This study investigated the relative effects of input-based versus output-based activities on the learning of English unaccusative constructions. A total of 73 high school students were randomly assigned into two experimental groups and one control group. Of the two experimental groups, the input-based input enhancement group (IE group) experienced a reading passage with the learning targets visually enhanced. The output-based dictogloss group (DG group) performed the dictogloss task with the identical passage given to IE group. The control group (CG group) did not experience the learning targets at all. Results showed that IE group statistically significantly outperformed CG group both at the immediate and the delayed posttests, while there was no significant difference between IE group and DG group. In terms of the generalizability of the learned knowledge, however, it was DG group that outperformed CG group at the immediate posttest. Again, there was no difference between IE group and DG group. More detailed findings are provided, along with some implications for English classrooms in Korea.

The purpose of this study is to investigate Korean college students’ syntactic development, especially the order of acquisition in terms of the types of the sentences and clauses written in English essays. Eighty-six Korean female college students in Seoul participated in this study. For research method, the students wrote English essays with the given topic through the test web site. The essays were scored on a scale of one to six., and then were divided into three proficiency groups. After that, the students’ essays were analyzed and counted by types of sentences/clauses and frequency: simple/compound/complex sentences and nominal/adverbial/adjective clauses. The findings revealed significant differences in the frequency of different types of clauses by students’ English levels. The results showed that the amount of sentences/clauses based on the level of English proficiency was quite different. In particular, significant differences were found in the use of the complex sentences and subordinate clauses by levels. In addition, the use of adjective (relative) clauses was prominent only in the advanced level. Teaching implications were discussed and future research suggestions were made at the end of the paper.

The study investigates the effect of different types of visual images, i.e., static images versus dynamic images, on English vocabulary learning. Eighty-four students in the fourth grade of an elementary school participated in this study, and they were divided into two experimental groups and a control group. One of the experimental groups utilized static images, and the other group, videos as dynamic images in vocabulary learning. The control group was provided with the definition or the explanation of each target word in L1. The results of the study manifested that the static image group showed higher scores for the post test than the dynamic image group. The comparison of the pre and post affective tests demonstrated that the static image group showed an improvement in confidence in language learning and the dynamic image group showed positive change in the attitude of all three areas: interest, confidence, and aroused motivation. The analysis of the open-ended questionnaires showed that many participants in the static image group tended to use pictures as retrieval cues to remember vocabulary.

This study investigates the effects of working memory capacity (WMC) and the types of vocabulary learning, i.e., explicit vs. implicit, on the acquisition of English multi-word verbs. For this purpose, a total of 60 middle school students, divided into two groups (control and experimental), participated in the study. The participants in the control group were taught multi-word verbs in a traditional and explicit manner, whereas the participants in the experimental group were exposed to multi-word verbs with short passages. The results manifested that both of the instructional styles had positive effects on the learners’ acquisition of multi-word verbs in the short-term. Although there was not a significant interaction between WMC and the overall scores on the immediate post-test, according to the scores on the gap-fill tasks which tested learners’ productive knowledge, there were significant differences between the low-WMC and high-WMC groups. High-WMC students learned more target multi-word verbs than low-WMC students on average. The results also showed that WMC and the two different learning types did not affect the students’ acquisition of multi-word verbs in the long-term. Further, the interaction effect between WMC and learning type in the long-term was not significant.

This paper investigated the effects of Korean syllable structure on the acquisition of English consonant clusters on the basis of the speech data collected from a total of 8 Korean middle school students (2 females and 6 males). A total of 24 English monosyllabic words that formed 8 different quasi minimal triplets was employed and recorded. Each triplet consisted of mono-consonantal, bi-consonantal, and tri-consonantal words like pin, spin, spring or pin, pink, pinks. The three words at four triplets were differentiated by the number of consonants at the onset position and those at the other four triplets, at the coda position. Using a 5 point-scale scoring method, two native English speakers rated the speech data in terms of (i) intelligibility and (ii) the scoring of bi- and tri-consonantal words with three points being fixed on mono-syllabic words. The main finding was that the tri-consonantal words scored the lowest, bi-consonantal words were in the middle, and mono-consonantal words scored the highest. But, this general tendency held true only at the words dissimilar at the coda position. At the onset position, on the other hand, the mono-consonantal words scored the lowest. The in-depth analysis that followed the rating showed that a comparison of the words in terms of the syllabic intelligibility can be properly made only when each consonant comprising a syllable is intelligibly articulated on its own.

This study reports on an experimental study that investigates Korean EFL college students" acquisition of English verbs (such as break and change) that participate in the transitivity alternation. The experiment was devised specifically to examine how the distinction of the three types of transitivity alternation verbs - unaccusatives, middles, and passives (all with non-agent subject on the surface) - is revealed in the development of learners" interlanguage. A total of 80 college students were divided into two proficiency groups and asked to perform a production task and a grammatical judgment task on the target structures. The overall results show that the learners acquire passives earlier than unaccusatives and middles. The results also reveal that with increased proficiency, the learners perform better on all the target structures regardless of the task type. The results show, however, that even higher proficiency learners are not sensitive to lexico-syntactic properties associated with unaccusatives and middles. Another finding from the results is that the major type of the learners" interlanguage error is overpassivization of unaccusatives and middles, which confirms that Korean EFL learners, like learners with other L1 backgrounds, rely on a universal mechanism of subject―agent and object―patient/theme mapping.