Earticle

This study investigated peer-to-peer interaction during collaborative, computer-mediated reading tasks. Fourteen university EFL students in Korea worked in pairs to complete three gapfill tasks. The transcript data from these tasks were analyzed to determine: (1) how often collaboration occurs during collaborative reading tasks, (2) the ways in which peers help each other, and (3) how successful peers are in resolving the problems they collaboratively pursue. The results showed that each of these aspects of interaction varied among sets of pairs. On average, however, the participants collaborated to jointly solve 75% of the problems they encountered. They also used a range of helping behaviors during collaboration. While the participants correctly resolved nearly half of the problems they attempted, half were incorrectly answered or unresolved. Based on these findings, pedagogical implications are offered, in addition to suggestions for future research into collaborative reading tasks.

The purpose of the current study is to present a class model of SQ3R instruction, which consists of 5 stages of reading strategy, Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review for foreign language learning and to investigate its effects on learners’ self-efficacy and their reading comprehension. Five reading steps of reading strategy were instructed associated with skill practices, annotating, note-taking and summary outlining. A total of 23 students in a college academic reading class participated in the study. Students’ self-selected academic reading materials were used for the course. Reading self-efficacy survey and the academic reading part of IELTS practice test were conducted before and after the instruction. Student products such as annotated texts and reaction writing as well as portfolios were collected and analyzed. The survey and academic reading test results indicated that the learners’ reading self-efficacy and their reading ability were improved and that the students seemed to have gained more confidence in academic reading.

The contributions of teachers in building foundation of social processes, promoting learners’ agency and engagements have been constantly highlighted. This study explores language socialization of English Language Learners (ELLs) in an elementary school in U.S., focusing on the role of an ESL teacher. It examines how the ESL teacher provides linguistic and cultural scaffolding, and creates a learning environment conducive to ELLs’ socialization into American school academic discourse (Gee, 1999). A prevalent approach for linguistic scaffolding was through using questions. Questions were used for assessment, identifying prior knowledge, current understanding level, and potential level for future development, and to train ELLs to think critically and analytically. Cultural scaffolding was made through classroom scripts, such as whole group and small group activities, individual work with teacher assistance, and working locations in the classrooms. The classroom script projected American values of power functioning, respect for individuals, and freedom of choice. The findings imply that ESL learners need more than linguistic scaffolding and having the knowledge of cultural learning dynamics could be crucial in multicultural students’ socialization into the mainstream American school discourse.

Ellipsis has been analyzed, if at all, as a type of cohesion markers by earlier studies. The underestimation of its importance and the lack of attention it has received has resulted in only few empirical studies analyzing the ellipsis as a primary object of inquiry. At the same time, there are conflicting findings on whether the relationship between ellipsis use and discourse quality is substantially positive or insignificant. Aware of these gaps, this study focuses on ellipsis and its subtypes to examine whether ellipses enhance the quality of writing. The study participants were 315 Korean high school students who wrote stories in English. Their writing samples were analyzed for ellipsis use and writing quality. The findings revealed that ellipsis occurrences in writing had a substantial relationship with the overall writing quality. This result was substantiated by a separate examination of the good vs. poor writer groups: Good writers used a significantly greater number of ellipses than did poor writers. Structural and nominal ellipses were the most prominent types of ellipses while clausal and verbal ellipsis occurred rarely. This pattern was held true for both good and poor writer groups. The current study promotes the status of ellipsis as a definitely contributing factor to good writing.

With the advent of technology, telecollaborative projects have emerged that enable learners to interact with native speakers of the target language, helping them to improve both language proficiency and intercultural communicative competence (ICC). One long-lasting project is Cultura, which has been successful because of its pedagogical qualities, such as a task-based approach and collaborative learning (Furstenberg & Levet, 2014). In this study, a Cultura-inspired project was designed to foster interaction between students of Korean as a foreign language (KFL) residing in Australia and students of English as a foreign language (EFL) residing in Korea. ‘Facebook’ was used for asynchronous communication, and ‘Kakao Talk’ and ‘Facebook’ messenger were used for synchronous online chat. In order to suggest a model for designing and practicing future intercultural projects, this study focused on demonstrating the procedures for each task and examining evidence of ICC in the students’ interactions, as represented in speech acts. This study also investigated the students’ experience of the project, using surveys and interviews. The findings suggest that the students showed limited knowledge of their target culture in a word-association task on Facebook, but that their online interactions provided evidence of ICC, for example curiosity, and reflection on their own culture. Most of the students enjoyed the project, especially the online chat. However, the participants mentioned issues, such as the limited number of online interactions and lack of in-class discussions. For future practice, the use of various modes of communication and the desirability of balancing proficiency levels in the target language are discussed.

This study aimed to examine educational connoisseurships of the 3rd and 4th year pre-service elementary school teachers (PSTs). Twenty eight 3rd year and 28 4th year PSTs were asked to write a critique on a video-taped elementary English lesson. Their comments were categorized and examined to see if there were any outstanding characteristics. It was also investigated whether the different amounts of coursework the two groups of PSTs had completed were reflected in their critiques. Many PSTs were found not to have developed their educational connoisseurships to examine whether a lesson was designed to maximize learning, and the functions of the target expressions were practiced and learned in a meaningful way. Two most common perspectives in their critiques were to examine whether the students were interested in the learning activities, and whether the learning activities helped students learn the target expressions. Some differences in the views on classroom English and differential learning activities were found across the two groups.

The present study has investigated teaching motivation and demotivation factors on itinerant English teachers for pre-school children. A total of 119 itinerant English teachers were asked to answer a questionnaire with a 5-point Likert scale, which had 32 items for teaching motivation and 14 items for demotivation. They also responded to 8 items asking about personal background information, which were used to examine the direct influence on teachers’ (de)motivation. Factor analyses were conducted to explore (de)motivation factors. As a result, five factors emerged regarding teaching motivation: altruistic motivation, intrinsic motivation, interpersonal motivation, monetary reward, and self-improvement motivation. Four teaching demotivation factors were also identified through factor analysis: burnout, lack of self-confidence, insufficient external support, and lack of autonomy. The result of t-test and one-way ANOVA indicated that teachers’ age, marital status, and teaching experiences have influenced teaching motivation, whereas their undergraduate major and age contributed to the level of teaching demotivation. This study implies that it is necessary to provide them with systematic pre- and in-service teacher training programs in order to develop the comprehensive knowledge of early childhood education as well as to improve their overall English proficiency.

This study investigated the effects of using comic strips and context on the vocabulary learning of Korean high school students. Ninety high school students participated in the study and they were divided into three groups: a control group and two experimental groups using comic strips and using context, respectively. In addition, questionnaires were used to investigate students’ attitudes toward English vocabulary learning. The results of the study revealed that there were statistically significant differences in productive vocabulary retention among three groups in terms of short-term memory. In particular, the experimental groups showed high short-term memory rate compared with the control group, which may mean that the use of comic strips and context in English vocabulary learning is effective in improving learners’ productive vocabulary retention. Also there was a statistically significant difference in productive vocabulary retention among three groups in terms of long-term memory. The experimental groups showed a high long-term memory rate compared with the control group. The results of the questionnaire revealed that the two experimental groups showed more positive attitudes towards English vocabulary learning. This may suggest that teaching vocabulary with comic strips and context could be effective for students in English classes, and it is very helpful to develop various activities using comic strips and context.

Настоящая работа посвящена особенностям результативных конс трукций русского и корейского языков в сравнении с английс кимязыком. Так как морфологические и синтаксические свойств а результативных конструкций отличаются друг от друга в раз личных языках, то важным для перевода данных конструкций с одного языка на другой является правильное и точное их по нимание. Так, например, в русском языке не существует так наз ываемойвторичнойпредикации, которая возможна в корейском и английском языках. Вместо этого в русском языке существуе т множество глаголов с приставками и глаголов с приставками и возвратным суффиксом(-ся), имеющих ту же самую семантиче скую структуру, что и в результативных конструкциях. Корейс кие результативные конструкции тесно связаны с морфологией, в корейском языке есть результативные морфемы ‘-게, -도록’, к оторые так же употребляются в других значениях помимо резул ьтативного. В статье подробно описываются способы перевода р езультативных конструций русского и корейского языков в соо тветствии с типами глаголов.

This paper deals with the properties of Russian and Korean resultative constructions in comparison with English resultative constructions. As the morphological and syntactic properties of resultative constructions vary from language to language, understanding properly the characteristics of the resultative constructions of any two languages is important in order to translate sentences accurately from one language into the other. The Russian language does not allow secondary predication in resultative constructions, which are possible in Korean and English. Instead a large class of Russian prefixed verbs, the circumfix verbs (prefixed reflexive verbs), have the same semantic structure as resultative constructions. In the case of the Korean language, since resultative constructions are closely related to the morphology, it has the bounded resultative morphemes ‘-게, -도록’ which can be used in different meanings besides the resultative. Specific translation methods of Korean and Russian resultative constructions according to the verb types are suggested for teaching purposes.

This article examined the current state of Chinese education in Korean elementary schools. First of all, we surveyed Chinese education in elementary schools by dividing the types of Chinese curriculum into two categories: the regular and after-school courses. This study also analyzed the current situation of Chinese education by surveying Chinese teachers of the elementary schools in Seoul and collecting qualitative data of the curriculum time, objectives, and quantity of the Chinese education, class types, and the ratio of native Chinese speaking teachers. Overall, the results showed that the elementary students in Seoul really want to learn Chinese, but the educational environment lacks sufficient capacity and quality needed to meet the student demands. A lack of resources is demonstrated by a lack of class time and multimedia materials. The typical teaching method suffers from an absence of native Chinese speaking teachers. The frustration that comes with insufficient resources eventually leads students to lose interest in studying Chinese as their satisfaction levels become low. This lack of dedicated resources tends to discourage future Chinese language study.

本研究是把韩国小学中文教育按正规课程和非正规课程（课外学习）类型进行 分类调查后，根据此调查，对小学中文教育现状进行分析。且以首尔地区的小 学中文教师为对象，进行了问卷调查。中文教育的开始时期和目的，每周课 时，及中文教育时间，中文授课类型和教学计划，原语老师所占比例等进行调 查，对现行小学中文课的实态进行分析。调查结果显示，学生对中文学习的目 标较高，可是不足的课时和教育时间、活动中心授课的不足、没有原语老师、 多媒体资料的不足等原因，造成学生们对中文的持续兴趣减弱，对授课的满足 度降低，且对第二年的关于中文活动的选择比率减少，这是造成中文活动数减 少的原因。