accepting cooperative learning via group work as a valuable, viable instructional method in the real language classroom. A detailed description of a teacher’s experiences in the self-transforming process is provided along with guidelines to make classrooms successful cooperative language learning places.