• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.133-156
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• 2007

Although the understanding of English tense system is a crucial factor for communicative English learning and teaching for EFL students, it has been neglected over the years. As with other areas of the grammar, difficulties may arise from the nature of the system itself or from differences between time, tense and aspect. Consequently, many learners face a considerable difficulty with the English tense system as they are more often unable to grasp the basic conceptual differences of present/present continuous, past/present perfect, will/be going to along with many others. More concerning fact is that lots of instructors or so-called native English teachers seem not to be aware of the importance of teaching English tense system. The purpose of this study is to review and examine various theories and practical usages of tense in order to establish and/or present better methods for teaching tenses. This paper is focused on comparatively exact distinction of time, physical notion from tense, grammatical category as well as sequences of tenses in view of school grammar and communicative function. At the end or middle of each chapter, efficient teaching and learning techniques or strategies on tenses are suggested to help instructors or learners who relentlessly face confusions in understanding tense and its usage for communicative English learning and teaching. This study attempts to influence learners' ability to recognize and write tense in authentic contexts not to mention spoken English.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.283-300
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• 2009

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a model for an English learning web-site using Korean folktales to stimulate the interest of beginners learning English, (elementary and early middle school ages) and suggest an integrated way of teaching 4 skills. The study first reviews the theoretical and historical backgrounds of storytelling using Korean folk tale, WBI (Web Based Learning), and learner-centered learning. Storytelling using Korean folk tale is an interactive way of teaching English through the use of words and actions from Korean traditional culture. The students can take pride in their own culture while learning a foreign language since they are familiar with the stories and the culture. Nowadays multicultural education is one of the big features of global education. Therefore there are benefits of studying English through Korean folktales. The websites can help students learn English ubiquitously with a learner-centered focus. For the study, we analyzed several digital English storytelling websites. The paper concludes that digital English story books need to improve their interactive ways of teaching for more effective learning. The authors created an integrated English learning website model using Korean folktales for beginners. We hope to introduce this type of learning through the website for higher level students in middle school. Further study should be conducted in order to make the websites more meaningful and useful for Korean students learning English.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.159-183
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to investigate Korean primary school English teachers' beliefs on self-directed teaching and learning for facilitating student's self-directed learning. A survey was conducted, using 315 primary school teachers as participants. According to different school areas, sex, English teaching careers, and types of English teaching like classroom teachers or English specialist teachers, beliefs on teachers' self-directed teaching were studied based on class planning, class process, utilization of human resources, development and utilization of teaching materials and class evaluation. The results of this study are as follows: first, differences were not shown except class planning according to teachers from different school areas. Second, sex and beliefs of teachers' self-directed teaching had nothing in common. Third, differences were shown in class planning and class process, according to English teaching careers. Finally, according to types of English teaching, differences were shown in class process and development and utilization of teaching materials. The study suggests that it is necessary to conduct other studies for observing primary English classrooms focusing on teacher's self-directed decision-making.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.71-90
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to analyze the improvement of students' interest and general proficiency of English through cultural understanding. To achieve this purpose, two classes of the 2nd grade in the informational high school were divided into the experimental class and the control class. The Grammar-Translation Method was used for the control class and a cultural learning - compare and contrast Korean culture and American culture - was taken for the experimental. After various cultural differences were studied, surveys of students' attitude and reading and listening test were taken. The results from this study were as follows: Firstly, students' interest in English was improved through learning the American culture that was related to the content of each lesson. Secondly, English reading and communicative skills were improved by learning about cultural aspects. Therefore, it can be said that teaching culture stimulates students' interest and motivation for learning English and helps students retain such affective attitudes. And English communicative skills were improved as well.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.335-363
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• 2005

One of the most important features in the 7th National Curriculum of English is the introduction of the middle school multi-purpose English classes. Despite the importance of the classes, there doesn't seem to be enough studies of developing learning materials for them. The purpose of the current study is, therefore, to develop English learning materials for the multi-purpose English classes based on the Task-Based Learning framework. To do so, various tasks were collected and adapted for the classes, and different teaching techniques suitable for the tasks were designed. It is hoped that this research will help teachers prepare for teaching materials for the classes, and students recognize their interests in English and to improve their English abilities.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.103-124
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• 2002

For the current study, five Asian English teachers participated in their case studies to investigate an in-depth understanding of their beliefs about teaching and learning English as a foreign language. Data were collected through structured and unstructured interviews, written documents, observations of teacher-participants' micro teaching, a research methodology journal and a self-reflection journal. This study described the beliefs that Asian English teachers brought to the teacher preparation program and examined to see if these teacher-participants who were involved in case studies perceived change in their beliefs. The study found that formal and informal learning experiences greatly shaped the way teacher-participants' beliefs about the way learning and teaching ought to be. In addition, early experiences of learning and teaching influenced teacher-participants' change in beliefs.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• no.3
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• pp.203-229
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• 1997

This paper is to examine a desirable and promising approach to an effective English teaching in elementary schools. Teachers' understanding English curriculum, teaching methodology, language skills-listening and speaking, and their testing of spoken communication is necessary for students' better learning in their English classes. Thus detailed explanations of English curriculum are presented, and background knowledge of major traditional teaching methods as well as recent trends is discussed. Especially, for the purpose of developing students' English communicative proficiency. classroom teaching and testing techniques of listening and speaking are also discussed with examples.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.131-158
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• 2006

The purpose of the present study is to explore an effective way of teaching English vocabulary which is geared toward improving students' English communicative competence. This study focuses on English verbs, which may be followed by patterns according to subcategorization. Learning verbs must include learning about patterns as well as meaning in order to improve the ability to use verbs receptively and productively, or communicative competence. On the basis of the language progression proposed by Willis (2003), a teaching strategy which helps learners learn English verb patterns effectively and systematically was proposed. The effect of the teaching strategy was investigated. The subjects of the experimental group who learned English verb patterns intentionally through the teaching strategy proposed by this study significantly improved themselves in the ability to use them receptively and productively. This result shows that the teaching strategy including improvisation, recognition, rehearsal, system building, exploration and consolidation is helpful to improving communicative competence.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.75-94
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• 2009

This study was designed to assess demotivation factors and compare the factor between two secondary school student groups. It furthermore examined how the factors related to students' L2 proficiency. A 31-item questionnaire was completed by 407 junior (JH) and senior high school (SH) students. Five factors were extracted through the principal axis factoring: Teachers' competence and teaching styles, Dissatisfaction with English classes and grading system, Difficulty of learning English, Lack of motivation and interest in learning English, and Inadequate learning contents. Although both JH and SH students did not perceive their English teacher as a strong attribution of demotivation, Difficulty of learning English and Dissatisfaction with English classes and grading system were the two strongest demotivating factors. When compared the overall mean scores of each factor between JH and SH groups, significant differences were found in all factors except Factor 4, with SH students reporting stronger demotivation. JH students attributed their demotivation to Difficulty of learning English, while SH students attributed that to Dissatisfaction with English classes and grading system. Both groups tended to attribute their demotivation to external forces. The study also showed that several demotivation factors related negatively to L2 proficiency.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• no.5
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• pp.103-122
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• 1999

In this paper, I will argue that in teaching L2, it is important to take a holistic teaching method considering various learning styles of the learners and the nature of L2 learning. Under the situation that most of the school education is centered on the left brain activity, learners with the right brain preference tend to get only to the lower proficiency than they really can. To prove this, I conducted a experiment on two classes of high school students. I decided the hemispheric preference of each students using HMI (hemispheric mode indicator) Then I compared the hemispheric preferences of students with their scores in English tests. The students with right hemispheric preference show significantly lower scores than the ones with left preference. It is implied that the current English education should adapted to address various learning and cognitive styles and whole-brain L2 teaching method should replace the left-centered instruction in the learning environment.