• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.19 no.8
• /
• pp.275-283
• /
• 2021

This study was intended to help improve assessment in college EFL classes by examining the relationship between formative assessment (FA) and summative assessment (SA). Participants for the study were 75 undergraduates, taking an eight-week optional college English course at a four-year college in China. FA data were collected in the final course of the course by a self-reporting survey using the online training platform Mosoteach. To achieve the finding, the relationship between FA scores and SA scores (final exam and performance scores) was analyzed in SPSS by means of Pearson correlation analyses. Significant positive correlations were found between FA and SA scores overall. In addition, students' performance on chapter tests, online discussions, brainstorming, quick-responses, assignments and the number of thumbs-up clicks by teachers were significantly correlated with SA scores. The results suggested that FA administered through the Mosoteach app could improve students' academic performance, thus providing an empirical basis for improving educational assessment. Based on these findings, implications for assessment in EFL classes were described.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.19 no.12
• /
• pp.157-164
• /
• 2021

This study was conducted to investigate students' perception of the integration of Chinese ethnic minority culture into the college EFL teaching which was carried out in the fall and spring semesters with different presentation topics. One and the same questionnaire was distributed to 61 participants, involving Han Chinese and Chinese ethnic minority students, at a university in ethnic minority area in China at the end of each semester, and SPSS 20.0 was used for t-test to analyze the data. The research results showed that Chinese undergraduates have got more significant improvements in cultural cognition, emotions, attitudes, and multi-cultural values in the spring semester than those in the fall semester. All participants benefit a lot from multi-cultural activities without significant differences between Han Chinese and ethnic minority students in both semesters. It is suggested that ethnic minority culture be integrated into the college EFL teaching, along with English culture and Chinese mainstream culture, which be administered as a practical teaching mode to develop students' intercultural competence.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.193-203
• /
• 2022

The present study aims to investigate how general education EFL instructors who teach in a higher education institution in Korea perceive mixed-ability classes and the teaching strategies that they utilized to teach learners who have varying English proficiency levels and may have different instructional needs. Twenty instructors at a higher education institution in Korea who teach general education EFL courses participated in a questionnaire and three of the twenty instructors participated in follow-up interviews. The findings from the questionnaire and interviews showed that instructors' experiences teaching mixed-ability classes were positive. They offered clear guidelines for participation to help motivate learners and found that higher level students helped lower level students through group work. The instructors also felt that ESP could be a possibility in mixed-ability classes to meet the learners educational needs.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.48
• /
• pp.223-252
• /
• 2017

This study explores effects of two types of chatbots - voice-based and text-based - on Korean EFL learners' speaking competence and learner perception. Participants were 80 freshmen students taking an English-speaking class at a university in Korea. They were divided into two experimental groups at random. During the sixteen-week experimental period, participants engaged in 10 chat sessions with the two different types of chatbots. To take a close examination of effects on the improvement of speaking competence, they took the TOEIC speaking test as pre- and post-tests. Structured questionnaire-based surveys were conducted before and after treatment to determine if there are changes in perception. Findings reveal two chatbots effectively contribute to improvement of speaking competence among EFL learners. Particularly, the voice-based chatbot was as effective as the text-based chatbot. An analysis of survey results indicates perception of chatbot-assisted language learning changed positively over time. In particular, most participants preferred voice-based chatbot over text-based chatbot. This study provides insight on the use of chatbots in EFL learning, suggesting that EFL teachers should integrate chatbot technology in their classrooms.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.19 no.12
• /
• pp.63-77
• /
• 2021

This study aims to explore the differential effects of teacher support on Chinese EFL students' listening ability in a blended learning environment. 87 third-year English-major students in a Chinese university participated in this study and they were randomly divided into an autonomy group (n=22), an emotional group (n=22), a cognitive group (n=22) and a control group (n=21). Each experimental group received relevant teacher support during their 17-week course learning while the control group did not. To confirm the effects of teacher support, pre- and post- listening tests were conducted. The results of the paired t-tests demonstrated that all groups showed statistically significant improvement in their English listening ability. The results of the one-way ANOVA for the post-test revealed that autonomy support and cognitive support were more effective than emotional support in improving students' listening ability. Based on the findings, this study hopes to provide insights for EFL teachers in designing and arranging the activities in a blended course.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
• /
• v.10 no.7
• /
• pp.71-76
• /
• 2019

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of action learning methods and practices, which have a research focus on learner-centered teaching after training students to use collaborative learning practices from the viewpoint that the learners acquire English skills through peer correction activities based on sociocultural learning theory[1]. From March 1, 2018 to June 15, 2018, one control class and one experimental group were selected from the general freshman English courses. The experimental group attended classes centered on collaborative writing activities using action learning and cooperation techniques, and the control group attended classes lecture style and rote learning methods to teach writing. The result of study has shown that, for the experimental group, there have been statistically significant results in the production of writing, such as the number of words, the number of sentences, and sentence length. Learners could share the knowledge or ideas of others in their learning relationships with more regular basis.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.83-129
• /
• 2003

This study explains a cooperative project between Kangwon National University (KNU) and Waseda University(WU), so called CCDLP (Cross-Cultural Distance Learning Project). The purpose of this project is to enhance the English proficiency of students at both universities by making their learning environments enjoyable and fruitful. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the role of CCDL in the EFL classroom by discussing (1) how to create the situations where students at both universities get to know and understand each other through modern technologies, (2) how to encourage the students to work closely together VC (Video Conferencing), TeleMeet, chat systems, and e-mail, and (3) how to provide a new style of learning and teaching L2. The results from a questionnaire and a grammaticality judgment test show that students have a sense of satisfaction and achievement in the English proficiency at the end of the project. The result of this project will be of great importance for future works in the use of communication systems in L2 learning and teaching.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
• /
• v.8 no.4
• /
• pp.199-204
• /
• 2022

This study was carried out in an L2 writing class using machine translation. The aim of this study was to explore what types of errors are identified the most frequently in the Korean-to-English machine translation output and what causes those errors. The participants were seven EFL university students who completed three writing tasks throughout the semester. The findings of data analysis indicated that the most common errors were seen in sentence structure and mechanics, and those errors in the translated texts were caused by the errors in the Korean source texts.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.21 no.6
• /
• pp.779-790
• /
• 2021

Film literacy comprises the process of producing a new creation through understanding the elements that make up a film, the content of a film, and a critical and creative thinking process. Film literacy is employed in fields such as composition, science, social studies, and geography, and, additionally, it is used to cultivate humanities literacy and critical thinking skills. Yet despite the large proportion of the film script in the movie, it is not easy to find literacy education cases that use film English as a teaching method. Film English is a practical and authentic material, and is suitable as an English learning material in an EFL context like Korea. However, the approach of using films to teach and learn differs according to the content and genre of a film. Thus, the teacher may have a difficult time organizing and preparing for class. This study suggests six class activities that can be commonly applied to English classes using films based on the areas of critical, cultural, and creative (3Cs) activities. Four hundred and five college students taking Movie English classes participated in the present study and frequency analysis was conducted to find out their preferences through a questionnaire survey. The results from conducting class activities in university liberal arts classes suggest that the most preferred activities of students are related to cultural, critical, and creative, in that order. Creative activities that are far beyond English instruction utilizing various digital tools or providing additional reading materials can be a burden on learners.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.645-657
• /
• 2021

Project-based learning (PBL) encourages self-autonomy and connects learning and real-life skills in the learning process. The purpose of the current study is to investigate students' life skills and self-regulated learning strategies in a PBL curriculum in order to examine how the proposed benefits of PBL are manifested in students' self-awareness of their learning process. Twenty-three students in a university in Korea participated in a 3-credit, 4-week, intensive PBL course for English majors. During the PBL course, students were asked to self-assess their life skills related to time management, cooperation, standard of work, and participation three times. In addition to the self-assessment, students kept reflection journals to keep track of their use of self-regulated learning strategies and progress which were also submitted three times. Based on the analysis of self-assessment and self-reflection, the results showed that students' perception of cooperation improved significantly during PBL. Furthermore, it was found that students also progressed through the three phases of self-regulated learning. Implications on suggesting on the use of PBL to encourage the development of life skills and self-regulated learning strategies are provided.