Students’ Learning Activity Preferences in Korean Tertiary EFL Courses

Michael P Simon

doi:10.20849/jed.v4i1.700

Abstract

The idea of student-centered learning and education has been sweeping through teaching pedagogy for a number of years, with a heavy emphasis in the realm of ESL/EFL. Students have been given the ability to choose topics, and overall classroom atmosphere in the goal of increased student engagement and participation. However, the specific activities students would prefer to engage in has not been researched extensively. The present study examined the learning activity preferences of college students majoring in languages and non-languages in a college EFL classroom in Korea. Students were given a survey which assessed three different parts: their perceived English abilities, their preferences in teacher quality and classroom, and their preferences in activities. The data obtained indicated that students prefer a class which incorporates free-talking as an activity and as an overall methodology. These findings allow teachers to focus specifically on what students would like to practice in a classroom, but also leave a large gap for teachers to fill in terms of how to implement said quality into an entire curriculum.

Highlights

Over the last few decades of research into second and foreign language development, one of the main findings which has greatly influenced teaching methodology is the notion of learning as a learner-focused, or more widely termed student-centered, activity (Nunan, 1988)
The present study examined the learning activity preferences of college students majoring in languages and non-languages in a college EFL classroom in Korea
Grammar was chosen as the second weakest skill at 20.9% with writing at 11.6%, listening at 13.9%, and reading being the lowest at 6.9%. These results could lead researchers to assume that students in Korea are in need of speaking and grammar activities to counter their perceived weakness, especially for non-language majors whose experience with practicing a language is at a minimum

Summary

Introduction

Over the last few decades of research into second and foreign language development, one of the main findings which has greatly influenced teaching methodology is the notion of learning as a learner-focused, or more widely termed student-centered, activity (Nunan, 1988) Due to this insight, a larger discussion as to the role students have in the classroom beyond mere passive receivers of knowledge has been deliberated by scholars from every corner of the world. A suggested way in which to combat this conception has been to make changes within the structure of schools themselves while changing perceptions of the classroom, beginning with the general population (Thanh, 2010) This is a process which would require an enormous amount of time and effort from every level of the educational establishment in order to obtain desired results

Results

Discussion

Conclusion