This study investigated the effects of processing three types of texts, namely expository texts, narrative texts, and a combination of both known as twin texts, on incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention in L2 learners. College freshmen (N = 109), who were lower to upper intermediate learners of English, were assigned into a control group and three experimental groups representing different reading conditions. Over a period of seven weeks, the experimental groups engaged in two reading sessions to read their assigned texts accompanied by output tasks and input enhancement. The participants’ receptive and productive vocabulary gains were measured with an immediate posttest and a delayed posttest to assess retention. Results revealed significant impacts of text genres on L2 incidental vocabulary learning and retention. Processing twin texts and expository texts yielded significantly greater vocabulary gains than processing narrative texts alone. These effects might be due to different processing mechanisms required for texts structured in distinct ways. Expository texts are informative and explanatory in nature, providing explicit and contextually rich information for word comprehension and retention.

This study investigated intra-learner variation in the effects of implicit and explicit focus on form (FonF) on second language (L2) acquisition of the English passive, an interface construction. The study employed a pretest-posttest-delayed posttest design, with five treatment sessions between the pretest and posttests. Implicit FonF was operationalized as textual enhancement (TE), and explicit FonF as consciousness-raising (C-R). Five different outcome measures were utilized to examine the respective treatment effects on the form, meaning, and function of the passive. Data were collected with four Korean high school students, two engaging in TE and the other two in C-R, whose developmental routes through the experiment were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results of the analysis showed that implicit and explicit FonF led to differential variation within each learner, not only across the outcome measures but also over time, yet were suggestive of a potential benefits to each for the different domains encompassed in the passive. These results are further discussed in relation to the learners’ proficiency levels and the types of errors they produced.

This study aims to investigate how L1 Chinese speakers of Korean acquire Korean embedded clauses with wh-expressions. Korean embedding verbs tutta ‘listen’ (Propositional-selecting predicate class) and kwungkumhata ‘wonder’ (Question-selecting predicate class) subcategorize for different types of complements which are defined by declarative complementizer ta or interrogative complementizer nunci. Tutta takes declarative or interrogative clauses and kwungkumhata can take only interrogatives. Experimental stimuli consisted of 12 embedding clauses by tutta (6 ta complementizer items and nunci complementizer items) and 12 embedding clauses by kwungkumhata(6 ta complementizer items and nunci complementizer items). Sixty three intermediate and advanced Chinese speakers of Korean(CK) participated in the study and 40 Korean native speakers(NK) participated as a control group. CK subjects were divided into 31 CK high group and 32 CK low group according to the participants’ Korean proficiency. The acceptability judgment among 3 groups were significantly different in the tutta-nunci condition and kwungkumhata-ta condition. The result showed that different learning principles were applied depending on the proficiency of learners. CK high group accepted the wh-embedding sentences in accordance with the semantic meaning of matrix verbs and type of wh-embedding clauses. However CK low group were not sensitive enough to discern the different linguistic context of wh-embedding sentences and rather accepted most of the given sentences.

This paper presents aspects of eight advanced Korean EFL speakers' acquisition of English unaccusative verbs over a period of five years. It examines how three factors−L1 morphology, pragmatic causation, and animacy−have affected their English unaccusative verb grammar during that time. A forced-elicitation grammaticality judgment task was performed three times over this period. It showed that L1 morphology was the most persistent among these factors. The results are compared with Chung (2014), a cross-sectional study, where the same method was used. The findings reveal that the Korean EFL subjects' overpassivization of English unaccusatives is not fossilized, which differs from the findings of Han (2006), who examined two Chinese native learners of English. It also indicates that instruction can play an important role in long-term L2 learning.

Thi s study investi gates whether the effect of written corrective feedback (CF) on learners' acquisition of English art icle usage is mediated by the type of information CF provides. To tap into this issue, four types of informat ion on error were identifi ed: its existence, location, correct form and nature. Written CF was categorized into three types according to the sorts of information it contained: indirect CF that supplies informat ion on existence and location, direct CF that provides information on ex istence, location and correct form, and metalinguistic CF that includes metalinguistic explanation on error nature and all the other infornlation types. Three CF groups were accord ingly formed along with a control group in a quasi-experiment, where the groups engaged in three narrative-writing tasks. Error correction and narrati ve writing tests were administered to measure the acquisition of explicit and implicit knowledge of English articles respectively. The results revealed that written CF was beneficial to acquisition of both L2 exp licit and im plicit knowledge and that such positive effects emerged only in the metalinguistic CF group. The findings added counterevidence to Truscott's (1996) argument against written CF utility and suggested that metalinguistic explanation on error may playa pivotal role in written CF-triggered L2 acqui sition.

This study investigates variation in article use by Korean secondary school students of English. The study shows how two different tasks affect variation with respect to article types (a, the, and zero), proficiency level and the semantic feature, specificity. One task, a wide domain task, focused on grammar in general and the narrow domain task focused on articles. The statistical results showed that the subjects performed significantly better on the narrow domain task than on the wide domain task. The subjects showed significant differences among the three articles in the wide domain task, while they did not in the narrow domain task. The subjects performed significantly better with non-specific DPs (Determiner Phrases) than with specific DPs in the wide domain task, but reversed results were revealed in the narrow domain task. The present study presents some finding that grammatical domain plays a role as a variable for variability and shows that different tasks on the same research topic may produce different findings.

This study is a follow-up of Hwang's (2007) empirical study, which investigated the role of awareness in Korean high school students' subsequent learning of the English passive. Hwang (2007) found the positive relationship between awareness and subsequent processing of the target structure and claimed the crucial role of awareness in successful second language learning. The present study explores whether the effects of awareness retain six months after the first post-exposure task of Hwang (2007), which was performed one day after the instruction. The results of the present study revealed the retention of the effects of awareness in the written production task as well as in the multiple-choice recognition task. However, no significant differences were found between the passive group, who were consciously aware of the target structure through a reading text and brief explanation about the English passive, and the preposition group whose attention could be implicitly drawn to the target structure through the reading text only. The results cannot fully support Schmidt's noticing hypothesis and can also be interpreted as providing evidence for the dissociation claim that L2 learning can take place implicitly without conscious awareness.