Korean EFL College Students Research Articles

Korean EFL College Students’ Identity Negotiation through Peer Review and Revision in Their Writing

The present study explores how Korean college EFL writers construct identity in peer review and revision during the essay writing process. Twelve Korean college students from the university English newspaper club participated in a 15 week writing project that included peer reviews and revision. After the writing project, the semi-structured interview was carried out. To understand their perspectives on constructing writer identities, qualitative methods were employed with writing drafts, peer review comments, revision drafts, and interview transcriptions. For coding the data, the repeated and salient patterns were identified. through careful and repeated reviews. The findings show that six writer identities can be categorized as the six identities: face negotiator, evaluator, junior and senior, facilitator, audience, and opinion-holder. At the beginning of the project, participants showed themselves to be face-saving individuals, but during the process they have negotiated their identities as a face negotiator during the process. Over time, as a facilitator, they became aware of the benefits of providing comments and suggestions in the peer review process. Future studies will include a greater sample size, classroom-based settings, and investigations of constructs of investment and imagined identities from their writings. (Keimyung University)

Korean EFL College Students’ Use of Self-regulatory Strategies for Anxiety in English Learning

The present study examines Korean college students’ anxiety factors and their usage of self-regulatory strategies for coping with English learning anxiety. This study employs three measures: a background questionnaire, the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale, and the FLA Self-regulatory Strategy Scale. Two-hundred and one freshmen were assigned to low-, mild-, and high-anxiety groups based on their anxiety levels. The findings of the study reveal that the communication apprehension factor was the main attributor for English learning anxiety, followed by the evaluation anxiety factor, and then the discomfort factor. There were significant differences in relation to self-regulatory strategy use among groups. Learners in the low-anxiety group showed more frequent use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies than the high-anxiety group while both the low- and mild-anxiety groups employed more social strategies than the high-anxiety learners. Based on these findings, pedagogical implications for L2 language teaching and learning are suggested.

The Role of Raters’ Personality Traits in the Rating Process of L2 Argumentative Writing: Interactions with Argument Positions

The present study examines the influence of raters’personality traits on the rating process of L2 argumentative writing and their interactions with argument positions. Four Korean EFL raters took a personality test and scored four essays composed by Korean EFL university students, thinking aloud their rating processes. The raters’decision-making behaviors were analyzed to investigate the role of their personality during the rating process. Results of the study reveal that the raters not only shared certain rating strategies due to the nature of scoring L2 argumentative essays but also illustrated personalityspecific variations in decision-making behaviors and this appeared to interact with the essay argument positions. A pair of raters, found to be extroverted perceivers, favored supporting argument and attempted to interpret the writer’s intention or correct linguistic errors with more emotional engagement with the writer; the other pair, the introverted judgers, preferred the counter-argument, and were highly goal-oriented and time conscious, scoring more objectively and efficiently with more foci on task completion and the quantitative aspects of writing. The raters also demonstrated variations within the pair group. The study suggests raters’personality traits can be a source of rater variation, which influences scoring validity and reliability of writing assessment.

영어 의사소통의지 수준에 따른 영어 말하기 전략 사용, 학습동기 및 학습태도의 관계에 관한 연구

This study explored the relationships between attitudes, motivation, oral speaking strategies and willingness to communicate (WTC) according to the levels of WTC using structural equation modeling. A total of 234 Korean EFL university students participated in the study. Results showed that for high-WTC learners, attitudes and speaking strategies directly affected WTC, whereas motivation indirectly affected WTC through speaking strategies. On the other hand, for mid-WTC learners, speaking strategies and motivation directly affected WTC but attitude indirectly affected WTC. For low-WTC learners, motivation directly affected WTC and attitudes indirectly affected WTC. According to the results, pedagogical implications were suggested.

Acquisition of Relative Clauses by Korean EFL College Students

Acquisition of Relative Clauses by Korean EFL College Students

Digital Technology in the 4IR and the Future of English Learning From the Perspective of Korean EFL University Students

Digital Technology in the 4IR and the Future of English Learning From the Perspective of Korean EFL University Students

Digital Technology in the 4IR and the Future of English Learning From the Perspective of Korean EFL University Students

Digital Technology in the 4IR and the Future of English Learning From the Perspective of Korean EFL University Students

The effects of experience abroad, English self-efficacy, and proficiency on the L2 motivational selves: a study of Korean EFL university students

ABSTRACTThe present study aims to explore the relationships between the variables – experience abroad, self-efficacy, and self-perceived proficiency – and the self-concept in the L2 Motivational System and identify which of these variables contribute more to its explanation. Research data on 197 Korean university students majoring in English related studies were collected and analyzed using simple and hierarchical multiple regressions. This study re-confirms ideal L2 self as being more influential on motivated learning behavior than ought-to L2 self, which is consistent with many previous studies. It was also found that experience abroad is statistically related to ideal L2 self, but not to ought-to L2 self, which means, as experience abroad increases, ideal L2 self is likely to be enhanced. The results also identified the crucial role of self-efficacy in the formation of ideal L2 self while taking experience abroad into account. Additionally, the students’ ideal L2 self was found to be more readily explained by their proficiency in communicative skills than that of academic skills.

The Effects of Peer Review Interactions on Korean College Students’ Writing

The present study investigated the types of peer reviews and revisions by Korean EFL college students on their writing, and described students’ perception towards peer review. It comprised of a sample of twelve college students joined in this peer review and revision process through surveys and in-depth interviews. The results demonstrate that the participants’ peer review paid more attention to addition and positive praise, and their revisions focused on corrections, additions, and no revision. Based on the holistic and analytic scoring results, it indicates that the peer review activity did not reach the expected increase in writing quality. However, participants increased in C-test scores and vocabulary, and employed many writing strategies from their peers. After the peer review process, the participants recognized that the peer review interaction helped them improve their learning: how to share ideas, organize their writing, compare different thoughts of peers, read each other’s writings, and find out their own strengths and weaknesses. The results showed that the participants became more positive towards writing in English because they became less anxious in writing as they repeatedly engaged in the peer review process.

EFL 영어학습자의 영어 대본 작성에 나타난 동사 사용 오류 분석

The purpose of this research was to analyze Korean EFL college students’ writing errors in using verbs on their scripts for presentation. In order to accomplish this purpose, the following research questions were constructed; 1) what types of errors they committed in their English scripts, 2) how those types of errors were different according to their English proficiency level, and 3) how those errors changed over time in terms of frequency and rate. Six students were asked to write an English script for their presentation. Data sources were from the 30 English scripts written during eight weeks of period, and pre-interview and post in-depth interview with participants. The findings of data analysis were as follows; 1) the students used awkward expressions, incorrect tense, wrong omissions, and subject-verb disagreement; 2) both higher and lower groups of students committed more substitution errors than any other types of error; and 3) the frequency and rate of students’ errors were decreased for both groups as teacher

The Effect of Coaching-Based Shadowing Practice on EFL Learners’ Listening and Speaking Skills

This study examined the effects of self-directed vs. coaching-based shadowing practice on improving EFL learners’ listening and speaking skills and their perceptions of the effectiveness of each approach. The participants were 61 Korean EFL college students. The learners in Group 1 performed coaching-based practice whereas those in Group 2 carried out self-directed practice. Data were elicited from a pretest, a posttest, and a survey. The results indicated that both types of practice had positive effects, with Group 1 showing greater improvement on the listening tests. Survey results indicated that learners in both groups perceived their approach to be helpful for improving their pronunciation, and shadowing was helpful for improving their speaking skills. Moreover, the learners perceived that coaching was helpful for promoting their interest and participation. The overall results of this study suggest that implementing coaching can be a helpful strategy to maximize the effects of language practice.

Effects of Text Length and Question Type on Test-takers’ Performance on Fill-in-the-blank Items in Korean CSAT

This study examines the effects of text length and question type on Korean EFL readers’ reading comprehension of the fill-in-the-blank items in Korean CSAT. A total of 100 Korean EFL college students participated in the study. After divided into three different proficiency groups, the participants took a reading comprehension test which consisted of 4 reading passages (2 short and 2 long) from the Korean CSAT, followed by multiple-choice fill-in-the-blank questions and open-ended inference questions. The longer version of the passages was made from its originally restored version in which one or two paragraphs were added. The results showed that the college students performed better on the long passages than the short ones. In addition, the college students’ reading comprehension test performance was affected differently depending on the type of questions. The findings of the study provided implications on how to select and construct reading passages for high-stake nationwide examinations, such as the Korean CSAT.

교수자의 피드백 제공에 따른 EFL대학생의 영어 쓰기 오류의 변화

The purpose of this study is to investigate error patterns in EFL college students’ English writing as well as their change over time, based on the teacher’s feedback. In order to accomplish this purpose, two research questions were constructed; first, what are the characteristics of Korean EFL students’ writing based on the maturity of English sentence by the T-unit analysis? Second, what types of error patterns are produced in Korean EFL students’ writing? Also, how do the error patterns change based on the teacher’s feedback over time? The participants were four Korean EFL college students, and they were asked to pre-write, draft, revise and edit until they completed their final draft. The results of pre- and post-writing test were also analyzed. The major findings are as follows: 1) The mean number of T-unit among participants was 42.25 units, and the mean number of words per T-unit was 10.95 words. 2) The most frequently committed errors were found out as lexical and morphological errors. Moreover, the rate of lexical and sentence structure errors has been dropped, whereas the rate of punctuation errors has increased as the teacher’s feedback progressed over time. Pedagogical and practical suggestions are also made on the effective teaching of English writing in Korean classroom settings.

Self-regulated Learning and English Proficiency of Korean EFL College Students

The current study explores the relationship between self-regulated learning strategies and English proficiency in L2 settings, focusing on Korean college students. 170 participants were assigned to low-, medium-, and high-proficiency groups based on their English performance. In the study, a background questionnaire, a questionnaire for self-regulated learning strategies, and a TOEIC subtest was employed. The findings revealed that there were significant differences among groups on the motivation and learning strategy scales. The learners in the high-proficiency group were aware of the importance of intrinsic goal and metacognitive self-regulation strategies while both the intermediate and advanced learners indicated significantly larger outcomes than lower proficiency learners in terms of task-value, self-efficacy for learning performance, rehearsal, elaboration, critical thinking, and peer evaluation. Pedagogical implications for L2 acquisition have been suggested based on the results. (Gwangju University · Chonnam National University)

Sharing Peer Feedback: How Does It Affect EFL Learners’ Oral Presentation Skills?

The current study explores the effect of peer feedback in an English oral presentation class. Much of the previous research interest was given to finding out the degree of agreement between teacher and peer assessments or among students’ assessments, but not the expected advantages of peer assessment itself. Accordingly, 49 Korean EFL university students were recruited, and 25 (i.e., control group) were given only the instructor’s feedback, and the rest 24 (i.e., experimental group) were additionally given peer feedback. The students made five presentations in total, and their midterm and final exam scores between the two groups were compared through independent samples t-tests. The midterm scores were quite similar, but statistically significant differences were observed for the final exam scores. This meant that those who shared peer feedback as a small group during the semester performed much better on the final exam by improving their oral proficiency. Moreover, their responses to a survey questionnaire indicated that they perceived they had greatly improved presentation skills through peer feedback task. In particular, it seemed that small group work and intimacy helped them more to maximize the effect of peer feedback. Pedagogical implications and limitations of this study are further discussed.

A Systemic Functional Study of Thematic Organization in the English Writing of Korean College Students

Employing Halliday’s (1994) Systemic Functional Grammar approach, the present study examines the Korean EFL college students’ way of organizing thematic structures in written English texts, with special focus on the influence of learner proficiency. A total of 150 learners’ argumentative essays consisting of 50 essays each from three levels of learner groups were compared with 50 essays from its native counterparts, with inquiry focused on the thematic selection, usage of various theme features, and semantic distribution of topical themes. The results show that textual themes, multiple themes, and first person pronouns as topical themes are highly overused in the learner texts compared to the native essays. Overall, the level of proficiency significantly affects learners’ choices regarding thematic structures although the enhanced proficiency does not involve the improvement in all aspects of thematic organization. From these findings, it is suggested that the EFL writing pedagogy should pay greater attention to the effective use of thematic organization as a means of enhancing textual coherence and embrace level-specific instructions.

Effects of Two Types of Indirect Written Corrective Feedback on the Acquisition of English Articles

The study investigates the relative effects of two types of indirect written corrective feedback (CF) on the acquisition of English articles. Thirty-five high intermediate Korean EFL college students who were enrolled in three composition classes participated in this study. After the instruction on the English article usage, three classes (Class A, Class B, and Class C) received different types of feedback on their blog writings over the course of a semester. Both Class A and Class B received indirect feedback in the form of underlining errors. In the following class, Class A received correct forms with metalinguistic information for the errors revised incorrectly, but Class B did not have such opportunities. The Class C received no feedback. The results showed that only Class A, which received indirect feedback plus correct forms with metalinguistic information, made a statistically significant gain from the 3 sessions of feedback treatment. Pedagogical implications were provided on the basis of the findings.

Korean EFL College Students’ Use of Listening Strategies for Oral Communication in English.

Korean EFL College Students’ Use of Listening Strategies for Oral Communication in English.

타문화 교환학생들과의 협력학습이 영어학습자들의 상호문화 간 의사소통능력에 미치는 효과

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the collaborative work of Korean EFL university students and foreign exchange students with various cultural backgrounds on Korean EFL students intercultural communicative competence. Seventy three university students participated in this study (35 in a control group and 38 in an experimental group). Chen and Starosta’s (2000) intercultural sensitivity scale was implemented to measure the EFL students’ intercultural communicative competence through a pre- and a post-test. The data analysis focused on five areas: interaction engagement, respect for cultural differences, interaction confidence, interaction enjoyment, and interaction attentiveness. The results suggested that collaborative work with foreign exchange students in class helped Korean EFL students improve their intercultural communicative competence.

A study on vocabulary learning strategies used by Korean EFL college students

A study on vocabulary learning strategies used by Korean EFL college students