Based on Vygotskian sociocultural theory, this study aims to investigate the longitudinal changes in English as a second language (ESL) learning, especially on motivation and learner beliefs for two recent Korean immigrants to Toronto. For 10 months, the researcher interviewed the two participants who shared similarities in age, previous work experiences, and perceived socio-economic status. Their comments were tape-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed by using NVivo, a qualitative data analysis software program. The findings indicate that Korean immigrants' ESL learning motivation was comprised of six constructs: job motivation, communicative need, heuristic motivation, context-specific motivation, self-satisfactory motivation, and demotivation/amotivation. Despite the two participants' external similarities, their monthly changes in ESL learning motivation showed drastic differences. An L2 learner belief of the positive relation between English proficiency and increased job opportunity was identified as a major explanatory factor for this difference between the two participants. This study suggests that L2 learner's beliefs may function as mediational tools from the perspective of sociocultural theory, with the learner's belief influencing job motivation.

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 was to evaluate the effectiveness of a university English conversation program which had employed on-line homework and outside-class interviews with native English instructors. After over 1,200 sophomores took the conversation course for a semester, questionnaires were administered to measure the students' satisfaction for the program and their perceived usefulness and effectiveness of the in- and outside-class activities. The results showed: first, students perceived the in-class lessons and outside-class interviews with the native English instructors as useful, but not the on-line conversation practice; secondly, the students' perceived usefulness, affective effects, and content evaluation of each activity were shown to have significant effects on their perceived effectiveness of the outside-class activities. Lastly, significant differences were not found by the different groups of proficiency level in their perceptions of the usefulness, affective effects, and content evaluation of the outside-class activities. However, different proficient groups showed different amount of study efforts and preference for activities.

This paper examines whether Korean students learning English are familiar with gender-neutral language. A total of 149 first-year university students were asked to choose the words they would use when speaking or writing English. The questions in the questionnaire consist of two types: Type I asked the students to arrange the given two words (e.g., gentlemen, ladies; boys, girls) in the parallel-pair form conjoined by and; Type II asked the students to choose one of the two words or phrases (e.g., policeman, police officer; anchorman, anchor). Of the eight parallel pairs in Type I, four were chosen where the word order of Korean and English is reversed (e.g., ladies and gentlemen) and the other four pairs have the same order (e.g., boys and girls) in both Korean and English. The students did better with the same order pairs than with the reversed order pairs with the exception of ladies and gentlemen. Of the nine pairs in Type II, a majority of both female and male students picked five gender-neutral words: anchor, firefighter, mail carrier, police officer and flight attendant. The four gender-specific words they preferred were chairman, salesman, freshman and actress.

This interview study aims at exploring how two Korean college graduates strive autonomously to manage their English world before, during and after college-graduation. The participants were two very autonomous students out of 34 students the researcher met at a 15-week autonomy-based English Speaking/Writing class at a college in 2003. Two major findings emerged from the interview data collected in April 2005: (1) B"s initial interest in English came from teachers" urgings to get good test scores, but his visit to America and Australia made him more interested in learning communicative English; (2) S"s interest in non-Korean people and countries, inspired by her first English teacher, made her go abroad and practice English very actively in and beyond Korea. The findings shed light on a critical issue concerning the application of the learner autonomy theory with Korean students who learn English in Korean educational contexts: the limit and effectiveness of classroom-English-learning. Pedagogical implications of the findings are added at the end.

The study examined instructors" and students" opinions about a university General English curriculum in terms of its effectiveness by conducting a series of needs analyses. A total of 608 students, 6 native and 7 non-native instructors participated in the survey and the results were compared across the three sets of data. Though the students and the teachers generally agreed upon the goal of improving communicative ability, there were divergent voices as well as conflicting expectations about the General English curriculum by each party: the students versus the teachers and the native versusnon-native teachers. Whereas the students weighed upon the practical component of the program, the instructors put more value on its academic characteristics. The native teachers emphasized the importance of discussion and small group work for in-class activities, while the non-native teachers and the students gave priority to lectures. The findings advocate the critical role of language professionals in balancing between different needs and still accommodating multiple perspectives in the curriculum development and renewal process.

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 article focuses on English language assessment for young learners in Korea questioning how far the special needs of young language learners (YLL) are being catered by the current English language assessments. First of all, this paper identifies the distinctive characteristics of young learners and the related assessments and provides several examples in the European context to explore how European programs apply the distinctive conditions of YLL on the assessing practices at schools. Secondly, four tests of oral proficiency which are currently administered in Korea (SEPT-general vs. SEPT-Junior; ESPT-general vs. ESPT-Junior) are explored to compare how the assessments for YLL take account of the special characteristics of young learners. Test content is analyzed on item types, test criteria and level descriptors. Lastly, suggestions are made based on the analysis of the assessments. It is hoped that this research paper provides meaningful implications on the YLL test development in Korea.

The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 14(2). Since the IMF crisis devastated Korea, the tide of globalization has changed every aspect of Korean society. This overwhelming trend of ‘globalization' has been affecting the educational sector, especially in terms of the 'English-learning boom' in Korea. This phenomenon has been criticized by educators because the excessive and reckless expenditure on ‘English-learning' in the private sector has been yielding far-reaching and undesirable effects on society. This paper aims at focusing on the issue of the ‘English-learning boom' of Korea, by analyzing it in terms of a critical discourse analysis. It takes the perspective of post-colonial discourse analysis by criticizing neo-liberalism and social-Darwinism, which are whimpering around Korea with the ideology of globalization. To do so, this paper takes two examples of the ‘English-learning' fever in Korean society: the boom of ‘English village' construction and the anxiety over ‘early exposure to English'. Regarding these two examples, this paper attempts to analyze them in the lens of ‘social symbolization of discourse,' which could explicate the trajectory of how social discourses are idealized, symbolized, represented, and reproduced. This paper argues that the ‘English-learning boom' of Korea is a product of complicated construction of social discourse, which is strongly influenced by the neoliberal ideology of linguistic and cultural imperialism.

This study aims to investigate the effects of various types of input modification on English listening comprehension by Korean high school students. The participants of the study were assigned to three different types of listening input: one time listening, repetitive listening, and elaboration. They listened to five types of genres such as descriptive, narrative, comparison/contrast, causal/evaluation, and problem/solution This study examined how these different types of input and genres affect the students’ listening comprehension in terms of comprehension of main ideas and details, and inference, The results of the study revealed that different types of input modification and repetition influenced the students’ listening comprehension. For instance, repetitive listening and elaboration did not have a significant effect on the high-level students’ listening comprehension, whereas these types of input resulted in improvement in the low-level students’ listening comprehension. In addition, different input types had effects on the students’ listening comprehension according to the students’ proficiency levels. On the basis of the results, some pedagogical implications on the teaching of listening skills are presented.

The goal of this study was to explore foreign language learner anxiety and strategy use associated with English listening and reading. For the purpose of the study, 98 high school freshmen took the test designed to measure their listening and reading comprehension. The participants were also asked to respond to the questionnaire items constructed to measure their anxiety and strategy use in English listening and reading. For data analysis, correlation and multiple regression analyses were performed. The study found that the students’ listening and reading anxiety showed strong, inverse correlations with their listening and reading proficiency. The students’ listening and reading skills were found to be more influenced by anxiety than by strategy use. The findings of the study are presented and discussed in more detail. The pedagogical implications of the findings are also discussed, along with some suggestions for future research.