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 changing status of vocabulary, the notion of vocabulary has been broadened from single words to multi-word expressions or units. Many lexicologists focus on vocabulary rather than grammar, and maintain that these lexical units or collocations are the most powerful force in comprehension and production of language. Little action research, however, has been performed to identify the best practices and to aid students in learning English in a real classroom. Collocational approaches to vocabulary acquisition view the basic premise of language learning as noticing and acquiring multi-word units like individual words. Focusing on this concept, this research presents practical collocation teaching methods, beginning with a brief definition, the pedagogical implications, and the most commonly occurring collocations. It suggests eight collocation- teaching methods, to be directly used in classroom activities. Finally, implementation of the suggestions presented here will produce more meaningful and effective vocabulary learning activities so that the EFL learners acquire knowledge of the English language more communicatively.

The present study investigates the effects of teaching activity-based integrative reading and writing on the amelioration of written language in the elementary school classroom. This study was conducted during the first semester in 2003. The subjects were 160, 6th year elementary school students. They were divided into two groups, control and experimental. Both the control group and the experimental group were composed of 80 students each. Each group was divided into three levels: high, intermediate, and low, on the basis of a diagnostic evaluation. All the subjects of the experimental group were integratively taught reading and writing of the English alphabet, words, phrases, sentences, and context, according to their level. All the subjects of the control group were discretely taught reading and writing according to their curriculum and level. They were also given a questionnaire of affective and psychomotor domains. Statistical analyses were performed to determine: (a) the difference of the control and experimental groups, (b) the difference between the control and experimental groups, (c) the difference of their level (high, intermediate, and low) of the control and experimental groups on reading and writing in the pre- and post- achievement tests, and (d) the difference of the level of the control and experimental groups on the affective and psychomotor domains such as interest, self-confidence, understanding, participation, and motivation of reading and writing in the pre- and post- achievement tests. The results of this study reveal that significantly higher scores on the written language were obtained in the experimental group. The difference between the control group and the experimental group was not significant at the beginning of the term. However, the difference was significant at the end of the term. It was also found that in the experimental group, interest was improved at the intermediate level. Self-confidence and understanding were improved at the intermediate and low levels, and participation was improved at the low level. It is recommended that researchers and teachers develop integrative materials of reading and writing more widely according to the level.

The present study aimed to investigate some differences in journal article abstracts written in English by Korean researchers and international scholars and to provide Korean researchers with guidelines for writing accurate, self-contained, informative and coherent abstracts. To this end, intra- and inter-lingual analyses of English abstracts were carried out in terms of rhetorical structures, linguistic features, and disciplinary areas. The results reveal that (1) international and Korean researchers show some differences of rhetorical and discourse features in their English abstracts and (2) some types of errors in terms of grammatical-syntactic and lexico-semantic aspects are frequently committed by Korean researchers. The results of this investigation suggest that Korean researchers should be aware of common rhetorical structures and linguistic features of English abstracts and graduate students should be provided with EAP courses to practice writing English abstracts relevant to their major areas.

This paper aims to make some suggestions for the direction and objectives of teaching English as a global language (EGL). To this end, the examination reveals that the number of people who use English as a second or foreign language is much more than that of people who use English as the primary language. Moreover, in many parts of the world the status of English is shifting, being used within the country as well as for international communication. Thus, it will be more likely for the learners to communicate in English with other people than English natives. Communication across cultures demands mutual intelligibility and speaker’s identities. The objective of EGL is to provide intercultural learners with intercultural communicative competence, which is a knowledge of one or more cultures and social identities, and which is also a capacity to discover and relate to new people from other contexts for which they have not been prepared directly. Teaching English as a global language will be effective and prosperous under due consideration of local situations around learners. Several ideas are suggested for the new direction for EGL education.

English language teaching in elementarγ school was proposed and is now in practice on the basis of the Critical Period Hypothesis which is also theoretically supported by innatists who argue that UG begins attrition around puberty and that language acquisition becomes increasingly difficult beyond this period. This was proved true of first language acquisition and naturalistic SLA, but no evidence has been known about instructed second language leaming in formal education. Elementary school ELT is supported by some parents who wish their children to leam this world language effectively, but the educational environment is far from utilizing the leamers' UG: few teachers are capable of providing authentic input, so the leamers depend on their general intelligence and leaming strategy rather than UG. It is suggested that high school age is optimum for utilizing leamers' motivation, intelligence, and leaming strategy.