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The purpose of this article is to review an increasing literature investigate second language learning and development from the perspective of conversation analysis (hereafter CA) and provide implications these view have for Korean as a Second Language (hereafter KSL) research methodology. From a CA perspective, language acquisition can be understood as learning to participate in ordinary as well as institutional social interaction. CA-SLA studies have taken two different paths in terms of learning: 1) A number of studies investigate language learning as an accountable and recognizable social practice; and 2) A second group of studies traces the development of action formats, participation styles, and use of linguistic resources over time. This paper discusses how learning and development are conceptualized in CA and CA-SLA, and the challenge CA-SLA studies face. It also explains the implication CA-SLA has for research methodology by introducing how developmental CA has overcome these challenges. This study also provides sample analyses situated within a CA-SLA framework to examine development.

This study aims to investigate what types of self-assessed use of writing strategies Korean vocational college students use and what types of writing strategy use they favor. A total of 519 students from five vocational backgrounds participated Air service, Secretarial studies, Tourism English, Hotel management, and so on. They responded to the Writing Strategy Questionnaire (Petric & Czarl, 2003) which consisted of “Before writing”, “When writing”, and “When revising”based on a five-point Likert-type scale response format. The results of overall writing strategy use showed that the participants used fewer strategies in planning than in composing and revising. Further, this study conducted Confirmatory Factor Analysis to investigate the writing types of Korean vocational college students who responded to self-assessed use. The results showed that students showed non-planning. Two types were found in composing: solving and thinking. Three types were found in revising: revising, observing, and checking. The results suggested that students have their preferred types of writing strategy use. This can comprise a predictive guideline for teachers and researchers.

This study aimed to address the following questions: (1) whether participating in both output and input activities promotes learning Korean grammar and vocabulary more effectively than receiving input only; (2) whether the effects of comprehensible output on learning Korean grammar and vocabulary vary in accordance with oral and written output modes; and (3) whether the linguistic aspects that second language learners focus on are different when they are speaking versus when they are writing. Twenty Korean as a second language adult learners participated in the experiment. Only the experimental group (n = 10) performed dictogloss tasks that required producing spoken and written outputs while the control (n = 10) did not. A follow-up recall questionnaire was given to the experimental group in order to investigate their conscious focus according to the output mode. The results revealed that producing output activity contributed to learning grammar and vocabulary, but there was no statistically significant difference between the effects of oral and written output. Also, the result of the recall questionnaire showed that learners focused more on syntactic processing than on semantic processing when they produced output regardless of its mode. The findings of this study suggest that producing comprehensible output facilitates acquiring target language form by inducing learners to focus on syntactic analysis beyond semantic analysis and that the effect of comprehensible output should be identical both in producing oral and written language.

This study aims to investigate the refusal productions by Thai learners of Korean in second language and foreign language environment to see how language exposure influences learners’ acquisition of pragmatic knowledge. Four sample groups are recruited for this study: 70 Korean native speakers (KNS); 30 Thai learners of Korean in a second language environment (KSL); 30 Thai learners who majored in Korean in a foreign language environment (KFL-major) and 30 Thai learners minored in Korean in a foreign language environment (KFL-minor). Korean language exposure questionnaire and a written discourse completion task (WDCT) are used to collect the data. The data from the native Korean speakers (KNS) is used as the baseline of the analysis. The results show that both power and social distance have effect on the realization of refusals. The refusals by KFL-minor deviate more from the Korean norm than those by the KSL and the KFL-major, but there are no major contrast between the KSL and the KFL-major. This suggests amount of language exposure influences the acquisition of pragmatic knowledge over the learning environment.