• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.359-369
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• 2021

This study aims to investigate pre-service primary English teachers' perceptions of multicultural education. For this study, the researchers surveyed 63 pre-service teachers at a national university of education using an online survey. A quantitative method is used in order to collect and analyze data. The results revealed the following: First, pre-service primary English teachers stand at a considerably high level in their overall understanding of elementary students and clearly recognize the necessity of multicultural education in school. Second, concerning the difference that the personal variables of gender, grade, and major make in the subjects' perception of English education based on multicultural education, grade showed no statistically significant difference, but gender and major are responsible for a slight difference. Third, an analysis was made of the correlation between the subjects having or not having received multicultural education and the personal variables of gender, grade, and major, yielding the following results: Gaining or not gaining multicultural education does not correlate with gender, but does significantly with grade and major.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.245-259
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to investigate English teachers' perceptions about doing their own action research to find out the benefits of involvement in action research. I believe that teachers should engage in curriculum research and development because it relates to their own classrooms and because a primary aim for teacher education program is to give teachers ways of exploring their own classrooms. I focused on 17 graduate students who had undertaken action research during the fall semester of 2007 and administered a questionnaire about their perceptions of doing action research. The results revealed that their perceptions of doing action research fell into the following two categories, positive and negative aspects. For positive aspects, they experienced a sense of personal and professional growth and they underwent identity transformation from passive, etic-oriented, and uncritical to active, emic-oriented, and critical teachers. However, many of them expressed that major obstacles to doing action research were time constraints and lack of skills or training in conducting action research. Thus, it is suggested that both pre- and in-service teachers should consider conducting a language teaching diary study, doing collaborative action research, and acquiring all the necessary skills for conducting action research.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.259-272
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• 2020

This study aims at investigating the effects of collective promotion on the attainment of literacy, numeracy, and essential life skills by primary school pupils and also to find out if the policy of collective promotion meets its objective of minimization of wastage in basic education. The study used written tests for pupils in the final class (Level II, class 6) to collect data in some selected English-speaking primary schools in Meme Division of Cameroon. Descriptive statistics and a one way ANOVA were used for analyzing data. The results revealed that the policy of collective promotion negatively affects the attainment of literacy, numeracy, and essential life skills of pupils in Kumba, Meme Division. Teachers who assisted in the study through personal communication with the researcher argued that collective promotion in basic education does not achieve its objective of minimizing wastage of educational resources; neither does it positively improve the literacy, numeracy, and essential life skills of pupils. This study recommends that the policy of collective promotion can be revisited and that focus be placed not only on minimizing wastage of resources but also on investing on quality education system so as to equip the would-be leaders of tomorrow with skills, knowledge, and attitudes which will make them functional and responsible citizens in their society.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.62-78
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• 2021

This ethnographic multiple case study, based on Zappa-Hollman and Duff's construct of individual networks of practice (INoPs), explored English as a second language (L2) competence development and socialization process of a group of English-major undergraduates through their social connections and interactions at a public university located in an underdeveloped city in Northwest China. The study lasted for one academic semester and three students were selected as primary participants. Semi-structured interviews, student observations in English-related micro-settings, and associated texts were used to collect data. These data were coded to identify the thematic categories, and then data triangulation and member checking were conducted to select the most representative evidence to provide an in-depth description of students' perspective about mediating their English L2 socialization by their INoPs. Findings showed that factors in the formation of students' INoPs, including intensity, density, and nature, played significant roles in their academic or affective returns from their English learning, both of which had a substantial influence on the students' English L2 socialization. Considering that the macro-setting was a non-English, underdeveloped monolingual society, both educational institutions and individual students need to seek and create more English-mediated interactional opportunities to develop their English proficiency and adapt to local English learning communities.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.33-40
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• 2010

This study aims at investigating the linguistic and educational factors affecting TOEFL scores, focusing on three OECD countries, Korea, Japan, and Finland. The data comprise document analysis on curriculums, websites, and literature. The findings reveal that the number of Korean test-takers and their TOEFL scores gradually increased year by year. Finnish test-takers consistently gained greatly high scores, and Japanese examinees showed the lowest scores. The languages Korean, Japanese, and Finnish are all far distant from English and receive little support on historical grounds from the Indo-European family tree. In Finland, however, Swedish which belongs to Indo-European languages is still used as an official language with Finnish. Korea and Finland adopt English education from Year 3 in primary school, whereas English is not an official subject in primary school at present in Japan. Finnish students are taught a foreign language in addition to English from primary school. These seem to support the result of the high TOEFL scores of Finnish test-takers. This study concludes that social context which includes linguistic and educational environments are the main factors which affect TOEFL scores.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.453-497
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• 2003

The purpose of this study is to investigate social aspects of young EFL learners' interaction at the computer. Data were taken from the interactions of three pairs of fourth-grade primary school children who worked together on English learning software. Their interactions at the computer were videotaped and then all the talk produced by the students and the utterances emitted from the computer were transcribed. As for the analytical tools, the notion of ‘contextualization cues’ (Gumperz, 1982) and the concept of ‘positioning’ (Davies & Harre,1990) were employed. The analysis reveals that the roles of the students were not tied to a certain position, but rather dynamically changed during the course of interactive work according to the situation at hand. The dynamic changes in their positions were realized through various means; their capability in solving problems, their taking responsibility or assigning it to each other, or cooperation. There were also instances of peer teaching and motivated learning. In addition, the students showed autonomy in their learning activity. These findings suggest that both students in a dyad had their own place in performing task activities, contributing to solving problems and getting benefits from peer interaction. Furthermore, students' working together on English learning software may provide an environment which can promote cooperative attitude and responsibility for learning and enhance motivation and autonomy in their learning process.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.41-56
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• 2007

This paper, drawing on various secondary sources related to bilingualism and bilingual education, proposes a semi-CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) model as an initial option for Korea's ELT instruction at a primary level, with a subsequent application to a secondary level in mind. It is reported that the current pedagogy focused on early English education and communicative language teaching does not meet the needs of students' EFL proficiency. The main reasons for this are considered to lie in the social and educational environment which impedes EFL students' meaningful and authentic communication in target language. Thus, by exploring a conceptual approach to such a problem, this paper suggests a paradigm of integrating content and language for a reasonable solution.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.11-21
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• 2019

It has been about 20 years since the English subject was formally taught in public elementary schools in Korea. The present research aims to analyze the studies regarding 'primary English' implemented in Korea during the time period. I have investigated 6,467 theses or research papers in total that were published in Korea with the help of the corpus programs Utagger and WordSmith Tools. The results show that for the last 20 years the number of overall studies appears to have increased since the year 1997, although the recent trend seems to be in recession. The research scope ranges from 'teaching-learning interaction' to 'curriculum' and 'assessment', which have been steadily investigated for 20 years. Furthermore, researchers sometimes appear to have followed the English education policy by conducting particular investigations like 'immersion program' or 'native English speaking teachers' in a certain time period. Recently, researchers started to have interest in the cutting-edge ICT. In conclusion, the academic field of 'primary English' in Korea has grown in quantity, and the spectrum of research areas has been expanded for the past 20 years. It is hoped that the results of this research will help set a new direction for future research.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.291-307
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• 2011

The primary purpose of this study was to report overall findings of academic English proficiency of university ESL students in an ESL program from 2003 to 2008 at a university in the U.S. Furthermore, this study proposes to explore the effectiveness of the ESL program on developing the ESL learners' academic English proficiency. In order to achieve these purposes, this study applied a quantitative research methodology which analyzed data (more than 3,000 samples) collected by the university ESL program. The data included the ESL learners' English proficiency test scores. The results indicated that the effectiveness of the ESL program was significant in improving the ESL learners' cognitive/academic language proficiency across all three groups: ESL-only, ESL + Under, and ESL + Grad. That is, after either a complete ESL program intervention only or both a partial ESL program intervention and taking academic courses, the three groups' academic English proficiency was increased to almost same degree The findings are discussed and implications for pedagogy are suggested.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.63-69
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• 2017

The objective of this study was to investigate factors that could bring about successful implementation of extensive reading using online/offline blended English library system called 'Reading Gate' in primary and secondary schools. Although there are a great number of studies on effects of various extensive reading on linguistic, cognitive, and affective development, few studies have investigated how extensive reading programs can be implemented at large scale, e.g., whole school level. After analyzing students' reading levels in 200 schools using the same online extensive reading program called Reading Gate, results showed that while some schools were successful, others were not. Five primary and 13 middle schools were selected as successful schools. Data on implementation of the program of schools was gathered. Eighteen teachers and seven headteachers took part in the interview. After analyzing these data on the implementation of the extensive reading program, results revealed that the following five factors for successful implementation of blended extensive reading programs: online level-up system, teacher intervention, integration with the curriculum, school-level support, and parents' awareness of literacy. This suggests that each factor might have contributed to the successful implementation of the extensive reading program at large scale. Implications and applications of this finding are discussed in this study.