To investigate L2 adolescent learners’ use of machine translation (MT), an MT error correction (EC) test was developed, based on the analysis of MT errors arising from translating the learners’ L1 of middle school EFL textbooks. Learners were also asked to report on their use of MT EC strategies on the EC task. Results indicated that mistranslated sentence and verb tense are the most difficult types of MT errors to correct. Furthermore, to resolve MT errors, guessing from context and literal translations were the two most frequently employed EC strategies. When multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine the contribution of EC strategies to the learners’ ability to correct errors, the mid proficiency learners’ reliance on literal translations and the low proficiency learners’ use of multiple EC strategies were positively associated with improved corrections of MT errors. The results of the study are discussed in light of how L2 learners need to develop competence for using MT in L2 writing.

This study investigated the effects of dual coding elucidation on raising learners’ awareness of L2 lexical errors and correct usage. Participants included 135 Korean EFL middle school students assigned to either a single-coding or dual-coding group. The single-coding group studied the incorrect and correct usage of target lexical items under a verbal-code-only condition. The dual-coding group studied the incorrect and correct usage under a verbal-plus-visual-code condition. Participants completed posttests at two intervals: immediately after studying the materials and four weeks later. Analyses revealed that dual coding elucidation had significant positive effects on facilitating learners’ awareness of lexical errors and correct usage; these effects remained over time. The results also indicated no significant correlations between learning style and the effectiveness of visuals. Qualitative data demonstrated that students perceived visuals as being helpful in improving accurate lexical use and their engagement in learning vocabulary. The article concludes by discussing the facilitative role of visual encoding in L2 lexical knowledge development, thus expanding on the dual coding theory.

This paper investigated Korean heritage learners" acquisition of Korean as a second language. In particular, written narratives of 16 Korean heritage learners were analyzed in order to identify errors and strategies observed in Korean heritage learners" second language writing. The findings of the study indicated that learners" errors were not significantly related to their proficiency levels in the target language. Likewise, no significant differences were observed in errors due to their proficiency levels. However, some differences were noted in several grammatical categories. In case- or tense-related areas, learners with higher proficiency levels were not much more accurate than those with lower proficiency levels. However, in terms of the use of inflectional markers, learners with higher proficiency levels exhibited higher accuracy than lower level learners. With regard to their use of strategies, literal translation, code-switching, and approximation were most frequently observed in their writings. The paper concludes with some implications for teaching Korean as a foreign language.