Earticle

Researchers in second language acquisition have claimed that the teacher-student setting of the typical L2 classroom may not provide an optimal environment for negotiation of meaning. This claim, however, has been based on quantitative analyses without examination of the actual negotiation process. From a different point of view, namely, a socioconstructivist perspective, this study focuses on how a teacher supported students during negotiations of meaning and how the students contributed to those negotiations in an intermediate ESL classroom. The findings show that the teacher’s scaffolding played a crucial role in constructive negotiations. She continuously checked the students’ levels of comprehension and searched for better ways to resolve comprehension problems. In addition, she assisted the students as they modified their utterances to resolve communication breakdowns. She also offered help by mediating the students’ successful communication between each other. For their part, the students contributed their own scaffolding to assist class members who were having difficulty comprehending and producing language during their negotiations with the teacher. Those findings suggest that collaborative negotiation of meaning between teacher and student in the classroom is rich in learning opportunities.

This paper investigates Korean EFL learners’ perceived phonetic dissimilarity of English liquids /l/ and /r/ to test the Korean learners’ relative acquisition difficulty of the two English liquids. Contrary to the prediction of the contrastive analysis hypothesis, a hypothesis from Flege’s (1995) Speech Learning Model asserts that the greater the perceived phonetic dissimilarity between an L2 speech sound and the closest L1 sound, the more likely learners will be to discern the difference between the L1 and L2 sounds. Fifteen Korean EFL learners were asked to judge how well English /l/ and /r/ in various phonological environments represent the Korean liquid, using a scale ranging from 0 (“not like”) to 6 (“exactly the same”). The results of the judgment task showed that Korean L2 learners perceived English /l/ to be more similar to Korean /l/ than English /r/ in syllable-initial, consonant cluster, and intervocalic positions, but not in syllable-final position. The results of the present study are expected to provide a basis for future research which investigates Korean learners’ perception and production of English /l/ and /r/.

The present study investigates the effect of pronunciation training on Korean adult learners’ perception and production of English vowels, /i/, /I/, /u/, and /Ω/. The study examines 1) the effect of pronunciation training on perception and production and 2) the maintenance of the effect over a one-month period. The subjects were 10 Korean graduate students who took a 4-week long English pronunciation training course. They were tested before and after pronunciation training and tested again one month after the training. In each test, both perception and production of the vowels were tested to see if the subjects were able to distinguish tense and lax vowels. In the perception part, subjects listened for words and checked the vowel (either tense or lax) sound they heard. For the production part, subjects read the selected words which contained the target vowels. The results show that pronunciation training has an effect, which supports the teachability of phonology in adulthood; however, the maintenance of the effect demonstrated a difference between perception and production, in which the effect was maintained in production but not in perception. Based on the results of the study, implications are discussed.

Translation has been a key factor in the cultural transfer in the era of globalization. Despite the growing importance of the role of translation which helps to represent, construct and even manipulate cultural identities between different cultures, the absence of translation pedagogy in the current foreign language education in Korea creates a rather limited perspective about the nature and function of translation. Because of the constrained view of the role of translation as well as the historical prejudice against the role, translation is mostly used as the criteria for language proficiency testing, while topics like what to teach in translation pedagogy as well as how to teach are rarely discussed. This study analyzes the problems of the current use of translation in language teaching practice, and the limit of the traditional concept of word-for-word translation, characterized by a decontextualized practice, which has resulted in a restricted and mechanized practice of translation. By problematizing these issues, this study aims to provide more constructive and diverse approaches to translation pedagogy and a rendering of the meanings in translation. For practical aspects, this study will also examine the characteristics of translation-related courses, currently offered at major higher education institutions in the USA and Europe, where translation pedagogy is considerably well established, and provide direction for on what to teach.

The present study explores the effect of topic interest and knowledge on comprehension and their relationship in L2 reading. Given this issue has been studied almost exclusively with fluent L1 readers, it seems necessary to investigate the applicability of the findings from previous studies to L2 reading. In order to enhance the generalizability, the present study employed multiple texts and tasks. The subjects were 126 Korean adult EFL learners representing various academic backgrounds and wide range of English proficiency. Results showed that the effect of knowledge and interest on L2 reading comprehension varied greatly depending on task type, suggesting that any conclusion drawn about the effect of prior knowledge or interest on reading comprehension could be biased depending on the task used to assess the construct. In addition, knowledge of topic vocabulary was the most stable factor of reading comprehension regardless of text structure or measure of reading comprehension. The association between topic interest and topic knowledge proved very weak in general unlike in L1 reading, not supporting schema-theoretic views about the effect of topic interest and its relationship with topic knowledge. More results and discussions are presented along with the statement of limitations and implications both theoretical and practical.

The present experimental study explores developmental characteristics of Korean EFL learners’ English negatives and yes-no interrogatives. Adopting the functional category acquisition framework within the UG theory, this study investigated 12 elementary and secondary school students’ interlanguage grammar by elicited production. The results showed that the learners’ interlanguage grammar developed gradually from VP to IP and CP structures in English negatives. However, their interlanguage grammar did not show gradual developmental tendency in yes-no interrogatives. The acquisition rate of negatives generally increased with the learners’ level whereas there existed individual variation in the acquisition rate and developmental aspect of yes-no interrogatives. This result suggests that CP structures instantiated by yes-no interrogatives seem to be acquired from the initial stage by some learners.

This paper aims to examine theoretical foundations of and empirical evidence for collaborative ESL writing pedagogy and suggest it as an alternative model to traditional approaches in writing instruction. The history of research on collaborative tasks in teaching writing is relatively short and it received explicit attention in the mid 1980s (Doheny-Farina, 1986; Odell, 1985). The need for research in collaborative writing in ESL/EFL classroom is justifiable from philosophical, psycholinguistic, pedagogic, and psychological points of view. A brief history, types, and essential elements of collaborative ESL writing instruction are presented. In an attempt to investigate how these rationales and elements are realized in actual pedagogic processes, a case study was conducted based on an observation of a collaborative task-based ESL writing class at a US university. Classes for a full thematic unit, consisting of eight hours, were observed. A variety of carefully designed collaborative activities implemented in the ESL writing class illustrated clear benefits of collaborative writing pedagogy. Pedagogical implications for writing classes in EFL contexts are also discussed.

This paper aims to compare generic features of a specific genre in Korean and English language. For this purpose, written advertisements from magazines in two languages were compiled and small corpora of equivalent genres were analyzed from a perspective of comparative genre analysis. The focus of analysis was given to the ‘lexical’, ‘structural’, and ‘other choices’, by exploring the discourse values within a specific context. The case is to raise foreign language learners’ awareness of language form within a meaningful context, represented in a relevant genre. In this study, the comparison is narrowed down to written advertisements through cross-linguistic comparison. It shows that comparative corpora of familiar genres can be used to help learners realize the ways FL is explored to achieve particular communicative goals. Furthermore, it can lead naturally to the discussion of cultural and social aspects reflected in the language.

The review of previous studies on interlanguage pragmatics reveals that they have been modelled on cross-cultural pragmatics. However, in order for interlanguage pragmatics to contribute in the area of second language acquisition, it should examine how L2 pragmatic competence develops as L2 linguistic competence increases. Therefore, interlanguage pragmatics studies should be modelled on acquisitional pragmatics. As an effort to explore developmental features of pragmatic competence by linguistic proficiency, this study investigated the speech act behaviors of three linguistically distinctive groups. A total of 159 English learners, which consisted of high school 1st and 2nd graders, university freshmen, and university seniors, participated in this study. Their written responses to the 7 situations in the Discourse Completion Test (DCT) were analyzed in terms of response length, vocabulary, request forms, and the use of please. The three groups showed different behavioral patterns in the realization of requests and complaints, utilizing different linguistic strategies to be responsive to the social factors. For future research, expanding learner population to include very low and high level learners, developing a new research tool other than DCT, a more systematic grouping by linguistic proficiency were suggested.

This study aims at investigating Korean high school students’ reading and writing relations in English with a focus on analysis of effects of reading journal writing which integrates reading and writing. Three groups (reading, writing, reading journal writing) had different treatments for 8 weeks. The results revealed that the reading journal writing group had the highest post-test writing scores compared with the two other groups. This group’s scores were statistically significant different from the reading group’s. The same results were also found in the higher-level group. As for the lower-level group, however, the scores of the writing group were highest. These results support the bidirectional hypothesis with a special emphasis on the interaction of reading and writing. The higher-level and the lower-level reading journal writing group had the highest post-test reading scores; however, no statistical significance was noted among the three groups. The results of the reading test do not seem to be clearly related to any hypothesis of reading-writing relations. The results of the questionnaire survey and interview and of the analysis of reading journal suggest that effects of reading journal writing can vary with reading texts and learners’ language proficiency level.

The purpose of this study is to develop unit objectives in the view of application and systematic approach, reflecting the main features of the 7th curriculum revision which include process-oriented approach (POA). First, this study suggests that it is a better way to use the traditional objectives statements flexibly than not to use them. Next, objectives are stated mainly with contents and learner’s behaviors. But, this statement doesn't fully cover the features of POA. So, one alternative way is that content and behavior domains include the process-related factors characterized as procedure (or task) and learner-centeredness (or humanism). Finally, to suggest the factors of communicative unit objectives, all the objectives in recently and widely used course books are analyzed on the basis of Valette’s taxomony. In this analysis, it is known that content domain with language, socio-linguistics and communicative parts includes the factors such as fluency, authenticity, topic, activity, task, and behavior domain with cognitive and psycho- motor parts emphasizes and reflects creative expression and humanism (or affective factors).

The purposes of this paper are to report the English proficiency of Korean university students through TOEIC test, and to suggest feasible ways to improve their communicative competence. A total of one thousand and forty-two sophomore students who took the Practical English course participated in this study. The data based on TOEIC scores were analyzed and the major findings revealed that: (1) Although students had slightly higher scores on the written language sections than on the spoken language parts, they had the lowest scores in the grammar section; (2) The total listening comprehension scores were significantly correlated with the total reading scores; (3) There was a high positive correlation between students’ proficiency level and their scores; (4) Multiple regression analysis showed that part 3 (short conversations) influenced significantly on the total listening part, while part 6 (grammar) had a significant effect on the total reading part. In conclusion, these findings contribute to the emerging picture of what constitutes a successful language learner by proposing a more refined model based on Willis’. In conclusion, the results of this study offer several suggestions for language teaching professionals as providers of effective instruction of communication strategies for enhancing the development of communicative competence.

This research focuses on analyzing characteristics and needs of engineering students in an EFL context, which is designed as a preliminary study of content-based language instruction to develop NURI English model. For the purpose of this study, I conduct surveys and interviews on 147 engineering students to find out students’ needs and interests as well as 9 professors to recognize their notions of what language skills would benefit engineering students. The results of surveys and interviews strongly suggest the need to adopt a learner-centered level approach with which NURI English can incorporate communicative English for general and specific purposes in the field of engineering as well as TOEIC instruction. The results of this study also lead to an instructional parameter for NURI English program that requires for taking into account an instruction model of the integration of language and content for engineering students. The present study offers a few pedagogical implications for language educators who want to design a content-based language instruction model for engineering students in EFL contexts.

This study aims to investigate how some Korean primary school students practiced autonomous English-learning while they exchanged email letters with foreign friends for 20 weeks. In order to achieve triangulation of the study, the following data resources were used: email letters exchanged and uploaded at an Internet cafe, a survey implemented in April and July as an autonomy measuring instrument, the informants’ comments on keypal activities written in July, two times of individual interviews and the researcher’s observation report. One major finding emerged from the data is that there were four types of autonomy development. Some implications drawn from the study findings are added for future keypal-based English-learning autonomy development programs.

This study attempted to explore the possibility, potential and difficulties of reflective teaching through keeping teaching journals. The focus of reflection was also examined. Six primary English teachers wrote teaching journals throughout one semester. And they were interviewed regarding keeping teaching journals at the end of the semester. Then the contents of teachers’ journals and interviews were analyzed. The analysis of teachers’ journals shows that their reflection included teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning, their decision making process on the use of learning activities, the problems of learner differences in English ability, the effects of learning activities, the structure of lessons, their role as a fully charged English teacher, the use of classroom English, and the concern about the improvement of students’ talk. The data analysis also reveals that the teachers considered journal writing as an opportunity to reflect and improve their teaching, thus being a means for professional development as an English teacher. However, the lack of time and not being familiar with keeping teaching journals were perceived difficulties in keeping teaching journals. Further, it was pointed out that the follow-up activities such as collaboration and discussion with other teachers or teacher educators were needed for journal writing to be a more beneficial tool for teachers’ professional development.

The purpose of this paper is to show that South Korean students of Japanese have a gap between their knowledge and usage of Japanese honorifics, and to illustrate misusage of Japanese honorifics by the South Korean students through the analysis of the example sentence, “My father went to the United States.” According to analysis of this paper, native Japanese speakers are influenced by both the UCHI-SOTO relation and the vertical relation of age when they refer to their father. But the students are influenced only by whether “father” is their father or other’s father. Furthermore, the students don’t necessarily recognize the rule in Japanese honorifics, that is, “Do not use the honorifics when you speak of your father to a person outside the family (SOTO).” The conclusion of this paper gives the following suggestive points to the teaching of Japanese honorifics. First, we have to teach that how to refer to “father” varies with the listener. Second, it is required to fully explain the concept of UCHI-SOTO and to make well-known the rule in Japanese honorifics, that is, “Do not use the honorifics when you speak of a person in your group to a person outside your group.”

本稿の目的は、｢父は米國に行きました｣を一例として，敬語の表現形式についての知識と敬語運用に關する知識が必ずしも比例しないことを示すとともに，韓國人の日本語學習者がどのような場面でどのような誤用を犯しているかを明らかにすることである。本稿の分析によると、日本人は聞き手がウチかソトか、かつ聞き手が年上か年下かによって、自分の父の呼び方を變える。これに對し、韓國人の日本語學習者は聞き手を問わず、自分の父か、他人の父かによって父の呼び方が一律的に決まる。また、韓國人の日本語學習者は、｢ソトに對して、自分の父のことを高めてはいけない｣という日本語の敬語のルールについて必ずしも的確に認識していない。このような分析結果は、今後韓國人の日本語學習者を對象とした日本語の敬語敎育に次のような示唆點を與える。まず、自分の父の呼び方が聞き手によって變わることを敎えなければならない。次に、ウチ․ソトの槪念について十分に說明し、かつ ｢ソトに對して言うとき、身內のことを高めてはいけない｣という日本語の敬語のルールを周知させることが必要である。