2017, Vol.18, No.2

Modern English Education 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 1.55

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

The current study investigates multimodal literacy in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) university classroom. In a media-saturated society, meaning-making is becoming increasingly multimodal. However, school literacy is too often restricted to traditional paper-based practices and thus alienates students from their everyday literary experiences. This situation is worse with EFL students because they frequently learn the language in a decontextualized manner. The purpose of this study is to explore how students utilize multimodalities for meaning-making. Using a qualitative methodology, this study analyzes students’ writing as the primary data and their reflection papers as the secondary data. The study finds that students without formal education in multimodal literacy were able t construct meaning by utilizing the multimodal resources around them in their writing. The study also confirms that their strong sense of audience awareness greatly influenced their selections and decisions in their use of multimodal resources, the design of their writing, and their strategies in hypertext construction. Overall, by connecting school literacy with students’ literacy practices outside of school, students found learning to be more interesting and meaningful.

This study investigated whether Korean university students’ vocabulary size and their proficiency levels affect their reading comprehension in an EFL environment. Additionally, the study attempted at exploring to what extent vocabulary knowledge determines ‘adequate’ reading when lexical coverage are considered. For this purpose, vocabulary size was measured by the revised version of Vocabulary Levels Test (Schmitt, Schmitt, & Clapham, 2001). Reading comprehension items were adopted from commercially published TOEIC practice test items. Lexical coverage was calculated by using Vocabulary Profile. A total of 50 students who have existing TOEIC scores took part in the study, and none of them majored in English. The combination of regression, correlation coefficient, and ANOVA analysis were carried out to analyze the collected data. The results revealed that vocabulary size and reading comprehension scores were highly correlated. Evidently, Korean university students need to reach approximately 5,000 word families in order to be an ‘adequate’ reader in an academic setting, which resulted in the word coverage of around 97% including proper nouns. Pedagogical implication and further research directions are also suggested.

Upon the introduction of the Fourth Revolution, creativity is stressed to be one of the core capacities for individuals to be equipped with. This study aims to provide some insights on the potential contribution of English teaching to the development of creativity among English learners. To achieve the goal, it first examines the positive relationship between bilingualism and creativity by reviewing the literature. Second, it investigates the underlying mechanisms of how bilingualism fosters creativity, which have been rarely dealt with in the literature. To speculate on the “how,” specific examples are drawn from categorization process in language learning, bilinguals’ lexical and conceptual representations, and their cross-cultural experiences. Third, it proposes that creativity in bilinguals is a function of cognitive flexibility, by demonstrating striking similarities between the cognitive processes involved in second language learning and the construct of divergent thinking which is often measured by Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Finally, it suggests that English teaching in and of itself may be potential contributions to cultivating English learners’ creativity and thus English teachers are better to focus on the issue of ‘teaching creatively’ rather than on that of ‘teaching for creativity.’