This study examined native-speaking English teachers’ pedagogical knowledge through the analysis of transcriptions of videotaped lessons and interviews with six novice English teachers teaching at middle schools. The goal was to discover what pedagogical knowledge these teachers have and how the knowledge was represented in the form of instructional actions. The dominant categories of the teachers’ instructional actions were repetition of input and instructions. Hence, there were a lot of repetitions of input which seem to come from behavioristic perspectives of language learning and teaching. Also, there were lots of teacher-initiated questions and directives to elicit responses from the students. The primary way of clearing the meaning of the text was translation. The findings indicated that the native-speaking teachers’ pedagogical thought are mostly pertinent to general educational knowledge not about language learning and teaching. In addition, the novice teachers’ pedagogical knowledge deduced from pedagogical thoughts leaned towards heavily to ‘Handling language items’ while experienced teachers in Gatbonton’s (2000) study displayed no dominant category. Implications for teacher training were discussed.

This paper overviews the college English teaching system at Seoul National University, and discusses possible changes prerequisite for the betterment of its system. It observes that improvement of college English education is hard to achieve without reestablishing its roles and objectives, paying special attention to its intrinsic relation with English teaching at the pre- and post-higher education levels. The paper suggests that colleges and universities lay more emphasis on quality education, which is best tuned to their students’ future needs and wants.

The present study was designed to probe pedagogical viability of extensive reading as an effective alternative in English reading instruction. To accomplish the purpose, an English book club was formed, consisting of 40 high school students. The book club activity was held during four months of summer and winter vacations in 2009. The participants were encouraged to freely write anything in their reading logs they felt while reading. The reading logs and interviews were analyzed. They revealed effects of extensive reading and changes of the readers' cognitive and affective reading processes. According to the results, 1) extensive reading has potential to be a successful alternative in English reading instruction; 2) the readers could experience “amusement” and “absorption” by reading sufficient books with the i−1 level; and 3) extensive reading enabled them to choose their ways of reading and to be responsible for their choices.

본 연구에서는 영어 단어 및 문장을 학습하기 위한 낚시 게임을 개발하였다. 이 게임은 첫째, 학습자에게 낚시라는 친숙하고 흥미로운 요소를 제공하여 학습자에게 학습 동기를 부여한다. 둘째, 교육적인 요소를 통하여 학습 효과를 향 상시킬 수 있도록 한다. 셋째, 난이도 선택과 반복 학습을 통하여 지속적으로 학습 동기를 유지하도록 한다. 뿐만 아 니라 점수, 실패 여부 및 성공 여부의 제시를 통하여 도전감을 제공한다. 학습자는 이 게임을 통하여 영어 듣기 학습 및 영어 읽기 학습을 할 수 있다. 그리고 영어 단어 또는 문장을 들은 후 원어민이 말한 것을 따라서 말해봄으로써 발음 학습 및 말하기 학습 또한 가능하다.

This paper discusses diverse ways of improving college English education program based on previous studies. In particular, the discussion focuses on three issues: the goals of college English education program, the content of the program curriculum, and the implementation of the curriculum. The purpose of the paper is to assess the current state of Korean college English education, diagnose its problems and weaknesses, and suggest various measures for enhancing it. The importance of taking into special consideration the characteristics of the college and its students as well as the students’ own learning needs in designing any college English education program is underscored. Given that the curriculum of English education program is developed by each college rather than by the government, the information that this paper provides is expected to help colleges upgrade their English education program.

This study recommends using children's literature in teacher training programs with the purpose of developing integrated language skills for primary school teachers and teaching methods for their students. First, to accomplish bifold objectives, the study develops three modules: 1) intensive listening through story books, 2) using in class dialogues through role-playing and 3) developing classroom activities. For presenting the examples of the three modules, Junie B., First Grader (at last!), Freckle Juice, and Jake Drake: Teacher's Pet are used. Next, the study presents teachers' perceptions on both using literature for improving their English skills and using literature in their teaching elementary school children. To investigate the possibility of implementing the program, the researcher surveyed 53 teachers participating in the program. The survey results showed teachers' perceptions on children's literature changed in positive ways, and they recognized that children's literature could develop their own English language skills and then would be a good teaching resource for their students. Based on the results, some suggestions were provided for the teachers, educators, and program developers.

This study investigates the problems and possibilities of introducing immersion in public elementary schools in Korea through the opinions of the elementary teachers, students, and parents. The participants of this study were 1,082 elementary school students, 484 elementary school teachers, and 731 parents. The data were collected through questionnaires. Through the analysis of data the followings were revealed. First, there were some misunderstandings and misconceptions about the definition and the meaning of immersion education, which seem to be strongly related to the negative attitudes toward the introduction of English immersion programs in Korea. Second, respondents, however, tended to be positive with the immersion program with about 10% higher agreement with its introduction than disagreement. Third, if they have opportunities to participate in an immersion program, the respondents tended to be a bit hesitative or reserved but mostly agreed to be involved with it as immersion teachers, students, and parents allowing their children, respectively with one to three years of preparation for it in terms of the English competence. Fourth, as for immersion teachers, they preferred co-teaching between Korean and English native teachers to individual teaching, and they also liked Korean immersion teachers more as immersion specialized teachers than as class teachers. Based on these findings several suggestions were made to implement English immersion programs in public elementary schools in Korea, particularly for teachers, schools, local governmental education offices interested in immersion education.