This study aimed to investigate the effect of visual input enhancement (VIE) on the comprehension of reading texts and the learning of two grammatical forms: English relative clauses and articles. Individual learners’ working memory (WM) capacity was also tested to explore its impact on the effectiveness of VIE. A total of 48 Korean college learners of English were assigned into three groups: (a) relative group receiving VIE on relative clauses (b) article group receiving VIE on articles, and (c) a control group receiving no VIE. Results showed that VIE did not have any negative effect on the learners’ reading comprehension. Rather, it had positive effects on the learning of the two grammatical forms. According to the findings, VIE on relative clauses enhanced the learners’ receptive knowledge of the grammatical form, whereas VIE on articles enhanced the learners’ productive knowledge of the form. There was a potential link between the effectiveness of VIE and the learners’ working memory processing ability. Pedagogical implications are also discussed based on these findings.

The current study examined the potential contribution of advanced Korean EFL learners’ writing abilities to their reading comprehension abilities. A total of 191 college students participated in this study and were tested on writing and reading comprehension abilities as well as other literacy-related measures including listening comprehension, textreading fluency, and knowledge of vocabulary to control for their effects. In order to account for different aspects of writing and reading comprehension abilities, multiple measures of reading and writing abilities were adopted. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analyses demonstrated that the advanced Korean EFL learners’ English writing abilities had a significant effect on their reading comprehension abilities when other relevant literacy skills were controlled for. Furthermore, their writing abilities mediated the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension abilities. These results highlight the important pedagogical implications on the critical role of writing abilities in enhancing the reading comprehension abilities of L2 learners.

This study reports Chinese and Korean university EFL students’ perceptions of and attitudes toward online and face-to-face English language learning modes during COVID-19. Few previous studies have focused on how students thought of online and face-to-face learning experiences of subjects regarding new concept learning and delivery of new contents. Research gravitating around English courses showed students' mixed perceptions. The survey was conducted for 302 Korean and 337 Chinese university students who took communication-oriented English courses. Descriptive statistics and qualitative data analysis were used for analysis. Results indicated that students preferred face-to-face English learning with some specific indications of achieving a stronger help and quality for communicative competence in language. Online learning also benefited students with a sense of both flexibility and independence. Positive components of face-to-face learning for language education might be considered for online education while incorporation features such as flexibility and independence to enrich language education during COVID-19.

Numerous studies have supported the simple view of reading by showing the significant predictive roles of oral language comprehension ability and decoding skills in the reading comprehension of monolinguals and second language learners. However, little is known about its applicability to young foreign language learners who do not have much access to the target language and literacy input outside the school and especially those whose first and second languages are typologically different. This study was designed to examine the contribution of English oral language comprehension ability and decoding skills to the reading comprehension of fifth-grade Korean EFL learners. In doing so, the indirect effects of oral language ability and phonological awareness were also considered, and English reading fluency and Korean reading comprehension abilities were controlled for. The findings not only support the simple view of reading but also highlight the indirect effects of oral language comprehension ability and phonological awareness on reading comprehension abilities via the effects of decoding skills.

The study investigated how task types such as input or output could affect Korean EFL learners’ vocabulary learning at both short- and long-term periods after treatment. Forty two college students in Korea were randomly assigned to one of the four tasks. Based on Involvement Load Hypothesis, each task induced the same or different involvement loads: Read without glossary (Input), Gap with glossary (Input & Output), Gap without glossary (Input & Output), and Sentence and write (Output). Receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge was measured right after the treatment and a month later. The output-oriented tasks were found to be more effective than the input-oriented tasks regardless of type of vocabulary knowledge. The current study concluded that modalities such as input or output other than task-induced involvement load can contribute to Korean EFL learners’ vocabulary learning. The pedagogical discussion will be made at the conclusion.

This paper examined factors affecting Korean EFL learners’ word association types in their L2 mental lexicon. Specifically, vocabulary size of the learners was examined to see if it had any significant relationship with word association types. To this end, experiment procedures that included vocabulary size test and the lexical decision task as well as the word association task were conducted on 40 Korean EFL learners. Reaction time and accuracy of responding to word associations in the lexical decision task were measured. Subsequently, a correlation analysis was conducted with their vocabulary size. Additionally, learners’ word association types were analyzed based on the results of word association task. The results showed that Korean EFL learners’ vocabulary size had significant correlations with their accuracy in identifying syntagmatic and paradigmatic associations, but not in the phonological association. However, their accuracy was not correlated with reaction times. The results indicate that L2 learners’ mental lexicon is partially dependent on their vocabulary size of the target language, and it is variable depending on word association types.

The act of refusal takes place in everyday lives, but it has been discussed to be a difficult speech act for nonnative speakers. This study seeks to investigate Korean EFL learners’ refusals in extended discourse along with their pragmatic perceptions. Sixteen college students were engaged in oral role-plays with two native English speakers and instructed to refuse the interlocutor’s request. The refusal performances were analyzed using conversation analysis framework with respect to the interlocutors’ different powers and the learners’ proficiency levels. Learners also participated in retrospective verbal reports. Findings depict different verbal and nonverbal features illustrating learners’ sensitivity towards higher status and their different linguistic abilities. Furthermore, their verbal reports revealed that despite their pragmatic awareness, learners were not fully equipped with appropriate L2 pragmatic knowledge.

The present study examines the usage patterns of stance that constructions in Korean EFL learners' written corpora by two different proficiency groups (KEFL 1, KEFL 2) to figure out some developmental features of marking stance in L2 academic prose. Focusing on three main categories (stance verbs, adjectives, and nouns) controlling stance that clauses, the study compares the frequency of each feature by the categories and their subcategories across the corpora. Employing both quantitative and qualitative analyses, the study found a marked developmental path across the corpora as a cross-sectional study. Indeed, less proficient L2 learners tended to use spoken involvement features as ‘a subjective transmitter’, emphasizing the writer's view only with a private authorial voice. However, more advanced learners showed remarkable features as ‘an objective interpreter’ with more implicitly detached stances. Despite a few chunk expressions considered as being memorized, more complex grammatical resources appropriate for academic discourse were observed. Finally, as the final stage, this study suggests ‘a refined stance-taker’ referring to an expert writer in the academic discourse community, which may be devoid in untrained native speakers' writing. In accordance with the need for university students to transition into more advanced academic discourse sooner, this study provides some practical insights into teaching and learning of stance patterns in using that complement clauses in English academic discourse.

Although the use of Grammatical Metaphor (GM) has been regarded as one of the representative features of academic writing in the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), not many studies have explored its role in second or foreign language writers’ writing quality. This study aimed to discover the potential relationship between GM development and argumentative writing quality of advanced Korean EFL learners, while controlling for their overall language proficiency and reading comprehension ability. The findings from this study unveiled significant contribution of the use of both premature and mature GM and also identified transcategorization as the specific GM that has relatively stronger predictability of writing quality. The results from current research yield meaningful pedagogical implications for writing instruction in Korean EFL contexts.

This study explores how Korean English learners process English caused-motion constructions (CMC) through online and offline experiments. The focus was on how Korean learners’ processing of English CMC is affected by the typological difference between English and Korean. Of the 77 volunteer participants recruited, 17 were native English speakers and 60 were Korean EFL learners. The experiments included a sentence completion task (SCT) as an online experiment, and an acceptability jugment task (AJT) and a translation (correction) task as offline experiments. The results showed that in the SCT, the Korean learners showed difficulty in combining process and result events with intransitive manner verbs. In the AJT, they rarely accepted the CMCs with intransitive manner verbs, but easily accepted the ‘causative verb + byphrase’ structures with the same type of verbs. When the sentences were employed in the AJT were asked to be translated into Korean, the low-intermediate Korean learners were likely to drop the result meaning and interpret the preposition phrase as a locative rather than a goal. In sum, Korean learners showed similar patterns to native English speakers in processing path verbs and transitive manner verbs, but different pattern in processing intransitive manner verbs. These findings demonstrate that Korean learners' processing of English CMC is heavily influenced by their L1 when the construction accompanied intransitive manner verbs.

In argumentative writing, writers are expected to use hedged expressions and stance devices through specific linguistic expressions to convince their proposition effectively. Yet little research attention has been paid to whether the inclusion of such devices is related to the overall quality of second or foreign language learners’ argumentative writing. In this study, hedges and stance devices that are included in 28 advanced Korean EFL writers’ argumentative writing were analyzed to identify their potential relation to the overall writing quality. Analyses demonstrated that although hedges and stance devices were related to argumentative writing quality in general, the specific linguistic forms that predicted two different aspects of writing quality – formal and content quality – were different. Specifically, hedges played a significant positive role in only content quality of writing, and the specific stance devices that significantly predicted formal quality did not contribute to the content quality, and vice versa. The findings from this study provides important pedagogical implications for EFL writing instruction.

As research evidence for the facilitative effects of reading strategies on reading comprehension has been accumulating, research and pedagogical interests in prereading strategies such as prediction and schema activation are increasing. Yet, little research evidence of how actual performance on such tasks may be related to reading comprehension is sparse. This study explores whether prediction abilities and content schema are related to Korean middle school EFL learners’ reading comprehension abilities in English, and whether such potential relations may differ for factual and inferential comprehension. The study participants were one hundred thirty-seven Korean seventh grade students, and their performance on schema activation, prediction, and reading comprehension abilities was investigated, while controlling for their overall language proficiency and literacy skills. The findings indicated that although both prediction abilities and content schema facilitated reading comprehension, prediction abilities were a relatively stronger predictor of both factual and inferential comprehension. The results further suggest the need to provide effective trainings on pre-reading strategies.

Collocational competence is important part of L2 English amplifier acquisition. This competence entails learners' ability to use the right combination of words with natural-sounding semantic prosody. It is known to be an integral part of mastering pragmatic function of L2 English vocabulary, which also is a challenge for the learners at the same time (Zhang, 2008). Despite the importance, previous studies on ESL/EFL learners' amplifier use lacked empirical evidence and insight about semantic prosody. The purpose of present learner corpora-based study was to fill the existing research gap by finding patterns of amplifiers. Two existing corpora were selected, coded, and analyzed to fulfill this purpose; they are Korean EFL learners and native speakers of English (NE). Results from analysis found Korean learners' overall underuse in amplifiers. Also, frequently occurring amplifier ranks for each corpus differed. Semantic prosody analysis revealed that amplifier associated with dominantly positive connotation were very, really, and highly. Amplifiers associated with dominantly negative connotation were extremely, absolutely, severely, and greatly. Contrast analysis showed that the only amplifier that Koreans and NEs used amplifier to signal same semantic prosody dominantly was severely (negative). Other than that, Koreans and NE showed salient discrepancies in semantic prosody use. The pedagogical implication of the present study is that vocabulary teaching need to include semantic prosody, and the first step will be to conduct ESL/EFL teacher education about it (Zhang, 2009). It's important to remind them of the value of semantic prosody in language communication (S Lee, 2011).

Ko, Bo-Ai. 2018. “Thematic Patterns in Formal Email Writing of Korean EFL College Learners”. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 26(1). 31~59. This study explores the Theme types and the thematic progression in the formal email writings of Korean EFL college learners, based on the Theme-Rheme analytical framework of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG). Data was collected from 99 college students, enrolled in an English Writing Composition course during the second semester of 2017 via a cyber university in Korea. Their main writing activity involved email writings in the form of requesting primarily based on the Genre Approach. Text analysis was conducted with the comparison of the high- scoring group (15), the medium-scoring group (15) and the low-scoring group (15), based on assessment of the course assignment. Employing the coding step of identifying the Theme and Rheme of each T-unit, the text analysis sought to figure out which Theme types were used for each T-unit and which thematic progression patterns were used for overall text flow and cohesion. The key finding was that there were certain discourse-specific thematic patterns of formal email writing. Among the range of thematic features, this study will highlight marked Themes, interpersonal Themes and thematic choices of nominalization for the purpose of formal email writing texts.

This study investigated whether recasts provided during communicative interaction may improve Korean EFL learners’ accuracy with regard to regular and irregular English past tense forms, and whether individual differences in working memory capacity may intervene in the effects of recasts. To this end, forty-two Korean university students were placed into either the recast or the control group, and took the pretest and two types of working memory tests: phonological short-term and verbal. The learners participated in one-on-one conversational interactions with the researcher in three two-way communicative tasks one at a time on a weekly basis. Only the treatment group received explicit recasts on their past tense errors while the control group received no feedback of any kind. Finally, they took the posttest and completed the exit questionnaire. Results showed that recasts were beneficial for raising the learners’ accuracy level of English past tense forms, both regular and irregular, though the effects were much larger for the irregular forms. The improvements were not significantly correlated with neither of the working memory measures. Explicit and intensive recasting alone was sufficient in improving EFL learners’ English past tense accuracy in this one-on-one communicative interaction setting.

Despite extensive research attention that has been paid to second language (SL) or foreign language (FL) learners’ argumentative writing, most research has focused on the structural features characteristic of such writers. There have not been many systematic attempts to identify the quality of argument features SL or FL writers rely on, and how they contribute to the overall writing qualities. This study was designed to examine the relationship between the Toulmin elements, widely used measures of content qualities in arguments which include claims, data, warrants, rebuttals, qualifiers, and backings, and the overall qualities of advanced Korean high school EFL learners’ argumentative writing. Each of the thirty three participants’ argumentative writing was analyzed, applying the Toulmin model, and the results demonstrate that their overall argument qualities were closely related to the uses of the fundamental Toulmin elements, especially data and predicted best by the degree to which each claim was supported with relevant and sufficient data. These findings shed light on the need for instruction on the use of Toulmin elements in enhancing the overall quality of Korean EFL learners’ argumentative writing.

This study investigates how voice-chat conditions affect learners’ affective factors. In order to examine the effects of voice-chat conditions on Korean EFL learners’ attitudes towards English language learning and perceptions of voice-chat, 123 college students participated in this study. Participants were divided into two experimental groups: voice-chat with peers and voice-chat with robots. During the 16-experiment week, participants had a chat with either peers or robots. All participants in both voice-chat conditions showed positive attitudes towards English language learning and positive perceptions of voice-chat. Results indicate that both voice-chat conditions are effective in enhancing the learners’ confidence in English speaking, motivation to develop their English language skills, interests in English language learning, and beliefs in the improvement of their English speaking ability. In addition, engagement in voice-chat appears to help learners to reduce their stress and anxiety level. Findings suggest that EFL teachers integrate chat robots into their language teaching process.

This study examined the use of conjunctions in Korean high school EFL learners’ writings in two discourse modes–description and argument. A corpus of seventy-six descriptive essays and eighty argumentative essays was developed, in which the essays were rated based on their cohesiveness and divided into three groups by their grades. Conjunctions were analyzed based on Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) framework: additive, adversative, causal, and temporal conjunctions. The results revealed different trends of using conjunctions in the two different discourse modes. The descriptive writings with high scores on cohesion tend to exhibit more conjunctions when compared to lower-quality writings, and the argumentative writings with high scores showed fewer conjunctions. The high-quality writings in descriptive mode showed highly frequent uses of additives and adversatives, while those in argumentative mode displayed a lower frequency of additives and a more frequent use of adversative however. Small numbers of causal and temporal conjunctions were used in both discourse modes, and they were particularly limited in descriptive writings regardless of the cohesiveness of writings. This implies that more explicit instructions on causal and temporal conjunctions for each mode are needed in the writing classes. In addition, the scores on cohesion were significantly lower for the descriptive essays than for the argumentative essays, and a much narrower range of conjunctions was employed in descriptive writing. These results suggest a more balanced focus on various discourse modes of writing and the introduction of conjunctions that are appropriate for each mode, since the ability to use conjunctions in one mode does not seem to be automatically transferred to another mode in high school EFL learners’ writings.