The Guessing Model Revisited: A Case Study of a Korean Young Learner

This paper presents a case study involving one Korean primary school student and people around him in order to explore the reading process in English of a young Korean EFL learner and to investigate the social context in which his reading takes place. Six participants were included in the study (one primary school student and five adult participants). The student participant was asked to read a text in English and translate what he read into Korean and the teacher participants were asked to listen to the student's reading. Semi-structured interview was used to collect data from the student as well as five adult participants (his private tutor, his parent, his state school teacher, and two other state school teachers). The analysis reveals four characteristics of the way a young EFL learner approaches reading: word-by-word reading, disconnected word recognition, selective use of cues, and lack of awareness of difficulties. The four characteristics of Kilsu's reading suggest that reading can become a wild guessing game for young foreign learners, if they give selective attention to unimportant cues while reading. The pedagogical implications of this study are also discussed to help teachers designing reading lessons for young learners.