Analysis of the Effects of Saliency, EFL input, and L1 Transfer on the Order of Acquisition

앤드류 생크,최원경 중앙대학교 외국학연구소 2010 외국학연구 Vol.14 No.2

Although recent research has extended our understanding of the link between morphosyntactic acquisition order and its causes, an overemphasis on morphosyntactic development in an ESL environment has limited understanding of how variable input, such as that found in EFL contexts, may influence the acquisition process. The purpose of this study is to examine disparities in EFL acquisition order, so that the effects of differential input on acquisition order may be better understood. A stratified sample of six Chinese EFL learners were given a 45 to 60 minute interview, which was transcribed and placed into a sequence of acquisition. The data was then analyzed in two steps. First, the sequence was contrasted with various acquisition orders from ESL contexts. Second, the sequence was contrasted with an equivalent sequence obtained from Korean EFL learners. Results revealed that acquisition of less salient features was particularly variable in an EFL context. Analysis of this variability suggests that inconsistent or limited input, coupled with influence from L1 transfer, is affecting the acquisition of less salient features. This implies that features with a lower salience should be more carefully considered when designing input and explicit instruction in an EFL context.

EFL Learners’ Production of Implicit Compliments

Dae-Min Kang 한국영어어문교육학회 2008 영어어문교육 Vol.14 No.4

In contrast to explicit compliments, only very few studies have addressed the pedagogical aspects of teaching implicit compliments in English to EFL learners. The present study, designed to help fill the gap, compared Korean EFL learners' pragmatic ability to produce implicit compliments with that to produce explicit compliments and examined proficiency dependent differences in their ability to produce implicit and explicit compliments, as well as two types of implicit compliments. A total of 45 participants, assigned to low, intermediate, and high proficiency groups, performed a pragmatic production task and took part in a post-task interview. Results showed that EFL learners performed significantly worse in producing implicit compliments than in producing explicit compliments, which was attributed to the unformulaic nature of implicit compliments. Concerning the impact of proficiency on EFL learners' ability to produce implicit compliments, it was importantly found that significant differences existed between any two groups of the three proficiency groups. Further, proficiency was revealed to differently affect EFL learners' production of two types of implicit compliments. In terms of pedagogical implications, the study suggests that the explicit teaching of implicit compliments to EFL learners taking into account proficiency levels should be seriously discussed.

EFL Learners’ Production of Implicit Compliments

강대민 한국영어어문교육학회 2008 영어어문교육 Vol.14 No.4

In contrast to explicit compliments, only very few studies have addressed the pedagogical aspects of teaching implicit compliments in English to EFL learners. The present study, designed to help fill the gap, compared Korean EFL learners' pragmatic ability to produce implicit compliments with that to produce explicit compliments and examined proficiency dependent differences in their ability to produce implicit and explicit compliments, as well as two types of implicit compliments. A total of 45 participants, assigned to low, intermediate, and high proficiency groups, performed a pragmatic production task and took part in a post-task interview. Results showed that EFL learners performed significantly worse in producing implicit compliments than in producing explicit compliments, which was attributed to the unformulaic nature of implicit compliments. Concerning the impact of proficiency on EFL learners' ability to produce implicit compliments, it was importantly found that significant differences existed between any two groups of the three proficiency groups. Further, proficiency was revealed to differently affect EFL learners' production of two types of implicit compliments. In terms of pedagogical implications, the study suggests that the explicit teaching of implicit compliments to EFL learners taking into account proficiency levels should be seriously discussed.

한국인 EFL 학습자의 부정관사 사용

김성헌 ( Sung-hun Kim ) 한국외국어대학교 언어연구소 2018 언어와 언어학 Vol.0 No.79

In this paper, the Korean EFL learners’ Indefinite article use will be investigated. Through this investigation, this study will try to find the factors that make the difficulties in acquiring the English article system. To achieve this aim, what aspects of articles use are misused for the Korean EFL learners and what reasons affect the article use will be examined. Particularly, this study will focus on the properties of the indefinite article use. To identify this, this research will look into the English article use of 95 Korean EFL adult learners by analyzing their English writings. Through this procedure, this study has found the followings: the English article use of the Korean EFL adult learners was affected by the absence of the article system in L1 of Korean, equivalent to that of the English article system. For this reason, the Korean EFL learners overuse the definite article and lexical elements for substitutions. Furthermore, their use of the indefinite article was influenced by their English proficiency statistically. In particular, their indefinite article use was associated with the feature of countability of nouns. Based on these results, this study will offer the experimental evidence regarding the properties of their indefinite article use.

EFL 학습자의 정의적 요인과 영어 성취도와의 관계: 자아 개념과 오답노트 분석을 중심으로

석진이 중앙대학교 외국학연구소 2010 외국학연구 Vol.14 No.1

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between affective factors and English academic achievement of EFL college students. 40 undergraduate students' English achievement was measured in two ways. First, the students' achievement degrees between the midterm and the final exams were measured and the correlations between the participants' self-concept and the achievement degrees were analyzed. Second, the students were divided into two groups as above 850 and below 850 based on their latest Certified TOEIC test scores. Each students' TOEIC score was matched with her self-concept by paired t-test. Third, the two groups' error logs were analyzed as a part of qualitative study. Results showed that there was a strong correlation between students' academic achievement degrees and their affective self-concept and self esteem. Learner's error logs also showed that the higher a learner's achievement is, the more specific and analytic attitude the learner has toward her errors. Practical implications such as a language teacher's role and guided feedback were also discussed.

Modal Usage of Advanced Korean EFL Learners, Young Korean EFL Learners, and Native English Speakers: A Corpora Comparison Study

석데리아순영,최인철,이예식 한국외국어대학교 언어연구소 2019 언어와 언어학 Vol.0 No.85

Building on Seog and Choi’s (2018) documentation of the early to intermediate interlanguage development of Korean learners’ English modal use, the current paper focuses on the highly advanced Korean learners and sheds light on the spectrum of interlanguage of Korean EFL learners in acquisition of the English modal verbs. For investigation and analyses, two learner corpora, the KNU Student English Learner Corpus-Written (KSELC-W) and the KNU English Learner Corpus (KELC), and a native speaker corpus, the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), are utilized. Corpora comparisons and log-likelihood tests are conducted to reveal differences in the modal verb usage. The results show that in contrast with the early or intermediate young learners of KELC, the advanced learners of KSELC-W overuse the preterite forms of modal verbs such as could, would, and should. In addition, the learners productively and accurately used would to deliver the hypothetical sense while rarely using the modal verbs to express the epistemic sense. This study can represent the overall process of the Korean learners’ acquisition of English modal verbs.

Interlanguage Features of Chinese EFL Learners in the Communicative Act of Refusal

Meizi Piao 한국응용언어학회 2016 응용 언어학 Vol.32 No.3

The purpose of the present study was to determine how the refusal strategies and linguistic forms used by Chinese EFL learners vary from those of American English speakers. Data was obtained by the elicitation method of open role plays and subsequently, the responses based on the interlocutors’ social status were analyzed. Participants were composed of four groups: 12 native speakers of Chinese (NC), 12 Chinese EFL learners with intermediate proficiency level (CE-I), 12 Chinese EFL learners with higher proficiency level (CE-H), and 12 native speakers of American English (NE). In general, the results indicated that EFL learners differed from native speakers of English in terms of L2 language use. Regarding the content of the semantic formulas, the native Chinese and Chinese EFL learners both chose more specific, family-oriented reasons to mitigate the face-threatening power of refusals, while native English speakers preferred vaguer reasons in the speech act of refusals. Regarding the linguistic forms employed by the participants, native English speakers tended to use hesitators, the modal verb ‘could’, and down toners more frequently than Chinese EFL learners. The Chinese EFL learners, on the other hand, employed the cajoler ‘you know’ and minus committers more frequently than native English speakers.

A Study on Korean EFL Learners` Refusal Strategies with Implication for Interlanguage Pragmatics

( Min Su Jung ) 한국현대영어영문학회 2013 현대영어영문학 Vol.57 No.1

Min, Su jung. “A Study on Korean EFL Learners` Refusal Strategies with Implication for Interlanguage Pragmatics”. Modern Studies in English Language & Literature 57.1 (2013): 353-76. Among the speech acts we engage in daily, request is frequently used in conversation to fill the various needs and enhance interpersonal relationships. Refusals to requests are one of face-threatening acts because interlocutors` negative face can be threatened. In light of cross-cultural communication, therefore, even for the fluent EFL learners, the inappropriate use of refusals in some situations often results in interpersonal communication breakdown. Relying on the two means of data collection from 20 Korean EFL learners and 20 native English speakers, the study examined how the Korean EFL learners perform refusal speech act when they refuse to comply with requests and how their speech act of refusals differ from those of native speakers of Standard varieties of English. The results showed that unlike native English speakers, Korean EFL learners preferred direct strategies, particularly a modal form can`t, to perform the speech act of refusals in both addressee dominance and status equal contexts. Pedagogical implications were made for giving instructions on speech acts in English as a foreign language and helping the EFL learners develop pragmatic competence for successful communication. (Kongju National University)

영어 웹툰의 활용이 EFL 학습자의 자기서사글쓰기에 미치는 영향

허영주(Youngju, Heo),Judy Yin 학습자중심교과교육학회 2019 학습자중심교과교육연구 Vol.19 No.16

본 연구는 영어 웹툰의 활용이 EFL 학습자의 자기서사글쓰기에 미치는 영향을 밝히고자 하였다. 이를 위해 2018년 7월부터 8월까지 14명의 EFL 학습자를 대상으로 영어 웹툰을 활용한 쓰기 수업을 진행한 후, 2018년 10월까지 결과를 분석하였다. 사전·사후 자기서사글쓰기 평가를 분석하며 자기서사글쓰기 능력에서의 변화를 살펴보았다. 학습자 성찰일지, 사전·사후 인터뷰 전사본, 활동지를 코딩한 후 도출된 범주간의 상호 연관성을 분석하는 과정을 통해 정의적 측면에서의 변화를 발견하였 다. 본 연구의 결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 영어 웹툰의 활용은 EFL 학습자들의 자기서사글쓰기 능력에 유의미한 영향을 주었다. 전반적인 영어 자기서사글쓰기 능력뿐만 아니라, 하위 항목인 구성과 내용에 대해서도 통계적으로 유의미한 향상이 있었 다. 둘째, 영어 웹툰은 EFL 학습자들이 자기서사글을 작성하는 과정에서 긍정적인 학습 경험을 하도록 촉진하였다. 연구 결과를 바탕으로 교육적 함의와 후속연구를 위한 제언을 논의하였다. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of using English Webtoon on EFL learners’ personal narrative writing. For the purpose of the study, the researcher implemented personal narrative writing classes using English Webtoon for five weeks. In order to examine the effects of the English Webtoon on EFL learners’ personal narrative writing proficiency, learners’ pre- and post-narrative writing proficiency test results were statistically processed. Also, by analyzing and coding transcriptions of pre-/post-interview, field notes, learning logs, and documentation, some categories were found. These categories were again analyzed to investigate the interrelation between them. The results of the study showed that English Webtoon was found to positively influence EFL learners’ personal narrative writing proficiency. Furthermore, in the process of EFL learners’ personal narrative writing, English Webtoon triggered positive affective domains in succession. Related conclusive remarks and pedagogical implications are provided.

An account for Korean EFL learners’ use of adverbs of manner

배상희,손승희 한국중등영어교육학회 2024 중등영어교육 Vol.17 No.1

This research aims to investigate how Korean EFL learners use adverbs of manner and why they have difficulty in using them. For this purpose, the written production from two groups of 62 Korean EFL learners are collected. The findings show that the learners seem to avoid using adverbs of manner. In particular, the learners with basic English proficiency use adverbs of manner less than the learners with high proficiency and in syntactic positions, the basic learners choose the position ‘before a subject’ the most and the advanced learners choose the position ‘at the end of a clause.’ A few differences between the two groups appear statistically significant for the positions which are ‘after a verb’, ‘before a subject’, ‘between an object and an adverbial’, and ‘immediately before past participles.’ Other than that, both groups show the feature that they use adverbs with the ending ‘–ly’ more which were derived from adjective forms of their L1. Therefore, this study could posit that the learners’ English proficiency may not be an entirely influencing factor for the use of adverbs of manner and Korean EFL learners have their preferred syntactic positions for adverbs. Finally, L1 transfer can be the other factor based on the result of their preference syntactic positions and the use of adverbs with the ending ‘–ly.’ Therefore, it can be implied that when teaching English adverbs of manner, the specific explanation in semantic and syntactic regions to use English adverbs of manner should be required.