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.

In an effort to find a way to optimize the learning condition, this study examined the effects of two types of input frequency distribution, skewed-first distribution (SFD) versus balanced distribution (BD), and two types of focus-on-form techniques, input processing (IP) versus input enhancement (IE), on the learning of English participles by Korean middle school students. A total of 91 students participated in this study, divided into five subgroups: SFD + IP, SFD + IE, BD + IP, BD + IE, and Control. The learning outcomes and the generalizability of the learned knowledge were measured through scaled judgment tasks and picture description tasks, immediately after treatment as well as one week later. The results showed that the input frequency distribution factor did not have statistically significant effects on learning and generalizability, while the degrees of explicitness of focus-on-form techniques had statistically significant effects on both. The interaction effects of the two main factors were not statistically significant. More detailed findings are presented with some pedagogical implications for Korean EFL classrooms.

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.

This study investigates the effects of syntactic priming on the learning of the ditransitive construction by 49 Korean elementary school English learners. In this study the effects of syntactic priming were scrutinized more in detail by implementing it in three different input frequency conditions: Skewed-first distribution, balanced distribution, and the control. Results indicated that syntactic priming overall had facilitative effects on the oral production performance of the participants. When it comes to the participants’ comprehension of the target construction, however, it was only in the skewed-first distribution that priming had a substantial learning effect. It is concluded that priming combined with the skewed-first type of input distribution would have generalizable and durable learning effects.

The purpose of this study is to investigate elementary school teachers’ and students’ experience of teaching and learning English grammar and how they perceive English grammar education with regard to its role in learning English and the need and ways of including grammar instruction into the curriculum. Questionnaires were administered to 123 teachers and 1513 6th grade students. In addition, written interviews with 20 teachers were done through e-mail. Major findings from the analysis of this survey are three-fold. First, most of the teachers and the students had experiences of teaching and learning English grammar and they perceived that English grammar knowledge plays a positive role in learning English. Second, majority of both the teachers and the students believed that grammar instruction should start in 5th grade, but there is a gap between the teachers and the students with respect to grammar teaching approaches; the teachers prefer the inductive method, while the students prefer the deductive one. Third, many teachers considered that grammar instruction would not have a negative effect on English classes based on the communicative language teaching approach, but they believed that activities for grammar instruction should be well designed in order to keep students interested in learning English. Based on these results, several suggestions for improving English education in elementary schools are made.

Two experiments were conducted to examine the effects of visual input enhancement (VIE) of target forms and deliberate attention on grammar learning and reading comprehension of Korean high school students. In Experiment 1, eighty-eight students read one of the three experimental texts: (i) BT (baseline text), (ii) VIE (BT with the target forms visually enhanced), and (iii) VIE-Attention (VIE with explicit instruction asking students to pay deliberate attention to both the target forms and reading comprehension). After reading, the students responded to grammar and reading comprehension tests. The results showed that only VIE-Attention promoted grammar learning, while both the VIE and VIE-Attention significantly impaired reading comprehension. In Experiment 2, an eye tracker was used in order to further probe the effects of VIE and deliberate attention. The results revealed that the VIE and VIEAttention groups fixated longer and more often than those in the BT group and that the VIE and VIE-Attention groups performed better in the grammar test and poorer on the reading comprehension test than the BT group. The present study makes significant contributions to the VIE literature since it provides the first eye movement data elucidating the effects of VIE.

This study examines the effects of corpus-based collaborative learning on the intake of grammar rules among high school students. This study is grounded on three theoretical backgrounds: Grammar teaching based on a large amount of input enhances intake; peer interaction promotes learners’ participation and has positive effects on their academic achievement; and discovery instruction stimulates learners’ motivation and helps them notice rules, leading to the conversion of input into intake. The subjects were divided into two groups, each group consisting of 60 students. The subjects studied six grammar rules over a period of six weeks. Group 1 did small group activities with the materials extracted from the COBUILD corpus, while Group 2 was given the teacher’s explanation of each rule with some examples designed to show how the target rule works. After each grammar lesson, both groups took a post-test. The results indicate that (a) corpus-based grammar learning helps engage learners in the learning process and raise their grammar awareness, (b) corpus-based learning facilitates noticing and identifying the target form better than its meaning and (c) peer interactions in a small group have positive effects on the intake of grammar rules.

본고는 의미 중심 형태 교수법(Focus on Form) 중에서, 입력 처리활동(Input Processing Activities:IPA)을 활용한 문법 수업이 한국어 학습자의 시제 학습에 효과가 있는지를 알아보고자 한다. 한국어 학습자들은 초급-중급-고급 과정을 거쳐 다양한 형태의 문장들을 접함에 따라 문법에 대해 많은 관심과 궁금증을 갖고 있다. 이에 비해 이러한 학습자들의 관심을 해결해 줄 수 있는 교사들의 교수 방법 안내와 대책이 부족한 것이 현실이다. 그래서 본고는 의사소통능력을 향상시키기 위해서는 문법적 능력의 성장이 뒷받침되어야 한다는 생각 하에 한국어 초급 학습자들에게 교사로부터 주어지는 입력을 이해하고 처리하는 구조화된 입력 활동(Structured Input Activities)을 수행하게 함으로써 목표 문법에 주목하도록 하는 IPA를 적용하여 그 효과를 검증하고, 효과적인 문법 지도 방안을 알아보는 데에 목적이 있다.