• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.199-222
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• 2009

As great attention is given to a high quality of English education in Korea, more and more in-service and pre-service English teachers are looking for an opportunity to study in an English speaking country to become better qualified teachers. However, after receiving a degree in an English speaking country, many teachers fail to apply what they have learned to their own teaching due to their tensions of identity, beliefs, knowledge, and professionalism within the changes of sociocultural settings. By using sociocultural theory as a theoretical framework, this paper explores how formal training and Ph.D. studies in the U.S. have influenced a Korean teacher educator in applying theory to practice in relation to her identity, beliefs, knowledge, and professionalism during 30 years of her teaching experience. Rather than facing tensions, the teacher educator has been willing to change her roles, broaden and deepen her beliefs in teaching and knowledge about theory of teaching and learning, and continue her professional development. Limitations and implications of the study are provided.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.123-147
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• 2002

As far as the recent ELT research concerned, it seems to have been no hot ‘theoretical’ issues, but ‘practical’ ones in general: e.g., learners and learning, components of proficiency, correlates of L2 learning, etc. This paper focuses on the theme given above, with a special reference to the sub-title: specifically, 1) World English, world Englishes and world's lingua franca; 2) ENL, ESL and EFL; 3) Grammars, style manuals, dictionaries and media; 4) Pronunciation models: RP, BBC model and General American, Network Standard; 5) Lexical, grammatical variations and discourse grammars; 6) Beliefs and subjective theories in foreign language research; 7) Dilemma among radical, canonical and eclectic views. In conclusion, the author offers a modest proposal: we need to appeal to our own experience, intention, feeling and purpose, that is, our identity to express “our own selves” in our contexts toward the world anywhere, if not sounding authentic enough, but producing it plausibly well. It is time for us (with our ethno-cultural autonomy) to need to be complementary to and parallel with its native speakers' linguistic-cultural authenticity in terms of the broadest mutual understanding.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.60 no.4
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• pp.529-542
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• 2021

The purpose of this research is to compare the mathematical beliefs that directly or indirectly affect the mathematics learning of Korean languge learners with those of non-Korean languge learners and identify the characteristics. To this end, an analytical comparative research was conducted through a questionnaire survey on perceptions of mathematics learning for 6th grade students of elementary school with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds in the same mathematics classroom. As a result of the analysis, Korean languge learners and non-Korean languge learners gave different meanings to learning mathematics, and they recognized various meanings of success in mathematics. In addition, the math learning ability of non-Korean learners was evaluated higher than that of Korean learners. Based on their positive beliefs, they decided how to resolve conflict situations with different problem-solving results. It will be necessary to prepare a teaching/learning plan that can fully implement multicultural mathematics education in the mathematics classroom where Korean language learners with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds belong. The results of this research can contribute to raising awareness of the need for follow-up researches to find ways to reduce the learning gap between Korean languge learners and non-Korean languge learners. It is expected that this research will contribute to understanding the perceptive characteristics of Korean language learners about learning mathematics and to prepare a plan to utilize them in mathematics lessons.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2003

The purpose of this study is to investigate the self-efficacy of gifted students in the area of sciences. For this purpose, The Self-efficacy Beliefs Inventory was administered to 220 5th and 6th gifted students and high achievers. The research findings were as follows; First, there was no statistically significant difference in the general, academic, self regulated learning, and others’ expectation self-efficacy beliefs between gifted students and high achievers as well as among groups of gifted students. Second, the gifted students in mathematics were higher than other groups in the mathematics self-efficacy beliefs. Third, the high achievers were higher than other groups in the language art self-efficacy beliefs. Fourth, the gifted students in mathematics were higher than other groups in mathematics self-efficacy beliefs. Fifth, the gifted students in science were higher than other groups in science self-efficacy beliefs. Sixth, the gifted students in IT were higher than other groups in computer self-efficacy beliefs. Seventh, the gifted students in IT were lower than other groups in social self-efficacy beliefs.

• 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.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.181-210
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• 2003

The purpose of the study was to investigate how Korean EFL writing instructors give feedback to their students' writing and what influences their feedback. A total of 12 Korean EFL instructors in Korean universities teaching freshman English and intermediate EFL writing courses provided their feedback given on students' writing samples and participated in interviews. Interviews were analyzed qualitatively with a constant comparative approach and some data from writing samples and questionnaires produced descriptive statistics. The first lesson from the results of the study was that grammar was still the most frequent concern in giving feedback on students' writing. Contrary to the participants' report, comments on content and organization were not produced very often. The second lesson came from the interview data. Some aspects of teacher feedback seemed mostly influenced by their beliefs on L2 writing and experience in teaching L2 writing. The final and major lesson was that teachers chose how they would give comments on students' writing depending on whether they found their feedback helpful in students learning to write. EFL writing teachers can produce effective feedback by clearly communicating their beliefs about L2 writing and criteria in their feedback to students in their EFL writing classrooms.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.27-49
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• 2009

This study aimed to explore EFL learners' beliefs and preferences about reading tasks and to examine the reading processes that they use for making sense of text. The subjects were comprised of 107 college students who were non-English majors and aged 19-28 years. Based on scores achieved on a reading comprehension test, they were divided into two groups (more-skilled and less-skilled readers) and asked to respond to a survey in class. The results of the survey revealed that: (1) a majority rate themselves as fair readers, which might be indicative of the insecurity they feel toward L2 reading; (2) authentic texts (especially magazines) and popular media appear to be their favorite reading materials; (3) unknown vocabulary is a major impediment to their L2 reading comprehension; (4) the more-skilled readers manifest a meaning centered view of reading, whereas the less-skilled readers center on vocabulary; and (5) both groups employ a multistrategic approach to L2 reading; however, the less-skilled readers are less successful in determining the meaning of unknown vocabulary. Pedagogical implications for EFL classroom teachers are provided.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.167-180
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• 2006

This study investigated how children rely on the mind of the speaker to infer unfamiliar words. Sixty 3 to 5-year-old children were interviewed individually with word inference and false belief tasks. Children's sensitivity to the speakers' intentions and prior experiences increased with age. Unexpectedly, their performance was not different with the condition of mind construct. Children's inferring word meanings were positively, but not significantly, correlated with understanding others' false beliefs.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.261-275
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• 2016

Many students have dualistic beliefs about mathematics and its learning- for example, there is always just one right answer in mathematics and their role in the classroom is receiving and absorbing knowledge from teacher and textbook. This article investigated some epistemic implications and limitations of common mathematics teaching practices, which often present mathematical facts(or procedures) and treat students' errors in a certain and absolute way. Langer and Piper's (1987) experiment and Oliveira et al.'s (2012) study suggested that presenting knowledge in conditional language which allows uncertainty can foster students' productive epistemological beliefs. Changing the focus and patterns of classroom communication about students' errors could help students to overcome their dualistic beliefs. This discussion will contribute to analyze the implicit epistemic messages conveyed by mathematics instructions and to investigate teaching strategies for stimulating students' epistemic development in mathematics.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.19-33
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• 2019

While the field of mathematics education strives to promote equitable mathematics learning and identifies it as a core instructional practice, less is known about its effective enactment. As teachers' teaching practices are dependent on their views and beliefs, this study investigated 133 elementary pre-service teachers' (PSTs') interpretations of diverse learners' learning experiences and proposed accommodations for them as reflected in their lesson planning process. Findings showed that PSTs came up with some strategies that are often suggested in teacher education literature, such as using multiple modes of representation and various grouping strategies. However, their responses were generic in nature rather than specific to diverse learners. Also, it was noted that many PSTs' interchangeably referred to the English Language Learners (ELLs), struggling learners, and culturally diverse learners, inferring that they thought that culturally diverse students must have been ELLs and that ELLs or culturally diverse students must have been weaker students in math. We found that the PSTs used their own frames while filtering and discarding information about diverse student populations to develop instructional plans, rather than based on the results of assessments of learning. We suggest that it is the critical first step to unwrap PSTs' unproven assumptions to better equip them for working with all of their future students.