A Study on the Teaching Method of English Middle Voice of Korean EFL Learners

Abstract

This study attempts to investigate the effective teaching method of English middle voice of Korean EFL college learners. According to realization of the invisible agent and visible grammatical elements, English ergatives and middle verb construction are distinguished syntactically and semantically. The experiment was designed to find effective instruction to educate these grammar elements. In total, 19 undergraduates were randomly assigned to two groups: the group A with explicit instruction, the group B with implicit instruction. The experiment with the following procedures for 6 weeks has progressed:ⅰ) cognitive test, ⅱ) pretest, ⅲ) treatment for 2 weeks, ⅳ) immediate posttest, ⅴ) delayed posttest. Research results showed the learning effect of the invisible agent was significantly higher in the group B with implicit group than the group A with the explicit and it was also verified statistically. Additionaly, in the learning of visible grammatical elements related to the motion and stative – tense, manner adverb and types of aspect - both groups made little difference statistically. Therefore, these results imply that, in the education of visible grammatical elements of the middle voice, there was no difference in learning effect in both teaching methods. But, for the invisible agent, the implicit instruction is more effective, unlike the study that explicit instruction is generally more effective than the implicit in grammar education.