• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.237-264
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• 2009

The present study explores patterns of teachers' corrective feedback and learners' uptake in Korean EFL undergraduate classroom setting. It also examines consistencies and discrepancies in the perception of corrective feedback by teachers and learners. Teachers' and learners' preferences and perception of corrective feedback are further analyzed to determine whether or not those differ from actual practices in English language learning classrooms. The results of the study are as follows. First of all, teachers' corrective feedback type varied according to the learners' error type and English proficiency level. There was a lack of consistency between the teachers' feedback practices and the learners' error types. Second, for the phonological errors, learners' data witnessed the most frequent uptake on recast. For the other error types, however, the learners' uptake rates were high for the explicit corrective feedback. Third, the teachers' explicit knowledge of corrective feedback was rather low and the preferences differed from teacher to teacher. The teachers' feedback perception and preferences did not consistently reflect their actual practices. Finally, patterns of the learners' expectations of corrective feedback varied according to learners' proficiency level. Teachers' and learners' expectations of corrective feedback were also compared and some mismatches were detected.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.179-202
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the teacher feedback (TF) group and the peer feedback (PF) group exhibit significant differences in their English writing abilities and attitudes toward English writing. The subjects of this study are eighty-three college first-year students enrolled in a college English reading class. The subjects' first and final writing samples are used to measure the improvement of English writing abilities and a set of pretest and posttest questionnaires is administered in order to find their attitudes. The qualitative and quantitative analyses of the data collected show the following results. First, the two groups show no significant difference in their holistic scores. Neither do the two groups display any significantly different development in their analytic scores. Second, the two groups show no significant differences in attitude factors but writing confidence. These findings suggest that peer feedback can be used to encourage EFL college students to develop their writing abilities.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.127-152
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• 2006

For the past 20 years the process approach to writing has been popular in second language writing classrooms. However, there have been very few studies conducted in Korea with regard to the composing processes and the effects of proficiency on writers' usage. The present study attempts to begin to fill this gap. Three groups of college students with different writing proficiency participated in the study: the advanced group, the intermediate group, and the beginning group. The verbal protocol of their writing processes revealed that they approached writing tasks differently. While the advanced writers focused on generating texts and ideas and examined their writing at both global and local levels, the other two groups of students tended to focus on evaluating text at the local level and generated fewer ideas and less text. The findings from this study are then compared to those of some major studies of the composing process as conclusions are subsequently drawn about the specific needs of Korean college writers.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.1-24
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• 2006

This study investigated differences in beliefs about English learning of 286 EFL college students and 52 English teachers in Korea. Data was collected using Horwitz's Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory and compared between students and teachers in beliefs. To address the research questions, the data were analyzed through descriptive statistics including frequencies, factor analysis, MANOVA, ANOVA, t-test, and reliability coefficients. The results showed four factors in student beliefs: Difficulty of learning English, nature of learning English, importance of correctness in learning English, and motivation and perceived importance of learning English. Clear differences were found in students and teachers' beliefs in English learning aptitude and importance of translation, error correction, and grammar rules. A few belief differences were also identified between Koreans and native-speaking English teachers related to the importance of vocabulary learning, pronunciation, and cultural knowledge. The findings of the study indicated that background variables such as gender and major field of study have an effect on student beliefs about L2 learning. The present study also provided pedagogical considerations to reduce mismatch between students and teachers beliefs and to improve the L2 planning and instruction.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.119-139
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• 2010

The purpose of this paper was to examine various aspects of meaning negotiation process in online chatting. Korean college students were asked to engage in chatting on the Internet over the course of a semester-long period, and chatting transcripts were analyzed in terms of sources of communication breakdown, signals to indicate communication breakdown, strategies to overcome communication breakdown, and ways of closing meaning negotiation. According to the findings of the study, lack of background knowledge and incoherent string of sentences in text were two major barriers creating communication problems. Subjects were able to use signals to indicate their communication difficulties, and overcome them by using different strategies. In doing so, however, they were found to suffer a narrow range of signals and strategies, which showed their limited communicative ability in the management of interaction, and indicated a clear, strong need for an extension of discourse and strategic competences of Korean students for more effective and smoother transition of message in everyday interaction.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.77-98
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• 2005

The purpose of the study is to investigate whether focus-on-form instruction is effective in promoting accuracy in writing and to make some suggestions regarding education in business English writing. For this purpose, an experiment, of which the participants were 29 college sophomores taking a course in business English, was made. The learners received instruction in the English nouns followed by modificatory phrases or clauses through the focus-on-form techniques, feedback and explicit explanation. The results were as follows: First, the learners who received focus-on-form instruction improved accuracy in writing. Second, there was a correlation between the learners' English proficiency levels and the effects of focus-on-form instruction. Third, the high level learners showed more positive attitude toward focus-on-form instruction than the low level ones. To promote accuracy in written business communication, the following suggestions were made on the basis of the results: First, focus-on-form instruction should be incorporated into a content-based business English class. Second, repeated focus-on-form instruction is needed. Third, learners' English proficiency levels should be taken into account when focus-on-form instruction is given.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.59-80
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• 2010

The present study investigated what kind of form-focused instruction would yield better results for incidental learning of English verb patterns in two experiments. Experiment 1 compared the effectiveness of focus on form (reading + translation) and focus on forms (verb pattern list + translation) tasks in learning new English verb patterns incidentally in Korean EFL college classrooms. The results of Experiment 1 showed significantly higher results for the focus on forms group. Since it was revealed by Experiment 1 that the learners did not notice unknown target verb patterns, Experiment 2 was undertaken to examine whether the difference between the focus on form and focus on forms conditions found in Experiment 1 would be retained even after the isolated form-focused instruction or focus on forms aiming at teaching students how to recognize verb patterns was provided for the learners before the focus on form and focus on forms tasks were carried out. The results showed that the focus on form group yielded significantly higher incidental learning scores than the focus on forms group. The effectiveness rates of the focus on form in Experiment 2 were statistically higher than those of the focus on forms in Experiment 1. The results of the two experiments indicated that the combination of the isolated form-focused instruction and focus on form was significantly more effective in learning English verb patterns incidentally. In conclusion, form-focused instruction including both isolated form-focused instruction and focus on form is an effective way to incidental learning of English verb patterns.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.79-98
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• 2006

As one way of changing a teacher-fronted, grammar-based reading class into a meaningful, fun-creating one, this paper compared teacher- fronted reading with student-centered reading framed upon cooperative learning. In a study in which each type of reading method was conducted for college students in an EFL reading course for a period of one semester, data were gathered via questionnaires. The results showed that though each type of reading instruction came with its own strengths and weaknesses, student-centered reading instruction was preferred for various reasons. Most important, through an active participation in cooperative work, subjects were motivated and interested in L2 reading much, were exposed to various reading strategies and skills, and practiced them in a friendly, low-anxiety learning climate.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.27-46
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• 2007

Teachers can maximize students' L2 learning by knowing preferred learning styles. This paper presents the results of a survey that asked 309 English learners to identify their perceptual learning style preferences. It further compared students' favored learning styles in terms of their gender and major field of study and explored a possible link between learning styles and English achievement. Collected data using Reid's (1995) questionnaire were analyzed by descriptive statistics, MANOVA, ANOVA, correlations, multiple regressions including squared partial correlations, and Cronbach's alpha. The results indicated that Korean students favored English learning in group regardless of gender, while their preferred mode of learning was significantly different in regard to their major field of study. Certain learning styles might be profitable for English achievement. Multiple regression analyses revealed that individual mode of learning was the best predictor of students' English achievement. It furthermore showed significant relationships between visual and individual styles of learning and English performance. The findings of the study reflected students' English learning context in which English native-speaking teachers frequently used communicative pair and small group activities for speaking practices that were consonant with students' learning styles.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.39-69
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• 2010

This study aims to identify how participants in online-incorporated English learning perceive interaction between achievement and factors of learning and personality. Using grounded theory analysis, this study attempts to generate a theoretical model depicting how the factors work with the L2 learners situated in the learning setting. A total of 231 college freshmen participated in online and offline EFL learning programs for the duration of one semester. In addition, all respondents completed a survey questionnaire on their learning experiences. In the investigation of the differences between low- and high-proficiency groups, audio-taped interviews with 20 selected students, 10 from each group, have revealed differences not only in the types of personal and instructional factors, but also, more importantly, in the interrelationship between these factors in each group's learning model. These models effectively explained the statistically significant differences in four questionnaire items, such as online learning and contributions of offline class sections to their L2 achievement. These findings entail L2 practitioners' shared understandings of their students' perspectives of learning in the specific L2 learning context.