2021, Vol.22, No.2

Modern English Education 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 1.55

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

The COVID-19 pandemic forced educational institutions around the world to suddenly shift most of their traditional offline classes to the online in 2020. Korean universities were no exception to the trend, and it provided an opportunity to investigate student performance and satisfaction in an online versus offline university English course. In this study, an introductory English linguistics course conducted online in 2020 was compared to the same course conducted offline in 2019. The exams of the online English class probed in this study were the same versions used for the offline class consisting of multiple choice and short answer questions, but were administered in an openbook online format without a proctor. Then, students’ course evaluation results were analyzed to compare their satisfaction in different class delivery formats. Results of online and offline classes revealed that students’ exam results and course evaluation were almost identical, which suggest that the online format of university courses can be as effective as the traditional offline courses for the recent younger generation of online-friendly university students.

This study compares two different approaches to teaching listening skills (structure-based and context-based instructions), and investigates the effect of two listening comprehension instruction methods applied at the tertiary level in an EFL context in Korea. Based on the components of communicative competence, the structure-based instruction focused on raising the linguistic/grammatical and discourse competence of learners, while the context-based instruction focused on sociolinguistic and strategic competence in improving the students’ listening ability. Treatments were administered to two groups of students who were taking an advanced listening course (structure-based instruction) and a conference interpretation course (context-based instruction). Pre-test and post-test scores measuring listening competence before and after the instruction were used to collect data to compare the two groups. Results showed that both the structure-based and context-based instructions were effective in improving the students’ listening competence. However, comparison of the two instructions showed that the structure-based instruction appeared to be more effective than the context-based instruction in enhancing listening comprehension. Also, the students’ course evaluation scores used to measure student satisfaction were higher in the structure-focused instruction, although the comparison failed to yield statistical significance. Arguments are presented for a communicative grammar approach which incorporates structure-based instruction in listening courses at the tertiary level, along with implications and limitations of the study.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of communication strategy training on tertiary EFL students’ willingness to communicate (WTC) and their strategy use. The experimental group received a 7-week intervention involving communication strategy-based training. Both quantitative and qualitative data, including self-report questionnaires on communication strategy and WTC, transcriptions of think-aloud protocols, strategy logs, and short memos, were collected. Pre- and post-oral communication tasks were given to measure changes in participants’ actual use of CSs. Seven strategies, including code-switching, appeal for assistance, non-verbal expression, word coinage, avoidance, circumlocution, and approximation were introduced in a college language classroom setting. The results showed that the explicit communication strategy instruction had a positive impact on both WTC and strategy use. Specifically, there was a significant increase in the participants’ use of four compensatory strategies, approximation, word-coinage, code-switching, and non-verbal expression, after seven weeks of CS training. The findings suggest that the students’ increase in the use of four CSs was closely related to their increase of the awareness of the CSs. Therefore, raising learners’ awareness of CSs, training them to apply the strategies, and providing opportunities for practice can enhance their communication abilities.