Korean Adult Learners Research Articles

Constructing Personal Stories: The Structure and Functions of Korean EFL Learners’ Oral Narratives

Narrating a personal experience occupies an important part in human discourse behavior. According to Labov and Waletzky’s (1967) classic narrative model, an oral narrative in English typically encompasses certain components that give it the status of a well-developed story. Using this model as the frame of analysis, this study analyzed personal experience narratives told by Korean adult EFL learners to examine whether and how the stories meet the structural and functional features of a good narrative construction. The findings show that the EFL narratives largely align with the structural organization of the Labovian scheme with some variations. In particular, the syntactic properties delineated for the components of the model were employed, yet deviant manifestations were also identified as resources adopted by the learners to construct the stories. The functions of the components comprising the narrative data were similar to those prescribed in the model. Notable in the present study, however, was the prevalence of the optional components performing functions specific to EFL learners’ narratives. Based on the findings of this study, implications for EFL instruction and L2 oral narrative research are discussed.

“I won’t talk about this here in America:” Sociocultural Context of Korean English Language Learners’ Emotion Speech in English

This article examines the relationship between language and emotion, especially drawing attention to the experiences and perspectives of second language (SL) learners. Informed by the sociocultural perspective on the construction of emotion and its representation, this study highlights the intertwined relationship among emotions, cultural contexts, perceived identities, and languages. Using a qualitative case study approach, we examined challenges and strategies of emotion speech in one group of second language learners: Korean adult English learners (ELs) in the United States. Analyses of two surveys with seventeen Korean ELs and interviews with four selected participants demonstrate: (1) A full communication of emotions across cultures and languages was challenging because of the lack of shared cultural contexts among speakers. (2) However, the acquisition of one’s second language included learning new cultural maps with which learners developed intercultural capacities to code switch across languages/emotions and, thus, to participate more fully in their second language community. (3) The code switching among SL learners often involved perceived personality change and identity negotiation in different languages since each language was associated with different cultural experiences and emotions/value orientations. Implications for the Second Language Acquisition field will be discussed.

How Korean EFL learners understand sarcasm in L2 English

This study examines how Korean adult learners of English interpret sarcasm in spoken English. Participants were asked to identify instances of sarcasm in video clips taken from the U.S. TV sitcom Friends, and then to assess the possible speaker intent and communicative goals associated with these sarcastic utterances. Finally, during individual interviews, participants reported what cues they attended to while processing sarcasm. Analysis revealed that learners drew upon certain features of L1 schema during the L2 comprehension process. Results also suggest pedagogical ideas for teaching the concept and interpretation of English sarcasm to L2 learners.

The Role of Uptake to Recast in Second Language Development

The role of L2 learners’ uptake of recast has been controversial according to two aspects; (1) what motivates the production of uptake, especially the successfully repaired ones and (2) whether such uptake makes contribution to L2 acquisition (Goo & Gass, 2013). Literature on recasts suggested the explicit knowledge seeking mind and the explicit knowledge of the target form in the learners’ current L2 knowledge as the motivation for uptake because recasts are meaningfully redundant (Ellis and Sheen, 2006; Lyster & Ranta, 1997, 2013). Based on this suggestion, the present study hypothesized that the benefit of uptake might be the increase of explicit knowledge rather than that of the implicit knowledge, thus, forming an explicit learning route. A quasi-experimental study was conducted with 33 Korean adult learners whose knowledge of the target form was assessed in two types, implicit and explicit. Recasts were provided to the incorrect productions of verb forms during the four sessions of information-gap tasks. Results showed (1) uptake was not affected by one type of knowledge over the other and (2) uptake did not improve one type of knowledge over the other, though both types of knowledge have increased significantly.

The Effects of Task Complexity and Task Condition on Learner Language

The present study examined the effect of task complexity and task condition for Korean adult EFL learners’ interlanguage performance. Both Skehan (1998, 2009) and Robinson (2001, 2005, 2011) predicted that complex task induces complex language but regarding its effect on learners’ language accuracy, Skehan proposed that complexity and accuracy compete with each other whereas Robinson proposed that they accompany each other. Robinson additionally proposed that two-way interaction condition promotes the accuracy of learner language particularly for the complex task. Forty Korean university students participated in the experiment and the results showed that language complexity increased both by complex task and one-way task in support of Robinson but that language accuracy was not affected by task complexity but by two-way interactional condition. Also, the effect of two-way interactional task condition for language accuracy was significant only in the simple task against Robinson’s prediction. The findings are interpreted that language complexity has been confirmed to be a function of task complexity but that the accuracy of learner language neither accompanies language complexity nor competes with it. Language accuracy was interpreted as external to task content or complexity and as a function of active two-way interactional features that promotes attention and noticing.

Effects of a Web-Based English Learning Program for Korean Adult Learners

Effects of a Web-Based English Learning Program for Korean Adult Learners

Emerging identities of adult language learners in their socialization in ESL programs

With the spread of English as a global language, an increasing number of Korean international students are coming to the U.S. to learn English. Those who have different life experiences in Korea in terms of age, job, and motivation for learning English socialize themselves to American educational institutions in various ways. This paper examines how Korean adult English learners who came from various backgrounds socialize themselves from their English learning experience in American ESL programs, and how they construct new identities in their language learning socialization process to obtain social memberships.

The dimensions of e-learning quality: from the learner’s perspective

The present study was designed to identify the quality dimensions as perceived by adult learners who had taken one or more e-learning courses offered by higher education institutions in South Korea and to identify and confirm the structural features of these quality dimensions. The results of the exploratory factor analysis arising from a survey of 299 learners revealed that from their perspective, there were seven dimensions in evaluating the e-learning quality: Interaction, Staff Support, Institutional Quality Assurance Mechanism, Institutional Credibility, Learner Support, Information and Publicity and Learning Tasks. And the confirmatory factor analysis with responses obtained from another set of 496 adult learners confirmed a good fit of the seven-factor model to the observed data. While most of these seven dimensions are supported by previous studies, some dimensions, such as technology support, content and evaluation/assessment that e-learning providers had highlighted did not appear to be important for Korean adult learners. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed in relation to learner characteristics, e-learning design, and culture, and further research topics are suggested.

Effects of Task and Feedback Types on Korean Adult EFL Learners’ Oral Proficiency

This study investigates the effects of the types of tasks and feedback on Korean adult EFL learners' fluency, accuracy, and complexity. A...

Prosody in English Stop Representation by Korean Adult Learners of English

This study examines the patterns of prosodically induced variation in the English stop contrast produced by Korean learners of English. The acoustic...

Referencing in a Second Language: Korean EFL Learners' Cohesive Use of References in Written Narrative Discourse

This study examined Korean English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' ability to establish textual cohesion in English through appropriate selection of reference forms and reference management strategies in their written narrative discourse. It employed both quantitative and qualitative analysis to explore how the language-specific reference choices and strategies in their first language (L1) may be evident in their second language (L2) discourse production. Participants were Korean adult EFL learners and American native English speakers (NES) in college. Findings from the quantitative analysis of the written narratives showed that the specifically Korean referential strategies of heavily relying on nominals were not evident in the Korean EFL learners' English narrative discourse. However, a closer look at the data with a qualitative approach revealed that the Korean EFL learners' referential strategies were very different from those of the NES. More specifically, the qualitative analysis revealed that, unlike the NES who alternated the use of noun phrases and pronouns strategically to achieve certain discourse effects, the Korean participants did not display such sophisticated use of reference forms within an extended L2 discourse. The findings are attributed to the L1-specific reference management conventions and to the L2 learners' lack of practice and competence in referential strategies at the discourse level.

Insertion preferred to deletion in learner speech: A study of Korean English.

Do language learners prefer insertion or deletion, when they are forced to produce the target speech that is not permissible in native phonology? To answer this question, we analyzed the speech data from 6,887 word data of L1 English, L2 English, and L1 English loanwords, which were elicited from 11 native speakers of American English, 181 Korean adult learners of American English, and 11 native speakers of Korean. We measured the acoustic features that are relevant to insertion and deletion in English. We focused on whether non-native English evidence effects of the native Korean more in the deletion of a consonant, as in [kansep] for the English loanword concept; or in the insertion of a vowel, as in [kanseptㅁ]. The results indicate that the learner speech manifests significantly more insertion errors than deletion errors, in both word-level and sentence-level production. The error rate drops drastically after instruction to support that explicit instruction is effective in phonological acquisition of the learner speech.

The Effects of Focus on Form in CMC: A Case Study of Korean Adult Learners

The Effects of Focus on Form in CMC: A Case Study of Korean Adult Learners

Effectiveness of a robust computer assisted pronunciation training tool

A reliable ASR-based pronunciation training tool named STAR (self-training accent reduction) is implemented for native speakers of Korean learning American English. STAR is designed to focus on the most frequent phonemic errors made by Korean adult learners and to provide instantaneous feedback. In order to investigate the effectiveness of STAR, ten Korean participants are recruited for this pilot study. The study consists of three phases: Pre-test, training, and post-test. During the pre-test, the participants read a pre-designed word list containing accent sensitive phonemes into a microphone and participate in one session of training using the STAR system. The participants return for two more sessions of training on the following day. The post-test is administered on the third day, after one additional training session. During the post-test, the participants read the same wordlist as the one administered during the pre-test, and an additional wordlist that they were not trained on. Two trained phoneticians listen and transcribe all recordings to examine whether the participants’ productions are more accurate after the STAR training. The results indicate that most of the participants who practice pronunciation with STAR show improvement in their pronunciation.

Good Teachers Know Where to Scratch When Learners Feel Itchy: Korean Learners' Views of Native-Speaking Teachers of English

Cross-border education has been growing dramatically in both English-speaking countries and non-native English-speaking countries. While more and more students, particularly from Asian countries such as Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan choose to study in English-speaking countries, many native English speakers go to Asian countries to teach English. In this context, cross-cultural misunderstanding and cultural bias between English language learners and native-speaking teachers of English are becoming major issues. This article focuses on 12 Korean adult learners' views about native-speaking teachers of English working in Korea. Korean learners' expectations and needs regarding English language learning and teaching are explored through the investigation and analysis of the learners' views. It aims to provide educators both in non-English and English-speaking countries, including Australia, with insights to inform the development of effective learning and teaching environments not only for Korean students, but also for those in similar cultural contexts.

Telling a coherent story in a foreign language: analysis of Korean EFL learners’ referential strategies in oral narrative discourse

Abstract The present study aims to examine Korean EFL learners’ ability to achieve discourse cohesion in English through appropriate selection of referential forms and utilization of referential strategies; in particular, it looks into the language-specific aspects of the referential system in their L1, and how these may be evident in their L2 performance. Using “frog story” picturebook prompts, The analyses examine oral narratives produced by Korean adult EFL learners ( N =12) in L1 (Korean) and L2 (English) and adult American native English speakers ( N =12). Quantitative analysis of the narratives shows that the specifically Korean linguistic strategies of heavily relying on nominals are evident in the Korean EFL learners’ English narrative discourse; thus, the resulting stories are relatively less coherent and cohesive than the native English speakers’. However, it is also observed that the Koreans’ English stories tend to diverge from their Korean counterparts in the direction of the target language norms. In addition, both the Korean EFL learners’ English narratives and the English native speakers’ stories showed referent effects which were not present in the Korean stories; this is supposed to be due to the Korean referential system, which prefers explicit reference even when characters have already been introduced and remain in the central plot.

Learning stop-consonant voicing in English: The effect of perceived cross-language similarity

Previous research has demonstrated that perceived similarity between native- (L1) and second-language (L2) sounds overall influences how accurately L2 sounds are produced. No study, however, has examined whether certain phonetic cues to an accurate production of L2 sounds are susceptible to the influence of perceived similarity between L1 and L2 sounds more than others. In English, vowel duration is the primary cue to distinguishing word-final voiced and voiceless stops (e.g., bad versus bat). A secondary cue to stop-consonant voicing is the duration of the stop-gap closure of word-final voiced and voiceless stops. In this study we examined how perceived similarity between L1 and L2 sounds influences adult L2 learners’ production of these two cues to stop-consonant voicing. Thus specifically examined were vowel and stop-gap closure duration in beginning, intermediate, and advanced native Korean adult learners’ productions of six English vowels in 18 CVt and CVd words. The results of these acoustic analyses indicated that: (1) these two cues to stop-consonant voicing are differentially susceptible to the influence of perceived similarity between L1 and L2 sounds; and (2) perceived similarity between L1 and L2 sounds influences how accurately and quickly these cues are learned.