Effects of remedial instruction to improve self-efficacy in primary English learning

초등영어과 자기효능감 개선을 위한 보충지도의 효과

The aim of this study was to examine the effects of remedial instruction on self-efficacy improvement in elementary school students with low self-efficacy, which may have been formed through negative experience with learning such as poor performance and poor grades. Nine 6th grade students with low self-efficacy were selected for the present study. A remedial class was set up and instruction was given once a week for 14 weeks. The purpose of the remedial class was to give the students a positive experience with English learning and have students reflect on their achievement. The contents and class activities were adjusted to the subjects' English abilities and also closely related to those of the regular classes so that students could have more confidence during regular English classes. The data were collected from a test of self-efficacy in English learning, achievement tests given before and after the experiment, achievement tests after each lesson, a general self-efficacy test, a basic questionnaire, interviews, journals, and students' self-evaluation. The results showed that the remedial instruction was very successful in providing students with a sense of achievement and improving students' self-efficacy in English learning. However, this study failed to find significant improvement in general self-efficacy tests and achievement tests given before and after the experiments. A longer period of remedial instruction may have been necessary to obtain more concrete results from the variety of data collected.