This study explores Korean EFL learner preferences and perceptions of digital composing (DC) with innovative online technology tools during the implementation of emergency remote learning measures. The research compares learner use of text-based DC and voice-based audio asynchronous online discussion (AOD). This paper investigates the following research problem: What digital modes of interactive, online instructional design can serve as appropriate, learner-accepted replacements for offline instruction? One prior finding indicated that Korean undergraduate EFL learners preferred text and audio DC to video modes. To follow up, this paper investigates 57 learners’ preferences and perceptions toward text-based and voice-based DC, and compares the results. The data analysis methods employ paired-samples Tests, and a thematic analysis to identify issues raised in student comments. The results reveal that learners’ levels of user satisfaction with voice-based audio AOD and their ratings of its perceived usefulness confirm that it can be a satisfactory, effective, and preferable task for engaging learners in digitally-mediated four-skills practice. Another finding is that utilizing a voice-based audio module did not significantly alter learners’ course satisfaction when superseding a text-based module. These findings inform pedagogical practice with empirical insights regarding learners’ use of digital technologies, levels of acceptance, and DC preferences.

Adopting a conversation analytic framework, this paper examined the delay and potential indeterminacy of teacher’s repetition as an other-initiated repair (OIR) strategy, which took place at the third turn of the Initiation-Response-Evaluation (IRE) sequence in one-on-one tutoring sessions. Tutor-tutee interactions for a Korean secondary student were transcribed and analyzed along with notes used in the class. Data showed that when repetition was used as an OIR strategy, it was delayed and inaccurate. The learner was sometimes unsure whether the teacher’s repetition constituted a repair initiation regarding her prior turn. Furthermore, the learner could not successfully recognize which part of the repeated phrase should be repaired. Prior studies have confirmed that repetition can promote learners’ interactions rather than simply highlighting error while also giving learners an opportunity to correct their errors themselves. However, the analysis in this paper suggests a potential risk associated with using repetition as an OIR strategy at feedback turn in instructional discourse.

This study utilized a longitudinal data collection to examine online factors of digital multimodal composing (DMC) preference and measure learner course satisfaction with digital composing modes in an online EFL communication course. The purpose of this research was to involve learners in a process of online, interactive, and multimodal curricular design during emergency remote learning due to the coronavirus pandemic. Innovative online technologies such as a new learning management system and digital educational components were implemented and used to quantitatively examine learners’ acceptance of technology. Korean learner preferences for textual and audio modes of DMC were indicated by Relative Advantage, Perceived Usefulness, and User Satisfaction factors. These factors also indicated an aversion to video-based DMC including video recordings and video responses as well as moderate concern for video conferencing. Qualitative findings revealed student concern for the constructs of Ease of Use and Using Video Modalities when transitioning to new online learning technologies.

In a teaching environment where all instructors have to teach the same class materials within limited time, from which they have to create the same test items, it is very difficult to create some space that could foster learner autonomy (LA). The purpose of the study is to examine the effects of LA on college students’ academic achievements, task perceptions, and classroom engagement at a Korean university. The study was undertaken in four sections of the same beginner level college English course over the course of a semester. A total of 84 students enrolled in the college English class participated in the study, of which 41 students were assigned to the control group and 43 students to the experimental group. The students’ learning outcomes between the control and experimental groups, their responses to the LA task, and the instructor’s observations of the students’ learning process were analyzed. The study revealed that the students in the experimental group produced significantly higher scores in their exams than those in the control group. Also, compared to its counterpart, the experimental group appeared to engage in the learning process more actively. Educational implications for promoting LA in EFL college classes are discussed.

While many scholars paid attention to L2 learner beliefs about grammar learning and error correction, there has been little research on both teacher and learner beliefs about types of grammar instructions in Korean EFL contexts. This study aimed to investigate the beliefs about types of instructions as well as grammar learning and error correction using a questionnaire adapted from Jean and Simard (2011). A total of four hundred and eighty-seven participants in Korea participated in the study and were divided into five groups: three teacher subgroups (non-native Korean high school, non-native Korean college, and native college) and two student subgroups (high school and college). The participants in general highly valued accuracy in L2 learning, but they disliked grammar learning or teaching. While both students and teachers believed that grammar instructions such as discovery learning, and mechanical practice could be useful in grammar learning, Korean teachers reported more positive views on grammar instructions than Korean students. The majority of the participants reported that they had a tendency to prefer error correction in the written production rather than in the spoken one. The results also revealed opinion gaps among the subgroups. The pedagogical and theoretical implications will be discussed.

Task-based language instruction has been increasingly promoted in second language (L2) classrooms under the assumption that it can provide an ultimate condition for L2 learning when combined with form-focused interventions such as teacher corrective feedback (CF). The present research investigated the amount, type, and learner uptake of teacher CF in relation to the following task-related variables: (1) task vs. nontask work, (2) focused vs. unfocused tasks, and (3) open vs. closed tasks. Data were collected from 8 intermediate adult EFL classrooms. It was found that the amount of teacher CF provided during tasks versus nontasks and focused versus unfocused tasks was not significantly different. However, the teachers used different strategies depending on the focus of tasks. The study did not relate the matter of open versus closed tasks to the amount and types of teacher CF. When considering learner uptake, the study found that the teachers tended to offer more uptake opportunities during relatively form-oriented activities, and the learners’ uptake was more successful when they were working in relatively form-oriented activities compared to the cases where they were in meaning-based activities. Learner uptake was not associated with whether or not tasks were open and closed.

Despite a growing interest in the role of written corrective feedback (CF) in L2development, not enough research has examined how learners actually process and understand linguistic information delivered in CF. Acknowledging the importance and necessity of process-oriented research into written CF, the present study investigated the extent to which Korean learners of English understood written CF they received from the teacher in writing classes. In addition, the study looked into whether the presence and quality of understanding of CF was related to learners’immediate uptake and retention of CF. Two intact writing classes and one native English teacher participated in the present research. The study found that a third of CF targeting grammar errors and a half of CF targeting vocabulary errors were correctly understood. The quality of the learners’ understanding of CF was closely related to their immediate uptake in terms of grammar but not in vocabulary; and the quality of their understanding was strongly related to retention in grammar and vocabulary.

The study investigated whether Korean EFL students' vocabulary used in reading-based writing differed according to writing topic and their reading and writing proficiency. College students enrolled in writing courses (n=95) were asked to write argumentative essays in response to two readings on judging people by appearance (JPA) and disclosing personal information of serious criminals (DPI). These students were divided into high and low proficiency writer groups and into high and low proficiency reader groups according to their writing and reading scores respectively. The students' vocabulary used in writing was then analyzed by VocabProfile, which provided four lexical frequency lists: the first 1000 frequent words (K1) including function words (FW) and content words (CW), the second 1000 frequent words (K2), academic word list (AWL), and off the list words (OLW). The results indicated that the topic JPA produced a higher proportion of K1 and content words, whereas DPI generated more K2 and off the list words. None of the vocabulary profiles, however, significantly differed according to the students’ reading proficiency. In contrast, proficient writers were found to use significantly more K1 and function words than their counterparts. With the topic effect further considered, for JPA, proficient writers used more K1 words and function words whereas less proficient writers used more K2 and off the list words. With regard to DPl, proficient writers were found to use more function words than low proficient writers. Findings are discussed in more detail, along with implications.

The present study investigates the collocations of the first person plural possessive pronoun in order to identify L1 influence in Korean EFL learners' writing, in comparison with native English speakers’ writing. From a cognitive linguistic perspective, this learner corpus research focuses on the use of the first person pronoun OUR in English, which seems to be negatively transferred by somewhat peculiar usages of the Korean equivalent pronoun wuli. The contrastive interlanguage analysis first shows that Korean learners significantly overuse first person plural pronouns whereas they significantly underuse first person singular pronouns, compared to native English speakers. Second, it also indicates that the distribution of frequencies of the ‘OUR + noun’ collocations according to a classification based on the Sejong Corpus seems very similar in both corpora, and that the frequencies are likely to be dependent upon specific individual collocates. Third, Korean learners appear to particularly overuse six specific ‘OUR + noun’ collocations rather than ‘MY + noun’ collocations, which can be argued to be empirical evidence of L1 influence. The findings of the present study are expected to provide valuable implications to English language teaching in classroom in Korea.

본 연구는 영어 능력 초급 수준의 EFL 성인 학습자들의 글쓰기 불안이 과정 중심 쓰기 접근(process writing approach) 교수에 의해 어떻게 변화하는지를 조사하였다. Daly and Miller(1975a)의 DM-WAT를 근거로 본 연구의 영어 글쓰기 학습자들을 위해 약간의 수정을 가미한 WAT (글쓰기 불안감 테스트)를 사용하여 과정중심 쓰기 접근 교수를 실시하기 전과 후의 학습자들의 심리적 변화를 조사하여 글쓰기 불안의 네 가지 요인으로 분석하였다: (1) 영어 글쓰기를 좋아하는 정도(Enjoyment of writing in English, EOW); (2) 영어 글쓰기에 대한 부정적 인식(Negative perception about writing in English, NPW); (3) 평가에 대한 두려움(Fear of evaluation, FOE); 그리고 (4) 영어 글쓰기에 대한 자신감(Self-confidence of writing in English, SCW). 결과에 의하면 전체적으로 학습자들의 부정적인 영어 글쓰기에 대한 두려움이 과정 중심 글쓰기 교수 이후 네 가지 요인에 있어서 현저히 감소하였다. 특히 여성 학습자들의 사전 사후 부정적 글쓰기에 대한 두려움의 차이가 남성 학습자들보다 더 의미 있는 결과를 나타내었으며, 학습자 모두가 두 가지 글쓰기 요인, 즉 NPW 와 FOE 요인에 있어서 과정 중심 글쓰기의 효과를 더욱 나타내었다. 이는 흔히 제 2 언어 학습자들의 글쓰기 불안은 언어적 지식 및 자신감의 부족에서 비롯되기에, 본 연구의 학습자들은 5단계의 과정 중심 글쓰기 활동들이 언어적 자신감을 높이는 스캐폴딩 글쓰기(scaffolded writing)와 같은 역할을 하여 그 결과 부정적 글쓰기 불안감이 현저히 낮아짐을 보여주고 있다. 즉 사전 쓰기(pre-writing) 활동에서의 브레인스토밍, 모델텍스트를 통한 구조, 어휘, 문법, 주제문 찾기 등의 언어적 요인 살펴보기 및 개인별 쓰기 완성(drafting), 그리고 수정단계(revising)에서의 교사의 피드백 및 친구와의 상호작용을 통한 피드백 등을 통해 그들의 영어사용에 대한 지식의 부족을 향상시키고 협력하는 학습 분위기의 영향으로 영어 글쓰기에 대한 부정적 태도 및 감정적인 면에서 훨씬 완화되고 편안해짐을 보여준 결과로 여겨진다.

By comparing a corpus of Korean learners of English with a native speaker corpus, this study shows to what extent and in what ways Korean learners acquire English modal verbs can, could, may, and might (Hunston 2002). This corpus study revealed that the Korean learners underused could, may, and might. Two factors can explain the pattern of the Korean learners’ acquisition of the 4 modal verbs. First, the difficulty of combining tense with the modal verbs impedes the learners’ preterit form use of the modal verbs. Second, the epistemic modality is acquired much later than the root modality such as possibility, permission, and ability (Gibbs 1990). Since may and might typically associate with the epistemic modality, the learners rarely used those modal verbs.