This study analyzed the patterns of relative clauses (RCs) used on the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), a standardized test for college admissions in Korea. The researchers investigated the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy and the impact of the antecedent’s animacy on RCs. Also, it was explored how NPs in the subject position of object RCs affected language processing, specifically, the condition where relativizers were omitted and the reasons for producing passive subject RCs. Data were collected from the CSAT and mock tests from 2019 to 2023. The analysis of 622 RCs yielded the following results: First, the frequency of RCs appeared in the following order: subject RCs, object RCs, then OBL. Second, the object RCs showed a preference for inanimate antecedents whereas the subject RCs used did not show a preference for animate antecedents. Third, NPs in the subject position with sentences containing object RCs predominantly took the form of pronouns, with common nouns used less frequently.

In this study, the continuity of reading passages from high school mock College Scholastic Ability Test (CAST) English exams across grade levels was investigated using Coh-Metrix. A corpus consisting of 525 reading passages, evenly distributed with 175 passages from each high school grade level, was compiled from the 2017-2023 mock CSAT English exams administered by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education. Coh- Metrix measures included basic counts, word frequencies, word features, lexical diversity, personal pronouns, connectives, standard readability, syntactic complexity, coreference, and semantic cohesion indices. The analysis revealed significant differences among grade levels in the reading passages of the mock CSAT English exams in measures such as word counts, average word and sentence length, nouns, age of acquisition, second person pronouns, standard readability, and subject density indices. These findings highlight the potential for refining the design and construction of reading passages in mock CSAT exams to better prepare students for the linguistic challenges presented in the actual high-stakes CSAT.

This research investigated consistency of achievement levels stated in the 2015 revised national curriculum of English, high school English textbooks, and the Korean College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) according to CEFR Levels. Based on CEFR levels, this study compared levels of targeted achievement standards in the national curriculum, focusing on reading passages in High School EnglishⅡ and CSAT implemented for three consecutive years (2021-2023). Results indicated that the reading section of textbooks and CSAT included a considerable portion of passages whose text difficulty levels were higher than CEFR B2, exceeding the achievement standards required for high school graduates. These results suggest that difficulty levels in the national curriculum, textbooks, and CSAT should be adjusted according to target levels of language proficiency based on CEFR levels so that learning burden of students can be lessened and competency-based English teaching and learning finally can be performed.

This paper discusses the limitations of the current practices of English reading assessment in the Korean educational context based on the concept of 'cognitive validity.' It then introduces the Evidence-centered Design (ECD) model as a framework that can guide English teachers and test developers in developing a reading assessment. The paper illustrates how the framework can be applied to the assessment formats and practices widely used in Korean middle and high schools. The ECD framework can help English teachers reconsider reading assessment practices commonly implemented in Korea. The framework contributes to enabling them to focus on the three critical, interrelated questions: what ability to measure with what task(s), how to score students' responses, and how to interpret the test results. Teachers' conscious application of the ECD framework would lead to a more valid and theoretically more sound reading assessment. Such an assessment is expected to align better with teaching and eventually bring a positive washback in English language learning.

In the era of the 4th industrial revolution, creativity plays a pivotal role in the competitiveness of a country. The importance of creativity education therefore cannot be overemphasized. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of discussion-based English reading and writing activities on Korean high school students' creativity, English writing, and self-assessed creative thinking. The participants were 45 high school students in Seoul, Korea. They were divided into two groups: the discussion-based English reading and writing group (n=24) and the traditional English instruction group (n=21). The experiment was administered during two semesters of the 2017 academic year. The major findings are as follows: First, the experimental group showed significant improvement on the creativity test, especially in the areas of fluency, flexibility, and original thinking. Second, the experimental group outperformed the control group on the writing test. Third, the experimental group showed positive changes in their self-assessed flexible thinking, convergent thinking, and intrinsic motivation. All of these indicate the beneficial effects of the discussion-based English reading and writing activities. Based on the results, some pedagogical suggestions were made for the effective integration of creativity education into the teaching of English as a foreign language.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the readability of reading passages used in 5th and 6th grade elementary school English textbooks under the 2015 Revised National Curriculum. For this purpose, all the reading passages of each textbook were calculated with ATOS (Advantage-TASA Open Standard) formula as a readability index. The results of this study indicate that, firstly, the average readability score of 6th grade English textbooks is higher than that of 5th grade ones. Secondly, the readability of 6th grade English textbooks is about six months ahead of that of 5th grade ones. Thirdly, the readability scores are similar in all reading passages for 5th grade, while the readability scores of 6th grade differ from textbooks to textbooks. According to the textbook writers, the readability score of 6th grade textbooks is higher than that of 5th grade ones in four out of five textbooks. Lastly, In terms of the units in each textbook, the readability scores fluctuate and do not increase sequentially as expected.

This study investigated the structural and functional differences between formulaic sequences in College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) and SAT reading assessment texts. The results of the RANGE program showed that SAT used more diverse and difficult words compared to CSAT. The frequency analysis revealed that CSAT used more formulaic sequences than the SAT counterpart. This suggests that CSAT used more repeated expressions, whereas SAT used diverse vocabulary items. The structural analysis showed that noun phrases were the most dominant in CSAT, whereas prepositional phrases were pervasive in SAT. The functional analysis showed that both corpora relied heavily on referential expressions. The results indicate that referential bundles are dominantly used in institutional writing (Biber & Barbieri, 2007). In accordance with the previous studies, the results suggest that high frequency formulaic sequences can be different according to the register. In CSAT, connectives and discourse organizers were prevalent. This may be due to the characteristics of question types in CSAT. The results may indicate that formulaic sequences in texts are partly influenced by the characteristics of a register.

4차 산업혁명은 인공지능으로 대처할 수 없는 인간의 창의성과 의사소통 능력 개발을 위한 교육 체계의 변화가 필요하다. 현재 교육 시스템은 사실과 절차에 기반을 둔 구조로써 지식을 창의적으로 활용하는 시스템으로의 변화를 요구한다. 로봇과 인공지능 기계들의 영역에서 벗 어난 창조성 개발은 4차 산업혁명 시대의 핵심요소이다. 본 연구는 토론학습과 영어 앱 읽기를 통하여 창조성 개발에 미치는 효과를 검증하고자 한다. 연구결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 끊임없이 변화하는 4차 산업혁명 시대의 차세대교육을 위한 해결 방안은 오직 인간의 창의성 재능 개발에 달려있다. 이 시대의 교육 방향은 창의적인 능력을 함양할 수 있는 학습을 목표로 해야 한다. 둘째, 토론학습은 4차 산업 혁명 시대에 필수 요소인 의사소통 기술, 팀 워크 기술, 분석 기술, 윤리적 기술의 기초가 된다. 토론학습은 문제 해결 능력과 기획 및 비판적 사고 능력을 향상시켜 창의성 개발의 근원이 된다. 셋째, Lingbe, Memrise, HelloTalk 등과 같은 영어 앱을 통한 독서는 창의성 개발에 효과적이다. 읽기 학습 은 학습자의 생각과 상상력을 풍부하게 하여 사물을 새롭고 독창적인 방식으로 이해하게 한다. 즉 학습자 스스로 논리적 사고로 자신의 가치관을 형성하고 대상에 대해 새롭게 판단하며 문제 해결할 수 있는 능력을 함양하게 된다. 상상력은 창의성의 기초이며 토론과 영어 어플 읽기는 비판적 사고 논리와 논리를 사용하기 때문에 창의력 개발의 기본이 된다.

The study aims to examine whether teaching English through multiple intelligences can suggest one of the solutions for underachievers to facilitate their English learning and restore their learning attitudes. To explore this, the study investigated two research questions: (a) What are the effects of English instruction using multiple intelligences and stories on underachievers’ reading abilities? and (b) How English instruction using multiple intelligences and stories influences on their learning attitudes? The participants of the study were seven fifth-grade underachievers in one elementary school in Seoul. They were first tested what their strong intelligences are and engaged in customized activities based on their multiple intelligences test results during the experiment English classes. The data collected include the read-aloud test, the reading comprehension test, the affective test, students’ learning log and the interview of students and teachers, and these were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The results of the study showed that English instruction using multiple intelligences and stories had statistical significance in increasing underachievers’ reading abilities and changing their learning attitudes positively. This study is valuable in that it strongly calls for the need to consider multiple intelligences and provide customized activities for underachievers to facilitate their English learning and restore their learning attitudes.

This study investigated predictors of reading comprehension in elementary school English learners. The study specifically examined the role of word recognition and oral language skills in their reading comprehension levels. Participants were 206 students in grades four, five, and six, and they completed measures of letter naming, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, decoding, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, correlation, and multiple regression. Findings showed that there were significant differences between performances of the 4th graders and the other two grade groups on all measures, indicating a possible ceiling effect in the acquisition of basic reading skills by upper-grade students. Oral language, indexed by oral vocabulary and listening comprehension, emerged as the more powerful predictor of reading comprehension as compared to word recognition skills. In addition, the contribution of word decoding tended to decrease across grade levels; whereas oral vocabulary explained more variance in upper grades.

This study examined the reading passages of the National Assessment of Educational Achievement (NAEA) and middle school English textbooks in terms of their readability and lexical difficulty. The readability was measured by using Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Index, while their lexical difficulty was measured in terms of STTR (standardized type-token ratio), frequency of tokens per type, and vocabulary frequency levels by using VocabProfile and Oxford WordSmith Tools 7.0. The results showed that there was a gap between the readability of the English textbooks and that of the NAEA conducted from 2012 to 2014, while the readability between the English textbooks and that of the 2015 NAEA reached a comparable level. However, the textbooks from one publisher showed substantively lower readability than those from the other publishers and the NAEA. Secondly, regarding vocabulary frequency levels, the words in 1K and 2K accounted for more than 90% of the textbooks and the NAEA, while the NAEA had a higher STTR and lower frequency of tokens per type than the textbooks. It suggests that the NAEA employed more various words with less repetition than the textbooks. Pedagogical implications are discussed.

This study examines the difficulty of reading text in elementary school English textbooks. Four elementary school English textbook series published by three publishers were evaluated by Word Critical Factor (WCF). WCF considers cognitive demands for word recognition; it assesses the match of linguistic content in the text with the phonetically regular and high-frequency words that are associated with particular stages of reading development. For the analysis, all of the words that appeared in the reading and writing sections from four elementary school English textbooks were analyzed by two criteria, that is, the ratio of high frequency words and phonetically regular words among 100 running words, and the number of unique words in each textbook. The results showed that all four textbooks’ difficulty levels were very high considering the learner’s reading ability. This was due to the textbooks having a low repetition of words and also the complicated vowel patterns that were above the reading abilities of students. All of these factors combined are what have caused the difficulties presented in English textbooks. In conclusion, although the reading text introduces a variety of genres and activities for the development of reading skills, most reading text could not assist the reader’s cognitive processing.

The purpose of the current study is to examine 123 English reading-related articles published in English Teaching from 1965 to 2014 in order to consider what has been studied in English reading and how, and to gain insight into what has to be studied and how from now on. To fulfill this purpose, the articles were analyzed in terms of basic data, research methods, and research themes across four time periods. In accordance with the findings, it has to be admitted that English reading-related research has made notable, impressive advances in quantity and quality. In particular, it is notable that research methods and themes have been diversified and expanded across the periods. For further development, it is required for researchers' ceaseless endeavor to explore ongoing issues and troublesome gaps in English reading research and to establish a theoretical and practical framework for reading research in Korean EFL context.

This study investigated the effects of different gloss locations in extensive reading readers on English reading abilities of elementary students. It examined four groups of sixth graders in an elementary school and an extensive reading class was conducted over sixteen weeks. The four groups were given graded readers with four different types of glosses, such as non-gloss, marginal gloss, footnote gloss, and endnote gloss. To verify the effects of this experiment, pre- and post-reading ability test for the cognitive domain and pre- and post-questionnaire for the affective domain were administered to see if there were any achievement in reading ability and affective domain. The findings were as follows: (1) The four groups showed improvement in the reading ability tests. This result indicates that extensive reading was effective in improving students' reading ability; (2) The footnote gloss group showed the greatest change. This result indicates that footnote glosses influenced the most in improving students' reading ability; (3) All the groups showed positive results in the affective domain including attitude, self-confidence, interest, expectation, and value. In conclusion, extensive reading made a positive effect on all four groups and footnote glosses proved to be the most effective in both cognitive and affective domain.

The aim of the present study was to examine factors affecting Korean university EFL learners' English reading comprehension across two reading tasks (i.e., literal vs. inferential reading). To this end, five latent factors (linguistic, cognitive, affective, social, and English reading) were targeted, and the structural relationships among these five factors were analyzed through structural equation modeling (SEM) technique. Results of the present study demonstrate that for literal reading comprehension task, linguistic, cognitive, and social factors made a significant and direct impact on Korean university students' English reading performances, whereas the effect of affective factor was not significant. Regarding the inferential reading task, only linguistic and cognitive factors were significantly and positively associated with Korean university students' English reading comprehension. Implications for pedagogy as well as for future research directions were also provided.

The present study sought to examine the continuity of the English textbooks of the elementary school 6th grade and the middle school 1st grade by analyzing the readability and vocabulary difficulty of their reading passages. It investigated the continuity between textbooks of the two grades and among chapters of each textbook. For the analysis, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Index was used to measure the readability of reading passages, whereas vocabulary difficulty was measured in terms of TTR (type-token ratio) and frequency by using VocabProfile. The results showed that the readability of middle school textbooks was one point higher than that of elementary school textbooks. Given that the readability index is based on the American school system, the increase in readability index between grades can be seen as large gap. In terms of vocabulary difficulty, the total amount of vocabulary in the middle school textbooks was three times as much as that of the elementary school textbooks. Second, readability index fluctuated across the chapters of each textbook, while the TTR was found to be higher in the former chapters than in the latter chapters in elementary school textbooks. All these could lead to learning difficulties for students. Pedagogical implications are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between prosody and reading comprehension of elementary school students in Korea. To achieve the purpose of the study, 114 fifth and sixth graders were selected from three schools of Seoul city and Gyeonggi province, and their prosody, word recognition and comprehension were assessed. In order to measure their prosody, students were asked to read a reading text orally for one minute, and the teacher checked their reading rate, decoding accuracy, and prosody. Students’ prosody was measured through Clay and Imlach’s (1971) method. The results of this study showed that while most students gained higher score in word recognition and reading rate, their prosodic features was found comparatively weak. It also revealed a correlation between the three sub-categories of prosody and reading comprehension. Based on the results of this study, it could be concluded that prosodic reading features of Korean EFL students have co-relations with comprehension, even if their prosodic feature is weak. Finally some ideas for enhancing prosody in L2 students’ reading instruction were suggested.

This study investigates the effect of strategies-based English reading programs on reading proficiency and affective domains of underachieving elementary school students. Eight fifth-grade students were selected and assigned to either the phonics/vocabulary learning group or the vocabulary/sentence learning group for two hours a week for 16 weeks. To address the research questions, data were collected from four main sources: English reading tests, questionnaire surveys, students’ learning logs and in-depth interviews with the students. The results of the study revealed that the English reading programs had positive impact on the students’ understanding of the relationship between letters and sounds, word recognition ability, and sentence reading. As students accumulated successful reading experiences, their self-confidence, interest in reading, and class participation increased while anxiety decreased. The study also revealed that there were differences in using strategies among students in each group, with higher level students tending to use higher-dimensional strategies with more variety than less able students. In conclusion, the leveled English reading programs customized for underachievers appear to be effective in assisting underachievers in their English reading skills.

The purpose of the current study was to explore the effects of background knowledge, time pressure, and involvement on reading comprehension. One hundred and twenty college students read three passages and answered comprehension questions in eight different experimental conditions: activated vs inactivated background knowledge, with vs without time pressure, and high vs low involvement. The results showed main effects of background knowledge and involvement on reading comprehension, indicating essential roles of background knowledge in facilitating the processes of reading comprehension in Korea’s EFL educational contexts. In addition, the study found an interaction effect of background knowledge and time pressure on reading comprehension. Pedagogical implications are suggested.