This article reports on research into self-directed English leaning of Korean university students, focusing on their motivation and metacognition. In general, university students in Korea undertake independent learning to improve their English competence outside the classroom, rather than relying on English courses provided by their universities. Although much of their English learning is self-directed, little has been known about how they carry out their out-of-class English learning. To obtain a better understanding of their self-directed learning, this study, employing a qualitative approach, analyzed reflective journals written by 25 university students during one semester. From the analysis, students’ motivation and metacognition emerged as important themes involved in the students’ self-directed learning. The findings of this study suggest that student motivation continuously ebbs and flows as a result of its complex interrelationship with contextual factors. In addition, it was found that students’ metacognitive knowledge played a crucial role in directing their out-of-class learning as students adopted learning strategies based on their metacognitive knowledge, which was again formed and revised in the course of their learning process. Finally, this article presents suggestions for promoting students’ self-directed English learning.

The purpose of this study is to inspect the possibility of changing teacher-centered language learning into learner-centered one emphasizing learner’s interaction with self-directed learning contents available on-line for high school students. This study is to develop onㆍoff blended contents and apply them into classroom environment. It also discusses the kind of contents teachers and learners want to use. Reading parts for each lesson are usually dealt for three class hours in high schools. So it is designed that the first and the third period are done through off-line classroom and the second, on-line. Well-linked with the first and third period, on-line contents for the second period were designed, developed and applied into educational environment. More than expected number of teachers and learners were pleased with on-line contents reaching 80~90% of high level in satisfaction and also showed 65% reaching learners’ interaction rate in off-line classroom. If on？off blended learning model is well structured based on enough researches, it will realize its strong potential as a desirable learning model for reading.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a practical English program for college students which had been administered both on- and off-line. After over 1,400 freshmen took two TOEIC-based courses consecutively, questionnaires were administered to measure the students’ satisfaction of the program and their perceived usefulness of on-line learning. The effectiveness of the English program was measured through the improvement in the students’ TOEIC scores, their perceived usefulness of online learning, and their satisfaction with the program. The results showed a statistically significant increase in the students’ TOEIC scores in both semesters, with greater improvement in the second semester as compared to the first. Although the students’ overall perception of the usefulness of e-learning was in the middle on the scale, those who perceived online learning as useful were shown to have spent more time studying for the courses outside class, thereby improving their TOEIC scores and enhancing their level of satisfaction with the program. Pedagogical and research implications are suggested.

This study aims at investigating the effects of phonological short-term memory (PSTM), learning styles, and oral repetition on middle school students" learning of English vocabulary. Two groups had different treatments (semantic learning and oral repetition) and vocabulary learning was assessed in spelling, meaning, and production twice, immediately after the learning sessions and two weeks thereafter. The results reveal that oral repetition and the PSTM capacity affected the vocabulary learning significantly, but not learning styles. The students with a higher PSTM capacity learned significantly more words but didn"t remember them better for a longer period than those with a lower PSTM capacity. No clear effects of learning styles were noted, while the PSTM capacity of auditory learners was higher than that of visual learners. The oral repetition group learned significantly more words than those who did only semantic learning, which suggests the usefulness of oral repetition in learning new vocabulary.

This study aims to investigate how some Korean primary school students practiced autonomous English-learning while they exchanged email letters with foreign friends for 20 weeks. In order to achieve triangulation of the study, the following data resources were used: email letters exchanged and uploaded at an Internet cafe, a survey implemented in April and July as an autonomy measuring instrument, the informants’ comments on keypal activities written in July, two times of individual interviews and the researcher’s observation report. One major finding emerged from the data is that there were four types of autonomy development. Some implications drawn from the study findings are added for future keypal-based English-learning autonomy development programs.

Effective foreign language learning accompanies the learning of the target language’s culture. But English is said to be not a foreign language, but a global language. What should culture learning be like in teaching English as a global language (EGL)? This paper aims to make some suggestions for the directions of cultural learning in EGL. First, the features of EGL learning are explored in comparison with those of EFL learning. Second, it is discussed why EGL learning does not match the communicative competence on which the communicative approach has been based. Instead EGL learning needs intercultural communicative competence (ICC). Third, it is considered what culture education should take into account for ICC. The main section seeks out the ways in which cultural contents involved in teaching materials contribute to develop ICC. Four (4) series of Korean middle school English textbooks are analysed in respect of the ownership of cultures, the types of culture and the cultural activities, from the intercultural perspective. The result admits the cultural contents of the textbook are not suitable for developing ICC. Finally, some directions will be deduced on how and what teaching materials are equipped to develop ICC in teaching English as a global language.

With the increasing prevalence of e-learning courses in higher education, it is important to investigate how the courses are being run and examine students’ perceptions of e-learning courses to provide an optimal learning environment. An end-of-course, summative evaluation and log files in an e-learning system were used in order to describe the characteristics and students’ perceptions of three e-learning English courses in a university. The section of background information in the evaluation showed that the majority of the students taking the courses are seniors, majoring in humanities and social sciences. Factors were found to influence students’ satisfaction with the courses such as use of various multimedia, interactions between instructor and students, and among students, and instructors’ evaluation of students’ achievement. A post-hoc analysis showed evidence significant differences existed by course. These findings of the study suggest that quality assurance is an issue in setting and managing e-learning English courses, which are expected to grow rapidly in a near future due to students’ increasing need for e-learning.