2013, Vol.14, No.4

Modern English Education 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 1.55

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

This paper looked into attitudes of learners toward politeness in different learning contexts. Korean learners of both EFL and ESL as subjects participated in a study in which data were collected by means of attitude scale designed to view politeness as a combination of three components, cognitive, affective and behavioral. Given the attitude scale, subjects in both groups were instructed to read statements of each component, and respond to them in terms of a five-point scale. In spite of no statistically significant difference between two learner groups in individual components of the attitude scale, an in-depth look at responses of both groups in each component of the scale showed that there were some clear differences between the groups in their attitude toward politeness in language use. The overall findings of the study indicated that contexts for L2 learning indeed made difference in the development of L2 pragmatic knowledge of politeness.

The present study aims to examine the effects of dictogloss on English listening abilities. For the study, the research was implemented for fourteen weeks with eighty Korean university students. Out of these students, forty-two took listening classes using dictogloss as an experimental group and thirty-eight took listening classes traditionally as a control group. To examine the students’ listening comprehension, a simulated TOEIC LC was used. Results of the study showed that there was no statistically significant difference between both groups in the TOEIC LC although the experimental group received a higher score than the control group. A detailed explanation of the results of each TOEIC part indicates that the experimental group showed more improvement than the control group in part 4 that consists of longer texts than the other parts. The result of part 4 showed statistically significant difference between both groups. This suggests that listening learning using dictogloss can be effective in improving students’ listening comprehension. Moreover, the experimental group used the listening strategy more frequently than the control group, which revealed a significant difference. Especially, meta-cognitive strategy use made a significant difference between the two groups. The results indicate that dictogloss procedures help students facilitate their listening strategies usage. These findings indicate that listening classes using dictogloss have positive effects on listening abilities. Based on this study, some guidelines for effective listening classes were suggested.

Language has been considered to be a student’s right, challenge, and resource. How to define and organize language education has influenced teachers’ instruction and students’ learning. Language education, which is influenced by language planning,has implemented the intentions of educational policy. However, language education has been impacted by high-stakes tests rather than by language planning which guides the directions or purposes of language education. Even though tests produce some positive results, such as changing classroom activities and supporting school reforms, current high-stakes testing limits the original purposes of educational policy and language planning. From a language planning perspective, the authors examined two educational policies in the U.S. and Korea, and how high-stakes tests, which are the important parts of the policies, influenced language education in both countries. This analysis shows that language as resource orientation or language as right perspective was changed to language as problems because of the influence of highstakes tests in the U.S. and Korea. The authors suggest that language education needs to be free from high-stakes tests, and needs to encourage a student’s language learning as a right, a challenge, and a resource.