This study aimed to investigate how EFL learners perceived English writing tasks and teachers' written feedback. The subjects were 82 mixed major college EFL students aged 19-24; the majority were freshmen females. Based on the scores estimated from the essay evaluation test, they were placed into two groups (proficienand less-proficient writers) and responded to an in-class questionnaire. The results indicated that: (1) regardless of writing proficiency, a large number of the students felt that they were just fair writers, which could be derived from low confidence and high anxiety; (2) grammar and vocabulary were perceived as the main features that determined good EFL writers and also prevented the students from performing the writing task successfully; (3) they believed that teachers' feedback contributed to the development of their English writing skills because it helped them apprehend what to improve or avoid in the future, acquire better English usage, and correct their errors; and (4) the proficient writers were more willing to correct errors themselves after being provided clues than the less-proficient writers. Implications of the findings for EFL classrooms are discussed.

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.

Error analysis plays an important role because understanding the types of errors can give a better opportunity for both teachers and learners to recognize the nature of errors and ways of preventing them. This study looks into errors in the medical research abstracts written by 26 Koreans and also examines hedging expressions since hedging can be a necessary tactic in which the validity and objectivity of their claims is conveyed. The hedging expressions of these research abstracts are to be compared with those of Hyland (1996)'s study done on ENL academic writers of cell and molecular biology. The results of the study reveal that wrong word choice was the most commonly occurred errors, followed by prepositions, articles, adding and missing words. Many of these errors, except articles, seemed to derive from the native language interference. There were also run-on sentences, subject & verb agreement, tense, word order and minor errors. As for hedging, ESL medical writers seemed to use very limited hedging expressions and inappropriately strong modals. It is recommended to take variations of hedges using epistemic adverbials and adjectives to present their claims in a more valid and polite way. Limited verb choice was also noted. As for preventing or minimizing similar future errors, collocation practices in ESP focused on commonly used medical related words and expressions can be effective.

The main concern of the study is the playwrights' perspectives toward the relationship between society and individuals rather than specific cultural or social circumstances. This study is justified in that the similarities of both playwrights not only provide an opportunity to bridge two different cultures, but they also help readers understand another culture and deepen the understanding of their own culture in the map of international literature. In their plays, both Miller and Cha express an individual's or a family's frustration, conflict, pleasure, and hope as reflected in the social circumstances. The characters take ideas and values from their social world and thrive or fail. Specifically, I have focused on three elements--obsession, generational value systems, and alienation. With three common features, I examine how closely Miller and Cha deal with ordinary people's tragedies.

Past studies conducted on the students' verbal participation both in and out of class have explored and identified variables affecting the process of learning to speak English. However, little is known about the causes and effects of these variables. A survey form developed from a previous study was administered to 468 university students taking English conversation classes from native speakers of English. To better understand the causes and effects of speaking barriers, path analysis was administered as the main tool of investigation. The results of the study indicate that familiarities toward NS (Native Speaker) teachers, learner faithfulness, che-myon, NS teachers' classroom management skills, and NS teacher's trustworthiness account for 50.72% of speaking grades. These factors are causally related to learner attitudes. However, with regard to speaking grades, all of the above factors except che-myon are also causally related with each other. Therefore, it was concluded that learner attitudes can be improved by minimizing che-myon, however, che-myon itself cannot be a predictor of speaking grades. To validate the findings of the study, related research work is discussed and implications are provided.

This study explores teacher's corrective feedback types in an error treatment sequence in Korean EFL classroom setting. Corrective feedback moves are coded as explicit correction, recast, or initiations to self-repair. The frequency and distribution of each corrective feedback type are examined. But the special focus was given on feedback types eliciting learner's self-repair (clarification request, metalinguistic feedback, elicitation, and repetition of error) because initiations to self-repair are believed to facilitate language learning more than other strategies. The results of the study are as follows. First, there was an overwhelming tendency for teacher to use recasts whereas initiations to self-repair were not used as much as recast (52.4% vs. 29.5%). Second, the teacher tended to select feedback types in accordance with error types: namely, recasts after phonological, lexical, and translation errors and initiations to self-repair after grammatical errors though the differences were not significant. Finally, teacher's belief and students' expectation on corrective feedback were compared with actual corrective feedback representations respectively and some mismatches were found. Though both teacher and the students acknowledged the importance and necessity of self-repair, self-repair were not put into practice as such. Therefore, this study suggests more initiations to self-repair be used for effective language learning.

The purpose of this study is to try to date the letters of Lady Susan and to find out which year's calender Jane Austen used to write the novel. The novel in forty-one letters with a brief narrated conclusion was transcribed as a fair copy by Jane Austen around 1805. However, no conclusive evidence for a precise date of composition exists, as only the fair copy survives. There is a watermark of 1805 on two leaves of the surviving manuscript of the transcribed copy. This indicates the period of the work's transcription but it does not indicate when it was first composed beyond suggesting that it was completed sometime before 1805. In the novel itself Jane Austen marked time sufficiently and frequently enough to allow us to follow it precisely. This strongly suggests that Jane Austen used a calender to write letters of the novel, even though dates and days were not given to the letters. To determine the most probable date of the calender is significant because it can be a clue to clarify when the novel was composed originally. Many words and phrases pointing to specific days or periods are mentioned in almost all the letters of the novel. From the words and phrases, a potential date to each letter can be successfully deduced and a potential possible calender for the novel can be made. In the end, all attempts to determine the authentic calender used for the novel fail. The main reason for the failure is that discovering clues to a specific authentic date to each letter proves internally impossible. Composition date of the novel still remains as a challenge requiring further study.

The present study proposes a set of activities of teaching English reading through English newspapers to narrow the gap between the English required in authentic situation and the one taught in schools. Newspapers can provide students with opportunities to review what they have studied in the classes. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to investigate how extra-curricular activities using English newspapers have an influence on the development of the three low-achieving high school students' English reading ability. The five-month study yielded that the activities using English newspapers exerted positive effects on the students' interest in English and their English scores. It suggests that using English newspapers as teaching materials may be a desirable way both to motivate students to study English harder and to develop their English reading ability.

This study is to suggest systematic and effective reading comprehension techniques or strategies to be used in EFL reading classes. According to the definition of reading and reading process, six essential elements of reading comprehension are categorized: 1) reading speed; 2) skimming and scanning; 3) logical organization; 4) pleasure reading; 5) vocabulary; 6) cultural background and world knowledge. To present a more effective teaching and learning approach to EFL reading comprehension than ever, an experiment was performed. The hypothesis of the experimental study was that there would be a difference in students' reading speed as well as reading comprehension and vocabulary between an experimental group and a control group depending upon the teaching approaches (experimental vs. traditional). The result of the study indicates that the experimental teaching approach which intensifies speed reading and pleasure reading techniques as well as 4 other essential techniques of reading comprehension is more effective than the traditional one in teaching and learning reading comprehension.

Caryl Churchill achieved spacial politics to resist dominant ideology in Cloud Nine. It is suggested that heterotopia is a counter-site to the places which are controlled by colonialism and sexuality. Churchill juxtaposes African colony of Victorian period in the first act and modern London in the second act. It implies that individuals are similarly oppressed by dominant ideology until now though several conditions for individuals are drastically improved. White heterosexual men in the play try to build their utopia to keep their privileges. If they find anything abnormal to their standard, they systematically classify people and organize them into the different ranks and levels to seclude them from their utopia. Actually, the ideal people in the ideal place are oppressed by patriarchal ideology, compulsory heterosexuality, and colonialism which are covertly associated with gender. Therefore, Churchill uses the cross-casting to challenge the artificiality of gender, sexuality, generation and race in the play. People realize that they need to find their own desires free from gender, compulsory heterosexuality, ethnic, and race and their subjectivity flowing in and out of space. It is the site that all the binary oppositions are deconstructed and creates new multiple nodes to expand the boundary of their communities to heterotopia in real places.

The purpose of the present study is to develop a prototype automated scoring system for English writing. The system was developed for scoring writings of Korean middle school students. In order to develop the automated scoring system, following procedures have been applied. First, review and analysis of established automated essay scoring systems in other countries have been accomplished. By doing so, we could get the guidance for development of a new sentence-level automated scoring system for Korean EFL students. Second, knowledge base such as lexicon, grammar and WordNet for natural language processing and error corpus of English writing of Korean middle school students were established. Error corpus was established through the paper and pencil test with 589 third year middle school students. This study provided suggestions for the successful introduction of an automated scoring system in Korea. The automated scoring system developed in this study should be continuously upgraded to improve the accuracy of the scoring system. Also, it is suggested to develop an automated scoring system being able to carry out evaluation of English essay, not only sentence-level evaluation. The system needs to be upgraded for the improved precision, but, it was a successful introduction of an sentence-level automated scoring system for English writing in Korea.

The purpose of this study is to investigate American traditional values and American culture in English education. The understanding of American culture in English education requires the analysis of world changes in the global age. The history of American English, the formation of American society, and the background of natural environment are described in relation to the traditional American values of the earliest settlers, such as multi-culture, individual freedom, frontier heritage in the West, equality of opportunity and wealth and material abundance. Hence the case studies of students' project presentations on the American culture in English education exemplify the reflection of American traditional values in the current American life and society. It is concluded that project-based method with regard to cultural studies in English education reveals very positive learning effects by driving students' interests and active participation through the student-centered, creative, and cooperative project presentations.