• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.23-52
• /
• 2004

This paper investigated students' and teachers' attitudes toward L2 grammar in EFL learning context. In a study in which attitude was viewed as consisting of three different components such as cognitive, affective, and behavioral, questionnaire developed on the basis of such a view of attitude was used as a data collection method. The results of the study indicated that in general, both students and teachers were similar to each other in their attitude toward L2 grammar. Among the findings, most important, two groups were shown to fully understand the important role of grammar in L2 learning. Another finding was that despite the 6th national curriculum for English education, our English class was still dominated by grammar-centered instruction. Also it was shown that the way teachers had been taught L2 grammar had a considerable effect on the way they would instruct it in their future classes. Based on these findings, some suggestions were offered for effective grammar pedagogy in EFL context.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.111-134
• /
• 2005

This paper examines high school English textbooks to ascertain if they appropriately reflect the kinds and frequencies of routine formulas and downgraders of request act used by English native speakers. It is important to present authentic routine formulas in textbooks for students to acquire proper, efficient and safe communication strategies to communicate with other English speakers. For the analysis, currently available 7 series of 21 high school English textbooks under the $7^{th}$ National Curriculum were selected. Each series of textbooks contains 3 school grade textbooks as High School English, High School English I, and High School English II. The results show that the high school English textbooks generally demonstrate a secund reflection of the English native speakers' use of request strategies and downgraders. That is, the textbooks were found to have presented mostly casual forms of routine formulas while they have not presented sufficient coverage of elaborated polite routine formulas for requesting which English native speakers frequently use. The presence of some kinds of the frequently used downgraders was also very small in proportion in the textbooks. More effort should be given to complement the deficiency in this area by teachers and researchers.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.135-148
• /
• 2005

This paper investigated the effect of audio and visual cues on Korean and Japanese EFL learners' perception of the lateral/retroflex contrast in English. In a perception experiment, the two English consonants /l/ and /r/ were embedded in initial and medial position in nonsense words in the context of the vowels /i, a, u/. Singletons and clusters were included in the speech material. Audio and video recordings were made using a total of 108 items. The items were presented to Korean and Japanese learners of English in three conditions: audio-alone (A), visual-alone (V) and audio-visual presentation (AV). The results showed that there was no evidence of AV benefit for the perception of the /l/-/r/ contrast for either Korean or Japanese learners of English. Korean listeners showed much better identification rates of the /l/-/r/ contrast than Japanese listeners when presented in audio or audio-visual conditions.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.35-50
• /
• 2005

Thirty six EFL freshman students at the College of Languages and Translation, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia were given a dictation, a listening comprehension test and a decoding test. The purpose of the study was to find out whether EFL freshmen students' spelling ability correlates with their listening comprehension and decoding skills. Data analysis showed that the typical EFL freshman student misspelled 41.5% of the words on the dictation, gave 49.5% correct responses on the listening comprehension test, and 52% correct responses on the decoding test. The median and mean scores showed that the subjects' spelling, listening and decoding achievement is low, which implied that the subjects were having spelling, listening comprehension and decoding difficulties. The students' spelling errors and correct listening comprehension and decoding responses revealed strong correlations between spelling ability, listening comprehension and decoding skills. This means that good spelling ability in EFL is related to good listening comprehension and good decoding skills. The better the listening comprehension and decoding abilities, the fewer the spelling errors. When listening comprehension and decoding skills are poor, spelling ability is also poor. Recommendations for spelling, listening and decoding instruction are given.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.51-66
• /
• 2005

This study investigates the feasibility of incorporating student evaluations of peer review interactions into the course grade for an EFL writing course. The use of such evaluations offers a way to grade the process of writing more directly than using writing portfolios alone. Moreover, evaluating peer review interactions highlights the social aspect of writing, which is valuable in the current post-process climate in writing instruction. The 18 members of a semester-long EFL writing course at a Korean university were trained in peer response for one half of a semester; then performed evaluations of peer review interactions during the second half of the semester as part of their writing course. Student evaluations were examined to reveal whether any bias occurred due to relative age, gender, major, or question type. The results revealed no such biases. Therefore, it is suggested that students are capable of providing fair evaluations of peers, which means the evaluations can be factored into the course grade in order to evaluate the social aspect of the writing process.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.241-259
• /
• 2002

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the recent trends of the development of the English textbooks in EFL situation. The 7th National English Curriculum(NEC) in 2001 which emphasized the curriculum-centered school education have had much influence on the traditional textbook-centered school education in Korea. According to the paradigmatic change of school education, the contents of the English textbooks were changed into the new types of students-centered classroom activities. For students' communicative activities, the English textbooks were developed by two types of syllabuses: process-oriented syllabus and product-oriented syllabus. The 7th NEC includes procedural syllabus and task-based syllabus as well as grammatical- structural syllabus and notional-functional syllabus. In short, unlike the English textbooks in former curriculums, learners' classroom activities and tasks have been emphasized in those to foster their communicative competence.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.189-203
• /
• 2003

This paper attempts to prove Dickens's hopeful view of the future in his last completed novel Our Mutual Friend. This novel has been usually regarded as one of the "dark" novels, "dark" in the sense of viewing social reality and the future negatively. However, although it has the dark descriptive color of society typical in Dickens's later novels, it still contains some elements that point to a better future. To prove this positive view of future, this paper will disentangle the intricate narrative structure of Our Mutual Friend and find out the true meaning of the dust--money. In addition, it will investigate how people react to dust(-like money). From a close study of several characters' lives, it will testify that the dark world of Our Mutual Friend, in the end, could be a world of regeneration, a world that will lead to a better future.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.151-168
• /
• 2009

The present study investigates the impact of trained peer feedback on the quantity and quality of revisions made by EFL students at a low-intermediate level. Peer review training was carried out in experimental group through four in-class training sessions and four peer dyad-instructor conferences after class. Students' $1^{st}$ drafts with written peer feedback and revised drafts prior to and post training were collected and analyzed. Results reveal that after training the students produced more revisions in response to their peer comments (96% of total revisions) and those revisions were counted as enhanced in quality (93% of peer-triggered revisions). In contrast, the results of paired t-test within control group indicate that there was no significant difference between two data collected from week 3 and week 16 (t = -.57, df =19, p = .577 at p < .05). The findings suggest that training as an ongoing process of teacher intervention contributes to effectiveness of the peer feedback activity. The study provides pedagogical implications for how to structure and implement peer review training for the sake of its direct strength in an EFL writing class.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.169-184
• /
• 2009

The purpose of this study is to identify the most important factor(s) that contribute(s) to the overall oral proficiency and to examine whether the factor(s) play(s) a different role depending on the proficiency level of learners. Learners were divided into novice group and advanced group and were asked to produce an oral recording of a story based on a comic strip. The recordings were transcribed and graded by three raters. According to the results, the raters attained high inter-rater reliability when assessing advanced learners. However, the reliability level became considerably lower in the assessment of novice learners. The best predictor of oral proficiency among novice learners was sociolinguistic competence and fluency, while grammatical competence and fluency were the strongest predictors for advanced learners. The results suggest the need for a separate assessment tool for different proficiency levels and the need for a different focus in the classroom depending on the learners' proficiency level.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.121-150
• /
• 2009

This paper deals with contrastive analysis and interlanguage with respect to adjective ordering. It aimed to investigate how similar and different the orders of descriptive adjectives are in English and Korean, and how Korean EFL learners perceive the sequences of English descriptive adjectives. Data were collected from native English speakers and native Korean speakers and Korean EFL learners. The contrastive analysis showed that the order of English adjectives was size, opinion, condition, age, color, shape, material, and origin, whereas the Korean order was condition, age, opinion, color, size, shape, material, and origin. The relative order of the interlanguage was shown to be age, size, opinion, shape, condition, color, origin, and material, with the exceptions of the order of condition preceding age and that of size being the same position as condition. The interlanguage data manifested different aspects of ordering when compared with English and Korean: Some adjective combinations were similar to both English and Korean; Some were different from English or Korean; Some were different from both English and Korean. These ordering patterns are discussed in terms of such principles as the nouniness principle, the subjectivity/objectivity principle, the iconic principle, etc. On the basis of these results, some helpful suggestions are made.