• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.119-139
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• 2011

Free-talking in Korea has recently been emphasized as a way of improving students' speaking ability outside of the classroom. The purpose of this study is to examine perceptions of free-talking, to understand what type of roles were played by or allotted between Korean students and international professors (IPs) and to look for effective speaking strategies for utilizing free-talking. Participants of this study were 68 university students and 23 IPs. The data collected through a survey type of questionnaire were analyzed by this researcher and the main findings indicate that students and IPs have somewhat different viewpoints about their concepts of free-talking. Students expressed varying viewpoints depending on their experience and class (year). In terms of the benefits, usefulness, and satisfaction of free-talking, students and IPs seem to be in more agreement with each other although the two groups have conflicting perceptions in the particular operation of free-talking, especially in terms of preparation and feedback. Students stated that they feel anxious, nervous, and that they struggle with peer pressure while free-talking. However, they feel that through free-talking they build up confidence and increase their speaking ability. Regarding roles, most professors play a helpful role as a guide or facilitator while students want professors to provide more suitable materials and to tutor them by means of appropriate feedback and strategies as well-prepared teachers like a prompter, participant or tutor in the timely manner. Finally, this paper proffers a few practical suggestions for activating free-talking and a discussion of the pedagogical implications.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.27-56
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• 2011

The analysis on the use of lexical discovery and consolidation strategies that have been researched within the area of vocabulary learning strategies (VLS) have not sufficiently drawn the interest of EFL practitioners with regard to vocational high school learners. The results, however, are expected to have implications for the design of vocabulary tasks and instructional materials for EFL learners. The present study investigates EFL vocational high school learners' use of lexical discovery and consolidation strategies with questionnaires, where the use of the learners' lexical discovery strategies were further validated with the think-aloud methodology by asking samples of proficient and less proficient learners to report on their reading process while reading L2 texts that had not been exposed to the learners. The results indicated that there were significant differences between the two groups of learners in the employment of 11 of the strategies which were in the categories of determination, social, memory, and metacognitive strategies, but not for cognitive strategies. The pattern of strategies indicated that different lexical discovery and consolidation strategies were employed relatively more by one proficiency group than another. The study suggests some implications for how strategy-based instruction can be implemented in EFL classrooms.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.1-25
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• 2011

This research primarily aimed to investigate proficient and less proficient EFL readers' awareness and experiences about learning to read and reading in English. The secondary purpose was to explore the participants' reading strategies, and to discover how the genres of English texts influence their reading processing behaviors. The participants consisted of four college students in engineering aged 21-25 years. Three data sources were employed: questionnaires, interviews, and think-alouds. The findings revealed that: (1) the proficient EFL readers judged themselves to be good readers, while the less proficient EFL readers judged themselves to be fair readers; (2) unknown vocabulary was perceived to be the major impediment to reading comprehension; the think-aloud data, however, demonstrated that unknown vocabulary did not significantly interfere with their reading comprehension; (3) regardless of the genre of the text, the participants employed similar reading strategies; (4) the participants were more likely to tolerate ambiguity and predict the content when reading the narrative text than the expository text; (5) there was no set of strategies that distinguished proficient EFL readers from less proficient EFL readers; and (6) when identifying problems, the proficient EFL readers used fix-up strategies more effectively and were better able to provide satisfactory solutions than their counterparts. Pedagogical implications for EFL reading instruction are discussed.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.273-290
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• 2011

This paper presents a case study involving one Korean primary school student and people around him in order to explore the reading process in English of a young Korean EFL learner and to investigate the social context in which his reading takes place. Six participants were included in the study (one primary school student and five adult participants). The student participant was asked to read a text in English and translate what he read into Korean and the teacher participants were asked to listen to the student's reading. Semi-structured interview was used to collect data from the student as well as five adult participants (his private tutor, his parent, his state school teacher, and two other state school teachers). The analysis reveals four characteristics of the way a young EFL learner approaches reading: word-by-word reading, disconnected word recognition, selective use of cues, and lack of awareness of difficulties. The four characteristics of Kilsu's reading suggest that reading can become a wild guessing game for young foreign learners, if they give selective attention to unimportant cues while reading. The pedagogical implications of this study are also discussed to help teachers designing reading lessons for young learners.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.73-98
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• 2011

This study investigated the feasibility and effectiveness of incorporating oral corrective feedback into the content-based business English writing class. Two types of oral corrective feedback, recasts and metalinguistic feedback, were integrated into business English writing classes to help low intermediate-proficiency Korean university students improve the ability to use the simple past, present progressive, and present perfect tenses correctly in their written production. Prior to the treatments, the subjects had basic grammatical knowledge of the target verb tenses, but they had only limited control over them in their written production. Three groups were formed: recast group that received corrective recasting, metalinguistic group that received metalinguistic clues, and control group that received no oral corrective feedback. The study demonstrated that it was feasible to incorporate recasts and metalinguistic feedback into content-based business English writing classes and that metalinguistic feedback had greater and more endurable effects than recasts on promoting the correct use of the target verb tenses in written production. It can be concluded that oral corrective feedback, metalinguistic feedback in particular, can be used in the business English writing classroom to help students gain greater control over already partially acquired forms and therefore improve their writing accuracy.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.197-216
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• 2012

This study examines spoken interlanguage of Korean learners of English, focusing on the distribution of modal verbs and devices of epistemic modality. (Semi-) spontaneous speech data were collected from four students participating in a self-organized study group for seven months, which produced a corpus of about 55,000 words. The data analysis reveals the following: 1) The frequency of the modal verbs produced by the learners was lower than that of native speakers; 1.99 vs. 2.32 tokens per 100 words. The range of the modal verbs used by the learners was also very limited, with over-reliance on can (43%). 2) The grammatical categories of the devices marking epistemic modality were in the order of adverbs, lexical verbs, and modal verbs, with a high frequency of a few items in each category. 3) Lexical items conveying certainty and modals of obligation were preferred over markers of weaker commitment, resulting in speech characterized by firmer assertions and a more authoritative tone, a potential cause for pragmatic failure. 4) A weak developmental change was observed in the frequency of modal verbs, but not in their functions over the seven month period of data collection. L1 influence, L2 proficiency, mode of communication, and instruction effects are discussed as possible variables involved in the distribution patterns observed.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.217-235
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to identify the perceptual learning style preferences of 97 Korean EFL students in middle school. Furthermore, it examined if students' learning styles varied in terms of gender and grade level. Data was collected by using Reid's (1987) PLSPQ and a personal background questionnaire and was analyzed by using descriptive statistics, MANOVA, ANOVA, and t-test. The results revealed that subjects had all six major learning styles but among them, auditory, group, and visual styles were the most preferred by them. The results found in this study, presented that Korean EFL middle school students favored learning English through listening, reading and working in groups and that younger students preferred learning through physical involvement and practicum. The findings of this study provide a number of useful insights for EFL and ESL educators and instructors in Korea. The current study suggests that a great number of variables such as culture, learning situation of the target country, age, and grade level can all play important roles in shaping the learning preferences and the learning styles of students. Considering these variables and promoting a curriculum that is interesting, appealing and successful may help maximize student L2 learning.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.29-54
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is two-fold: first, to examine the current status of e-dictionary use in Korea and the attitude toward its use by Korean college students; second, to investigate to what degree e-dictionaries may be useful and effective tools in helping to improve learners' overall English skills. The subjects were 84 college students and they were divided into two groups: the experiment group and the control group. The instrument employed was the Preliminary Student Usage Questionnaire, which was developed by the researcher, together with the questionnaire survey developed by Koyama and Takeuchi (2004), which was modified for the study. The findings from this research are as follows: First, a special instruction session on how to use e-dictionaries made a statistically significant difference among users of the dictionaries. Those subjects who had received the instruction displayed a more positive attitude toward the use of e-dictionaries. Second, the experiment group showed a more favorable attitude toward the use of e-dictionaries. On the basis of the above results, the researcher suggests that proper guidance on the use of e-dictionaries and their benefits should have a positive influence on users. The findings from the current research will shed light on the current status of electronic dictionary use among Korean college students.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.205-220
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• 2006

This paper argues how Adrienne Kennedy embodies the features of a black woman's self-identity in Funnyhouse of a Negro. An educated young black woman, Sarah lives in a funnyhouse which is surrounded by mirrors. The reflections in the funnyhouse's mirrors are a metaphor of a black woman's life in America. Sarah's narrative is played out by four "selves," differing by sex and race. These selves imply her mixed cultural heritage. Two white women symbolize white European royalty, Jesus expresses christianity which is the basis of western culture and Lumumba represents Africa. Sarah's desire for whiteness is concentrated on skin color and hair. She longs for pallid skin and straight hair of the white race. Sarah wanted to be white, but her "tainted blood" by her black father made that impossible. Sarah is always obsessed by the fear of her father and the unhappy destiny of her mother. Ceaseless knocking, paralyzed images of lifelessness and surreal dreams effectively show her fear. Sarah's selves remain fragmented in the funnyhouse. Sarah exposures the black woman's anger and frustration through her death. Her death is a gesture of denial and refusal of the dominant society. At the same time, it was her last choice and struggle not to completely lose her own identity.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.99-116
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• 2007

Indeterminacy, along with the traces of the unknown identity V, plays a crucial role in building a new possibility in the narrative V. While the characters search for the single identity of V, Pynchon never lets readers and critics reach any final destination or goal in analyzing the novel. Exploring the multiple possibilities and meanings of life, the characters merely keep traveling and searching, without ever reaching any final conclusion or destination. The journey without ever reaching a final destination equals going beyond the boundary and embracing the margins of various possibilities. It concerns the Others and breaks off the hierarchy of Western metaphysics, which is quite similar to what the theorists of deconstruction seek to do. The search without ever reaching a final destination not only designates the multifarious aspect of truth, but it also suggests the possibility of the multiple meanings of words that the characters create. Just as their stories are abundant, the meaning that they produce with their stories can be open-ended. The notion of indeterminacy and broadness in this text, which can be well explained by Derrida, makes it possible for one to search for something other than the fixed meanings or truth claims. The text becomes multifarious in meaning as well as in structure, thus rejecting any kind of singular signifying act.