2019, Vol.20, No.4

Modern English Education 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 1.55

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

This study compared teaching and non-teaching track pre-service EFL teachers’ motivation and self-competency in learning English as an L2. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the effect of prospective status on teaching profession in mediating differences in the criterion measures (motivational intention, L2 self-competency, and attained proficiency). A total of 80 students enrolled in a pre-service teacher education program were measured on motivational intention, ideal and ought-to L2 selves, instrumentality (promotion and prevention) and integrativeness along with L2 self-competency using a questionnaire. The participants also reported on reasons for their selection and non-selection of teaching profession along with perceived difficulties in pursuing a L2 teaching career in a semi-structured interview. The study shows that teaching track students were much stronger in motivational intention and integrativeness, while the non-teaching group was noticeably higher in instrumentality (prevention) and ought-to L2 self. Instrumentality in each group revealed a differing level of functioning where the preventive side served as the strongest predictor of attained proficiency yet only in the nonteaching group. Profession status had a significant main effect on levels of motivational intention, but not on L2 self-competency nor on attained proficiency. Implications of the findings are discussed.

This study investigates student engagement with Écree, a Natural Language Processing (NLP) based automated writing evaluation (AWE) that gives feedback on content. In particular, this study examines how mandating AWE use or not, affects students’ behavioral and emotional engagement with AWE feedback. Two classes—one in which Écree use was mandatory (EM) and another in which it was optional (EO)—were surveyed and four volunteers from each class were tracked. Overall, the two groups differed in their evaluations of how much they incorporated AWE feedback into revisions as well as in the number of uploads to Écree. Tracking the focal students’ written drafts, Écree feedback, and interview data revealed that students from EM tended to incorporate Écree’s feedback into their revisions more than EO students. Unexpectedly, EM students developed quite negative views toward Écree, whereas EO students often referred to its usefulness: its systematicity, speed, and role as a reader. This study implies that AWE can be utilized as a supplemental tool in higher education and that students may well need training so as to maximize its positive effects.

The primary purpose of this study is to investigate how well vocabulary features, such as collocation, word family, etc., predict vocabulary scores in writing graded by human raters, and the degree to which they explain holistic scores. Forty-nine writings by first-year non-native English- speaking international students at a mid-western U.S. university were analyzed by using two multiple regression models. Data includes both holistic and analytic vocabulary scores given by four human raters and specific vocabulary features counted by concordance programs. Holistic and analytic vocabulary scores were estimated using many-facet Rasch measurement analysis. It was found that (a) collocation variety and essay length (or tokens) explained 32.0% of variance in the holistic writing scores, and (b) collocation variety and word family accounted for 29.5% of the variance in the vocabulary scores. The results of this study suggest that it is beneficial to teach and learn vocabulary knowledge to improve students’ writing proficiency.