• Title/Summary/Keyword: EFL Learners

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Listening Strategy Use of Korean EFL Middle School Students

  • Lee, Jung-Soo
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.17 no.1
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    • pp.165-190
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    • 2011
  • This research investigates listening strategies and the relationship between the employment of strategy and listening proficiency of Korean EFL middle school students. One hundred and four middle school students (N = 104) participated in this study and their strategy use was assessed through a questionnaire adapted from Oxford's (1990) SILL and O'Malley and Chamot (1990). To measure listening proficiency, the English Listening Ability Test designed by 15 city and provincial offices of education in Korea was used. The results show that students employed a moderate use of strategies; compensation strategies were used most frequently and metacognitive strategies were used the least frequently. Significant differences were found in the use of implicit strategy among different listening proficiency groups, but not in their use of behavioral strategy. Furthermore, there were significant differences in the use of implicit memory, cognitive and compensation strategies among groups of students with different listening proficiencies, but not in their use of metacognitive strategy. The results from multiple regression analysis indicate that implicit strategy use could play an important role in listening comprehension. The findings suggest the need for additional research to explore the effect of listening strategy training for English language learners.

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Empowering Intercultural Communicative Competence through Metacognitive Reading Strategy

  • Chang, Hyung-Ji
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.1-20
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    • 2012
  • This study aims to propose using English reading strategies to enhance Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) for EFL learners. The study recruited college-level participants who were enrolled in a general English reading course (N=30) and administrated the surveys with a Repeated Measures Design (RMD). In the survey, an intercultural sensitivity scale and metacognitive reading strategies inventory were conducted for comparison. During the instruction, participants were asked to use the R.I.D.E.R. (i.e. Read, Image, Describe, Evaluate, and Repeat) strategy for visualization of text, which is aimed at facilitating the use of metacognitive reading strategies. In the results, participants showed a statistically significant increase both in the intercultural sensitivity level and the use of metacognitive reading strategies after the practice of R.I.D.E.R for one semester. Further analysis was appended to the results by the correlation and regression analysis, and proposed that participants benefit their development of intercultural sensitivity from the use of metacognitive reading strategies. Therefore, the study suggests that implementing metacognitive reading strategies facilitates college EFL readers to increase their cultural sensitivity, which empowers ICC through English reading (176words).

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Sentence Translation and Vocabulary Retention in an EFL Reading Class

  • Kim, Boram
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.67-84
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    • 2012
  • The present study investigated the effect of sentence translation as a production task on short-term and long-term retention of foreign vocabulary. 87 EFL university students at a beginning level, enrolled in reading class participated in the study. The study compared the performance of three groups on vocabulary recall: (1) Control group, (2) Translation group, and (3) Copy group. During the treatment sessions, translation group translated L1 sentences into English, while copy group simply copied given English sentences with each target word. Results of the immediate test were collected each week from week 2 to week 5 and analyzed by one-way ANOVA. Results revealed that regarding short-term vocabulary retention, participants in rote-copy condition outperformed those in translation group. Four weeks later a delayed test was administered to measure long-term vocabulary retention. In contrast, the results of two-way repeated measures ANOVA showed that long-term vocabulary retention of translation group was significantly greater than copy group. The findings suggest that although sentence translation is rather challenging to low-level learners, it may facilitate long-term retention of new vocabulary given the more elaborate and deeper processing the task entails.

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Pronunciation error types and sentence intelligibility of Korean EFL learners (영어 학습자의 발음 오류 유형과 발화 명료도의 관계 연구)

  • Kim, Hyun-Jin
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.10 no.3
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    • pp.159-175
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    • 2004
  • This paper investigated the types of errors on English pronunciation and intelligibility of Korean EFL students, and the relationship between the pronunciation accuracy and intelligibility. Thirty one students were evaluated by six English native speakers in terms of overall intelligibility and accuracy In five areas such as nuclear stress, word stress, syllable structure, consonants and vowels. According to the findings of the study, pronunciation errors were made by the subjects more frequently In word stress than any other area of pronunciation accuracy. The Pearson correlation analysis showed that intelligibility was related with word stress, syllable structure, consonants and vowels, and the stepwise multiple regression analysis indicated that, among the above five areas of pronunciation accuracy, word stress best accounted for the intelligibility of a given sentence. In the conclusion, the importance of teaching pronunciation of in those five areas with a special focus on word stress was emphasized m terms of intelligibility.

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The Effects of Vocabulary Exercises on EFL Vocabulary Learning and Retention

  • Son, Jung-Mi
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.13 no.4
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    • pp.167-192
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    • 2007
  • This study investigates the effects of written vocabulary exercises on lexical knowledge. Korean university students learning English as a foreign language were randomly assigned to one of four conditions-Condition 1 (having students match word form with word meaning), Condition 2 (having students fill in the blank provided with a list of words), Condition 3 (having students write sentences with the target words), Condition 4 (having students do three practices with the same vocabulary exercise as the condition 1). Each type of exercises in Condition 1, 2, and 3 was designed to classify a different level of mental processing except Condition 4 with multiple encounters of the target words. Learners' vocabulary knowledge of this study was obtained using a format adopted from the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS) immediately and two weeks later. The findings indicated that: (1) Condition 4 having students do three matching vocabulary exercises was as effective as the condition 3 (one writing exercise) on the immediate learning of word; (2) although there was no significant difference of the effect of vocabulary exercises between Condition 3 and 4, Condition 4 asking students to do three matching vocabulary exercises was the most effective way of vocabulary retention after two weeks.

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The use of audio-visual aids and hyper-pronunciation method in teaching English consonants to Japanese college students

  • Todaka, Yuichi
    • Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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    • 1996.10a
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    • pp.149-154
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    • 1996
  • Since the 1980s, a number of professionals in the ESL/EFL field have investigated the role of pronunciation in the ESL/EFL curriculum. Applying the insights gained from the second language acquisition research, these efforts have focused on the integration of pronunciation teaching and learning into the communicative curriculum, with a shift towards overall intelligibility as the primary goal of pronunciation teaching and learning. The present study reports on the efficacy of audio-visual aids and hyper-pronunciation training method in teaching the productions of English consonants to Japanese college students. The talk will focus on the implications of the present study, and the presenter makes suggestions to teaching pronunciation to Japanese learners.

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Time-moving Metaphors and Ego-moving Metaphors: Which Is Better Comprehended by Taiwanese?

  • Huang, Hsin-Mei;Hsieh, Ching-Yu
    • Proceedings of the Korean Society for Language and Information Conference
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    • 2007.11a
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    • pp.173-181
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    • 2007
  • This is a semantic pilot study which concentrates on how people in Taiwan process the temporal metaphors, ego-moving metaphor and time-moving metaphor. Motivated by the research of Gentner, Imai, and Boroditsky (2002) in which the English native speakers comprehend ego-moving metaphors faster than time-moving metaphors, the present study attempts to reexamine whether the faster reaction to ego-moving metaphors is shared by both the Chinese native speakers and EFL learners. To achieve the goals, 25 Chinese/English bilinguals are invited to be examined via the16 Chinese and 16 English test sentences. The recordings of their accuracy on each item are served as the databases used to compare with the study of Gentner, Imai, and Boroditsky (2002). The two finding presented here are: (1) when the subjects tested in their native language, Chinese, they process ego-moving metaphors better. (2) when tested in the foreign language, English, they conceptualize time-moving metaphors much better.

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Effects of Cultural Teaching through Movies in English Classes on EFL College Students' Attitudes towards English Reading

  • Baek, Jiyeon
    • International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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    • v.8 no.4
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    • pp.177-182
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    • 2020
  • In the age of technology and information, communicating with people from different cultures is significantly important. Regarding this perspective, communicative competence has been the focus in the EFL educational context. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of using movies in a culture-integrated English reading course at the college level. In order to achieve this purpose, pre- and post-reading comprehension tests, pre- and post-surveys and in-depth interviews were conducted. The results of data analysis showed that using movies in the culture-integrated English reading class positively affected students' interest and confidence towards English reading as well as their reading achievement. In this respect, we suggest that cultural teaching through movies in English classes should be learner-centered so that learners can proactively analyze and understand different cultural backgrounds shown in the movies and build schemas which can be used in their learning process.

The Effect of Mobile Apps on Vocabulary Acquisition in EFL Classroom

  • Kim, HyeJeong
    • International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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    • v.9 no.4
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    • pp.118-125
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    • 2021
  • This study's purpose is to examine the effects of mobile apps on learners' vocabulary acquisition and to analyze students' perceptions and opinions about the vocabulary app. To this end, this study set up a control group, which was given explicit instructions in the classroom by the instructor and an experimental group, which used a vocabulary app. The vocabulary acquisition test results suggested that the difference between the the two groups was insignificant. However, user satisfaction with regard to the mobile app was high, and the reasons given were the following: convenience, efficiency of memorizing, having fun while learning, and the app's interface. Based on these results, this study suggests that teachers should use mobile apps much more actively in classroom instruction, and encourge students to let apps play a more active role in their language studies.

A Lens on Idealism and Pragmatism Philosophies and their Learning Influences in EFL: Synthesis Literature Review

  • Alharthi, Noha Abdullah
    • International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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    • v.22 no.8
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    • pp.285-291
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    • 2022
  • The current paper discusses the two most widespread and contradictory educational philosophies of classic German Idealism and modern American pragmatism. Their perspectives of what is truth and what is the best way to distinguish the reasoning idealists from the experienced pragmatists. The implementations of Idealism and pragmatism have affected the education process for several ages and reflect various social changes. The role of schools, educators, environment, teachers, and learners are not the same in both philosophies. However, on reviewing the chronological transmission from Plato's Idealism to Dewey's pragmatism, the resemblances and differences are elaborated here with examples. Furthermore, how these philosophies helped founding advocators for perennialism, essentialism, progressivism, and reconstructionism.