• Title/Summary/Keyword: EFL Learners

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Considerations for Helping Korean Students Write Better Technical Papers in English (한국 대학생들의 영어 기술 논문 작성 능력 향상을 위한 고찰)

  • Kim, Yee-Jin;Pak, Bo-Young;Lee, Chang-Ha;Kim, Moon-Kyum
    • Journal of Engineering Education Research
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    • v.10 no.3
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    • pp.64-78
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    • 2007
  • For Korean researchers, English is essential. In fact, this is the case for any researcher who is a non-native English speaker, as recognition and success is predicated on being published, while publications that reach the broadest audiences are in English. Unfortunately, university science and engineering programs in Korea often do not provide formal coursework to help students attain greater competence in English composition. Aggravating this situation is the general lack of literature covering this specific pedagogical issue. While there is plenty of information to help native speakers with technical writing and much covering general English composition for EFL learners, there is very little information available to help EFL learners become better technical writers. Thus, the purpose of this report is twofold. First, as most Korean educators in science and engineering are not well acquainted with pedagogical issues of EFL writing, this report provides a general introduction to some relevant issues. It reviews the importance of contrastive rhetoric as well as some considerations for choosing the appropriate teaching approach, class arrangement, and use of computer assisted learning tools. Secondly, a course proposal is discussed. Based on a review of student writing samples as well as student responses to a self-assessment questionnaire, the proposed course is intended to balance the needs of Korean EFL learners to develop grammar, process, and genre skills involved in technical writing. Although, the scope of this report is very modest, by sharing the considerations made towards the development of an EFL technical writing course it seeks to provide a small example to a field that is perhaps lacking examples.

Teaching English Articles by Learners' Proficiency Levels

  • Lee, Eun-Hee
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.13 no.4
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    • pp.109-126
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    • 2007
  • English article has been considered as one of the most difficult areas to learn among ESL/EFL students. The current paper reviews English learners' article error patterns as well as pedagogy in order to teach English articles and to minimize learning difficulties on English articles. Different pedagogy for English articles on the basis of learners' proficiency levels are suggested as each proficiency level student shows a different error tendency; beginning level language learners used the zero article with the most facility while intermediate level language learners used the definite article the most accurately. However, studies about high advanced level learners' error patterns present that these high accuracy rates among beginning level students might be a result of students' plain guessing. Considering these error patterns, pedagogy for advanced level is also suggested.

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Integrated and Isolated Form-focused Instruction from Korean EFL Learners' Perspective (한국 영어 학습자의 관점에서 본 통합과 분리 형태초점교수법)

  • Kang, Dongho
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.18 no.5
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    • pp.123-130
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    • 2018
  • The present study aims to investigate how Korean EFL learners' views of form-focused instruction, integrated and isolated FFI (form-focused instruction), are related to their beliefs about grammar and attention and how different these relationships are between high and low proficiency levels and between males and females in Korean college contexts. The findings indicated the participants' strong preference for integrated FFI, which was significantly correlated with two factors, attention in English class and English proficiency. On the other hand, the isolated FFI was strongly correlated with their beliefs about grammar learning, that is, independent learning of grammar and importance of learning grammar rules. In conclusion, the integrated FFI was associated with students' proficiency and attention, while the isolated FFI was related to their views of grammar learning. In conclusion, it is suggested that we need to use integrated FFI in Korean EFL contexts considering students' levels of proficiency and attention.

Identification of English Labial Consonants by Korean EFL Learners (한국 EFL 학생들의 영어 순자음 인지)

  • Cho, Mi-Hui
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.6 no.12
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    • pp.186-191
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    • 2006
  • The perception of English labial consonants was investigated via experiment where 40 Korean EFL learners identified nonwords with the target labial consonants [p, b, f, v] in 4 different prosodic locations: initial onset position, intervocalic position before stress, intervocalic position after stress, and final coda position. The overall result showed that the proportion of perception accuracy of the target consonants was rather low, amounting to only 55%. There was also a positional effect since the accuracy rates for perceiving the four target consonants differed by position. Specifically, the average accuracy rate of the target consonant identification was higher in intervocalic position before stress (70%) and initial onset position (67%) than in intervocalic position after stress (45%) and final coda position (36%). Further, the accuracy rate for [f] is was high in all prosodic locations except intervocalic position after stress. The perception patterns were accounted for by the markedness and perceptual factors in conjunction with stress location.

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Differences in teachers' and learners' perspective on ELT learners' anxiety (언어불안감에 대한 영어 교사와 학습자간의 인식 차이)

  • Kim, BoMin;Kim, Haedong
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.16 no.3
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    • pp.161-182
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    • 2010
  • The goals of this study were to identify differences in learners' and teachers' perspectives on EFL learners' language anxiety, to identify the differences among teachers coping with learners' language anxiety, and to find how learners cope with their language anxiety. The research was effectuated by means of a survey questionnaire and interviews. The data were collected from 92 teachers and 230 students in four different school settings. There were the $6^{th}$ grade 50 primary school learners, the $2^{nd}$ grade 60 middle school learners, the $11^{th}$ grade 60 high school learners of, and the $2^{nd}$ and $3^{rd}$ grade 60 university learners. There were also 26 primary school teachers, 22 middle school teachers, 21 high school teachers, and 23 university teachers. The findings reveal that there were differences in responses among the respondents. The findings suggest that teachers need to pay attention to their particular learners' anxiety sources: especially in the case of primary school setting, the activity of answering teachers' questions for teachers was the primary source of learner's anxiety, in the case of middle school settings, translating sentences in English into Korean, in the case of high school setting, checking unknown vocabulary, and in the case of university settings, university learners felt anxious when classmates spoke fluently. The implications of the study indicate that these aspects should be handled carefully to motivate certain group of learners.

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A Study on English Article Errors in College Students' Writing (대학생 영작문에 나타난 관사 오류연구)

  • Kim, Wooyoung
    • The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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    • v.9 no.6
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    • pp.1-8
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    • 2023
  • This study investigates why Korean English speakers misunderstand the English article system, which article Korean EFL learners use more accurately in their English writings, and implications for English writing instruction from Korean EFL learners' utterances. There have been numerous studies on the acquisition of English article system by non-native English speakers. Those studies agree that acquiring English articles is difficult for learners of English as a second language. As a result, in this study, many English learners use the definite and indefinite articles a/an. Many wrote articles from their writings, and occasionally, errors of excessive use of definite articles occurred. Through this, this paper investigates how a Korean English learner whose native language has no articles chooses the English article system in speech. It is based on the elicited production of the Korean English learner and suggests some implications for teaching English writing in the classroom. When English instructors teach Korean English learners to write English, it is more important than anything else to practice the correct usage of definite articles or indefinite articles.

A Study on the Korean EFL Learners' Grammatical Knowledge Development under Input-enhanced FFI and Output-enhanced FFI Conditions (입력강화와 출력강화 형태초점교수 상황에서의 한국 EFL 학습자들의 언어형태 지식개발에 관한 연구)

  • Hwang, Hee-Jeong
    • Journal of Digital Convergence
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    • v.16 no.5
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    • pp.435-443
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    • 2018
  • This study explores the effects of different Focus-on-Form Instruction (FFI) on improving learners' grammatical knowledge development and observes how the learners apply the knowledge to their output. A total of 112 college students were placed into three groups: 35 input-enhanced group students, who received visually enhanced input reading materials, 41 output-enhanced group students, performing dictogloss tasks, and 46 control group students given traditional grammar instruction. All the participant students took pre/post grammatical tests and completed pre/post writing tasks, which aimed to look into how the target grammatical structures were used in writing. The research findings indicated that both input-enhanced and output-enhanced FFI were effective on learners' language form learning and made contribution to their writing. Based on the findings, this study suggests that the elaborate design of combination of both FFI can maximize learners' language form learning.

Mother culture interference on EFL writing (외국어로서의 영작문에 있어서 모문화의 간섭)

  • Choe, Yong-Jae
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • no.3
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    • pp.1-12
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    • 1997
  • Errors in EFL writing are very often attributable to learner's inadequate understanding of the target culture. Most of these errors are very hard to identify because they are grammatically correct notwithstanding the meaning. EFL learners almost habitually equate the meaning and usage of a linguistic item when it is present both in the native and the target languages. However, seemingly identical items in both languages sometimes prove themselves to be distinct from each other because of cultural differences. Some expressions in the native language are neither socially acceptable nor meaningful in the target language. Out of sheer ignorance, moreover, one puts a target item in the way he may use it in his native language. For instance. the primary feature of the term "friend" in Korean is [+same age group]. So, a Korean young man is not supposed to call his teacher a friend. This paper aims to clarify patterns of college level writing errors caused by interference of mother culture.

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Exploring the effect of extensive reading for middle and high school EFL learners (중등 영어 학습자를 위한 다독 읽기 활동의 효용성 탐구)

  • Choi, Seonghee
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.16 no.3
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    • pp.365-395
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    • 2010
  • This study explores the effect of extensive reading(ER) implemented in middle and high schools in Korean EFL context. Two middle school English teachers and two high school English teachers participated in implementing ER in their classes. Six middle school classes of 239 students and seven high school classes of 268 students participated in ER program guided by the above four teachers. To implement ER, participating teachers had continuously been guided by the researcher about the theoretic reasoning of ER and practical methods for efficient ER in class. The study lasted for two semesters and the teachers and students were surveyed and interviewed during and after the classes. The result showed pretty positive improvement of students' self-confidence, interest and motivation about English through ER implemented in this study. It is hoped that this study would show the possibility of implementing ER in Korean EFL secondary school context and a model for ER and cooperation between university researchers and in-service English teachers.

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Gender Issues in a Korean EFL Learning Context

  • Park, Hae-Soon
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.13 no.2
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    • pp.155-176
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    • 2007
  • An attempt to investigate the effect of gender differences on Korean students' EFL learning orientation was made. To explain a Korean EFL learning context, three criteria (cultural distance between the target country and the host country, communicative needs of the TL, the status of the TL in the host country) are adopted. Moreover, as a contrastive FL learning context from the Imposed FL learning context, a FL learning context where there is a substantial cultural distance from the TL community, communication needs of the TL do not exist, and the TL enjoys a special educational and socioeconomic status in the host country, a concept of an Integrative FL learning context is newly brought up in this paper. As the result of a questionnaire conducted in four different high schools, female learners can be claimed to be more internalized about academic and socioeconomic benefits the TL entails for their social advancement and overcoming inequality between men and women in society, albeit insignificant numerical data.

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