2018, Vol.19, No.4

Modern English Education 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 1.55

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

The present study explores L2 writers’ strategy use during writing with a smartphone dictionary app based on the think-aloud method. Two groups of Korean EFL students carried out four writing tasks: one group performed writing with the help of a dictionary app and the other did not. Results revealed that the students with dictionary aid processed writing quite differently from the ones without it. Less L2 writing anxiety, more attention to the content of writing and more active idea materialization was detected in the former group. The analysis of think-aloud data indicated that these results were mainly caused by the extension of the students’ vocabulary knowledge capacity with dictionary aid, which contributed to enhancing the confidence in their writing ability. The findings suggest that using a dictionary app in a language class could enable L2 students to perform writing more intensively by reducing anxiety.

This study aims to identify differences between English newspaper articles of Korean and British university students in order to give implications for writing pedagogy. English newspaper articles from 60 Korean university students and 60 British students are analyzed. The analysis was conducted with Coh-Metrix, which is a computational textual assessment tool. The measured variables in texts were classified into lexical, syntactic and discourse aspects. The lexical aspects included lexical diversity and characteristics. The syntactic aspects refered to syntactic complexity. The discourse aspects included referential and semantic cohesion. The results are as follows. First, as for the lexical aspect, the two groups showed significant differences in lexical diversity, word frequency, familiarity, meaningfulness and polysemy. Korean students used less content words, high frequency words and familiar words, and polysemy, but more meaningful vocabulary. Second, as for the syntactic aspect, Korean students used significantly more syntactically complex patterns. Third, as for the discourse aspect, the two groups showed significant differences in content words overlap, LSA all sentences, and LSA givenness. Korean students repeat content words more than native English students. Korean students used similar and associated words in a text. These results indicate that instructors need to prepare schema activations and feedback sessions.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of mobile-assisted vocabulary learning with three different tasks: dictionary-based, corpus-based, and video-based tasks. The experiment was administered in the spring semester of 2017. One hundred thirty-five Korean college students participated in the current study. Participants were randomly divided into three groups, dictionary group, corpus group, and video group, and performed different vocabulary tasks for homework. They studied 10 words per week. There were a total of 160 words for sixteen weeks. To assess vocabulary learning from the different tasks, pre- and post-tests were conducted before and after the experiment. A questionnaire survey was also performed to examine group differences in their attitudes and perceptions towards vocabulary learning. Paired samples t-tests as well as ANOVA and ANCOVA were administered. Major findings are as follows: First, participants in corpus and video groups increased their vocabulary gains. Group comparison results on the post- test also revealed no significant differences, indicating that three vocabulary tasks are equally beneficial for vocabulary learning. Lastly, attitudes and perceptions towards mobile-assisted learning positively observed. In particular, video-based vocabulary tasks appeared to provide the most interesting and motivating learning environments. The present study sheds new light on different types of mobile-assisted vocabulary tasks in EFL fields.