2008, Vol.9, No.1

Modern English Education 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 1.55

pISSN : 1598-0782 / eISSN : 2586-6141
https://journal.kci.go.kr/meeso

This study investigated Korean EFL Learners' use of dictionaries: their beliefs about dictionaries, lookup strategies, and actual use by conducting three surveys administered to four different age groups and two regional groups of students. An analysis of the surveys revealed several important points. First, Korean EFL learners believed that electronic dictionaries with built-in vocal function help to improve English pronunciation. And they heavily relied on bilingual dictionaries. Second, the most frequently used English dictionary strategy is to underline an English word. Korean L2 students strongly favored this. On the other hand, the most helpful English dictionary strategy perceived by Korean EFL learners is to write the unknown English word and phonetic symbols in the margin. It can be inferred from this that pronunciation is regarded as the first prerequisite in English proficiency. Finally, in actual dictionary use, students do not behave according to their beliefs. The pedagogical implication of the present research is that the teaching of dictionary use should be involved in formal English education to increase learners' vocabulary knowledge.

With a trend toward the extension of vocabulary range and a well-deserved thanks to corpus linguistics, it is now increasingly accepted that language comprises a wide range of lexical chunks that the native speaker processes as prefabricated multi-word units such as collocations, idioms, and other fixed or semi-fixed expressions. However, there remains a lack of detailed description and practical strategies for collocational proficiency as a basis for understanding how chunking or collocational competence develops, despite the increasing amount written or spoken about the role of lexical chunks in vocabulary acquisition in the EFL context. This paper addresses some current issues in teaching English chunks and discusses the major methods and strategies for the learners in terms of the Lexical Approach. In addition, the importance of the teacher's role is emphasized based on the questionnaire presented, particularly for those interested in the development of lexical syllabi and incorporating grammar and vocabulary that facilitate student proficiency, as well as teacher proficiency. Finally, a few practical suggestions for teaching chunks and pedagogical implications are discussed.

The aims of this study are to suggest writing tasks based on the integrated-skills approach (Task C) and to identify its effects on elementary school students’ writing performance. Two classes of students in the sixth grade, Class A and Class B, participated in this study, and three tasks were devised: Task A, which was extracted from the sixth-grade English textbook Task B, which was based on the separated-skills approach and Task C, which was based on the integrated-skills approach. Classes A and B had similar student self-assessment results in relation to their performance of Task A. They also completed Tasks B and C, respectively, and the results were compared. The results of the student self-assessment show that the students in Class A had higher interest and satisfaction means than the students in Class B and came up with richer written products than did the latter. In summary, Task C positively affected the students’ attitudes towards and performance of English writing tasks. Thus, by applying Task C, English textbook developers can provide students with learner-centered English writing tasks that will be able to draw their interest and active involvement and that will help them come up with rich written products.