Second language writing research has focused on the learning-to-write approach whose analytic and pedagogical goal is to develop L2 learners' writing proficiency. Equally important is the writing-to-Iearn approach that uses writing as a primary tool for content learning. Drawn from writing across the curriculum (WAC) movement in North America, the writing-to-Iearn approach integrates writing into content instructions across various disciplines. Considering that Korean universities have increased English-mediated courses, it is timely to explore how the writing-to-Iearn approach can be used for content learning in English. Writing in this approach is considered to demonstrate whether and how students understand and undertake the course content presented in the assigned readings. The present study examines in-class timed writings produced in a course for English majors at a university in Korea. The student writings were analyzed and classified into four distinctive categories in terms of how they use sources in their writings. The data analysis demonstrates the types of problems these students have in processing complex texts and specifies an array of distinctive ski lls they need to be fully proficient.

The study investigates whether different English learning contexts result in different grammar development in learners’ shared mother tongue, Korean. The research instrument included a sentence completion task of collocational expressions in Korean dialogues, a multiple-choice test of grammar in Korean sentences and dialogues, and a sentence composition task using double nominative structures. The participants were 26 students at the age of 8 to 9 year old in the EFL context, 21 in a type of immersion program, and 19 in the ESL context. The results showed little difference among the three groups in the collocation sentence completion task and the multiple-choice test, but a clearly significant difference between the EFL students and the ESL students in the double nominative sentence composition task. The students who had been learning English in English culture showed more limited knowledge in the writing sentences with such peculiar but common structures in Korean language, compared with those who had been learning English in a Korean cultural context. In the complementary correlation analysis of the scores in the sentence composition task with a double nominative structure, the length of residence in Korea proved the strongest correlation, implying that the longer students live in Korea, the better they perform. The study provides the pedagogical implication that the curriculum of a mother tongue for bilingual learners could need to intervene with more emphasis on enhancing learners’ grammatical development, including language-specific structures.

The advancement in technology and availability of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) technology and the Internet made meaningful interaction possible in both on and offline environments, which is referred to as blended learning. Blended learning has recently begun to gain popularity in ELT, and appropriate models of blended learning need to be developed for EFL classrooms. However, there have not been many attempts to investigate its application and development of appropriate teaching and learning models of blended learning in the field of ELT, especially in relation to English language skills and subskills. Therefore, the purposes of this study are to investigate the students’ perspectives and effectiveness of blended learning in English pronunciation skills, and to explore gender differences in blended learning. The subjects of this study consist of 173 Korean university students, and quantitative data including questionnaire and pre-experiment were collected. The major findings of the study are as follows. First, students’ perspectives in blended learning, its components, and tools were very positive. Second, blended learning was found to be effective in the development of segmental and suprasegmental pronunciation skills. Third, there were few significant gender differences found regarding social aspects of online interaction. Implications and suggestions based on the findings and discussion are provided.

This study examines the effects of the sequence of increasing task complexity in different modalities on the learning of the English past tense of Korean secondary learners. Robinson’s (2007) Cognition Hypothesis argued that learners pay more attention to grammatical forms in complex tasks than in less complex tasks. He suggested that tasks should be sequenced in such a way that resource-dispersing dimensions are first increased in complexity followed by an increase in the complexity of resource-directing dimensions. However, little empirical research has been done on how tasks are sequenced according to their cognitive complexity and how task modality affects second language development in the sequence. Fifty-four learners were divided into an integrated (writing with oral interaction) task group (EG 1), an oral-only task group (EG 2) and a comparison group (CG). After the sequence of six tasks was completed, one-way ANOVA revealed the EGs outperformed the CG significantly on the posttest. The mean score of EG 1 was the highest, while the improvement rate of EG 2 was the highest among the three groups. It is hoped that this result will contribute to building a solid basis on which practitioners can make decisions about sequencing tasks and implementing task modality.

The present study investigated native speaker teachers’ beliefs about learning and teaching English in the Korean university setting. Despite the great influx of native speaker teachers into the Korean English education system, relatively little research has been carried out on teachers’ perspectives on learning and teaching. Considering the significant impact of teachers’ beliefs in the classroom, this study investigated the sources of teachers’ beliefs, their beliefs about learning and teaching, and their beliefs about teacher roles in the second language classroom. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with eight native English speakers who were teaching at the same university. The findings showed that the teachers believed students’ active participation was the key to successful second language learning. It was shown that the teachers’ beliefs were closely associated with their prior learning experiences and that differences in the learning experiences between the teacher and students may cause difficulty in the second language classroom. These findings suggest the importance of teachers’ awareness of students’ learning experiences and the need to negotiate within the given teaching context without completely giving up teachers’ own beliefs about learning and teaching a second language.

This study aims to validate the English learning anxiety scale for Korean primary school students. At the initial stage, 16 items of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986) were drawn from the literature reviews for the preliminary test. Then, 177 primary school students were sampled for the preliminary test. After the exploratory factor analysis was undertaken, the English Learning Anxiety Scale (ELAS) was reduced to 14 items, which consisted of two dimensions (oral English classroom anxiety, and low self-confidence in English). The main test was given to 573 primary school students from fourth grades to sixth grades in eight different schools in order to confirm validity and reliability of the ELAS. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modeling demonstrated that the ELAS is a valid (TLI, AGFI, CFI>.94, RMSEA=.049) and reliable (Cronbach’s α = 0.891) instrument.

The study aims to find out the demotivating and remotivating factors in the college students’ past English learning experiences and to explore the effective English class for low level students based on the research results. The 125 students participated in a reflective student questionnaire, and the students’ responses are analyzed through descriptive statistics. According to the results, most students’ lowest motivation period was high school years and the highest motivation time was college years followed by elementary years. The major demotivators and remotivators were identified according to four categories: external, internal, learning situation (classroom / outside classroom), and learner. The research findings show that in demotivation process, external factors influenced more than internal factors, and learning situation factors affected more than learner factors. In contrast, in remotivation process, internal factors more affected than external factors and students’ desire to be good at English and their awareness of the usefulness of English mostly affected their remotivation. However, it is revealed that classroom factors are the most important factors in motivating the students among learner, classroom, outside classroom factors. Based on identified demotivating and remotivating factors, the researcher suggested the appropriate English class for lower level college students.

This article illustrates the complicated process of language socialization and literacy development with identity reformulations that Korean students face while learning English in U.S. schools. With providing a detailed and broad picture of second language literacy development across time, the article presents two research-based studies conducted at the elementary and secondary levels respectively. Despite the constant growth of the Korean population in the USA for decades, few research studies have examined the ways that newly arrived Korean students engage in language learning and literacy practice along with changes in life, language, literacy, and culture. The presented studies employed ethnographic data gathering methods and utilized methods of constant comparison, discourse analysis, and narrative analysis. The first study focuses on literate identities of second grade Korean students in the English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom. The second study explores how Korean adolescents engage in school writing practice and how they negotiate their identities in and with writing through a case study.

The purpose of this paper is to provide the efficient methodes of the basic English conversation learning. Various theories have been proposed to explain how children manage to acquire the adult language. The acquisition of a second language parallels the acquisition of a first native language. If a second language is learned early in life, it is usually acquired with no difficulty. The difficulties encountered in attempting to learn languages after puberty have given rise to a critical age hypothesis that refers to a biological period in which language can be acquired without overt teaching. A number of second-language teaching methods have been proposed, reflecting different theories of the nature of language and language acquisition. These methods, however, do not explain the apparent differences between first and second language acquisition.In order to obtain a complete picture of a second language acquisition process, it is necessary to combine the findings from both naturalistic and experimental studies, keeping in mind that differences in the tasks may affect the results. Studies conducted on a wide range of different languages are also needed in the quest for universal of second language acquisition.

본 연구에서는 영어 단어 및 문장을 학습하기 위한 컴퓨터 카드 게임을 개발하였다. 이 게임은 첫째, 학습자에게 카드놀이라는 친숙하고 흥미로운 요소를 제공하여 학습자에게 학습 동기를 부여한다. 둘째, 교육적인 요소를 통하여 학습 효과를 향상시킬 수 있도록 한다. 셋째, 난이도 선택과 반복 학습을 통하여 지속적으로 학습 동기를 유지하도록 한다. 뿐만 아니라 시간, 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.

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.