Effects of Gender and Grade Level on Young Korean EFL Learners’ Reading Comprehension

Daria Soon Young Seog 현대문법학회 2016 현대문법연구 Vol.88 No.-

The present study examined the effects of gender and grade level on English reading comprehension proficiency of young Korean English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Learners. Through a nationwide reading comprehension assessment event, nine hundred seventy-nine young Korean EFL learners in Korean elementary school grades 1 through 6 were tested for their English reading comprehension measures. Statical analysis was conducted to investigate between and within group differences as well as possible interactional effect of gender and grade level. Results showed significant main effects of gender and grade level on reading comprehension. However, there was no interactional effect of gender and grade level on English reading comprehension of the young Korean EFL learners.

A Look at Hagwon vs. Extensive Reading on L2 Reading Comprehension

Seog, Daria Soon-Young 강원대학교 인문과학연구소 2016 인문과학연구 Vol.0 No.48

본 연구는 학교 수업 외 영어교육, 특히 학원교육 또는 다독이 한국 EFL 환경의 초등학생들의 L2 영어독해능력에 미치는 영향에 관해 학년별로 비교 분석하였다. 총 713명의 한국 초등학생들이, 1학년부터 6학년까지 본 연구에 참여하였다. 참여한 학생들은 전국을 대상으로 한 영어독해능력 이벤트를 통해 영어독해능력을 측정 받은 학생들이다. 통계분석을 통해 연구 데이터를 조사했다. 연구의 통계분석 결과는 학생들의 영어독해능력과 학교 수업 외의 방과 후 영어교육의 상관관계가 유의미하지 않으며 학생들의 학년이 유의미한 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 하지만, 자세히 살펴보았을 때 학원교육과 다독이 초등학생들의 L2 영어독해능력에 미치는 영향에 관해 매우 흥미로운 결과를 볼 수 있었다. 학교 수업 외의 방과 후 영어교육과 학년의 상호작용은 없었다. The present study investigated the effects of extracurricular English education, specifically Hagwon (a.k.a. cram school) education vs. extensive reading on English reading comprehension proficiency of young Korean English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Learners. A total of seven hundred thirteen young Korean EFL learners in Korean elementary schools, grades 1 through 6, participated in the current study. The participants were assessed for their English reading comprehension measures during a nationwide reading comprehension assessment event. Statical analyses were conducted for possible main effects of school grade level and extracurricular English education as well as the interactional effects of grade level and extracurricular English education. Results revealed a significant main effect of grade level and a non-significant effect of extracurricular English education on L2 reading comprehension. However, a closer look revealed interesting insights for the effect of Hagwon education vs. extensive reading on the participants’ L2 reading comprehension. There was no significant interaction of grade level and extracurricular English education on L2 reading comprehension of the young Korean EFL learners.

Learner Corpora Investigation of English Article Production by Korean EFL Learners

Daria Soon-Young Seog 현대문법학회 2021 현대문법연구 Vol.110 No.-

The current study expands on the previous corpus-based study which investigated the use of English articles by adult advanced proficiency Korean EFL learners by comparing a learner corpus and a native speaker corpus. The present paper reports on a follow-up investigation of the Korean EFL learners’ use of English articles: the, a(n), and Ø (the zero or null article) using a young learner corpus, the KNU English Learner Corpus (KELC), and two recently added subcorpora of KNU English as a Foreign Language Corpus (KEFLC), the KNU junior high school learner corpus (KJHSC) and the KNU high school learner corpus (KHSC). Comparison analyses were conducted among the learner corpora consisting of data from different grade level groups of Korean EFL learners and between the learner corpora and the native speaker corpus, COCA. Results show that the high occurrence frequency of the Ø article in the early stages of the article acquisition process is evidence of L1 transfer. Furthermore, the L2 article usage hierarchies found for each of the different grade level learner corpora exhibited overgeneralization of the Ø article or omission or failure to provide articles that resulted in high occurrence frequencies of the Ø article in all grade level learner corpora except the university level KNU Student English Learner Corpus-Written (KSELC-W). The L2 article usage hierarchy for KSELC-W revealed existence of the-flooding. Finally, the findings from the current study indicate that corpus-based studies can provide insight into interlanguage developmental processes and support previous literature with evidence from large data-based investigations.

Accuracy order of grammatical morphemes of Korean EFL learners: Disparities among the same L1 groups

( Daria Soon Young Seog ) 경희대학교 언어정보연구소 2015 언어연구 Vol.32 No.S

Studies questioning the proposed invariant natural order of second language (L2) morpheme acquisition have reported evidence of strong first language (L1) effects on the acquisition order of L2 English grammatical morphemes. In view of these findings, the current study investigated disparities in the morpheme acquisition orders of different groups with the same L1 Korean background. First, this study examined 173 writing samples written by Korean elementary school students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) to investigate the acquisition order of eight grammatical morphemes. Afterwards, the revealed order was compared to the findings from previous studies conducted with L1 Korean groups. The results showed that the acquisition order of the Korean EFL learners of this study did not support the natural order. Furthermore, comparison of findings to previous studies revealed disparities among the L1 Korean groups learning English indicating the need for investigation into methodology as well as other external determinants in addition to L1 transfer.

A Corpus-based Study of the Use of English Articles by Korean EFL Learners

( Daria Soon-young Seog ) 대한언어학회 2018 언어학 Vol.26 No.1

The current paper reports on the investigation of Korean college EFL learners’ use of the English articles: the, a(n), and Ø (the zero or null article). A comparison analysis was conducted on the researcher compiled learner corpus, the Kyungpook National University Student English Learner Corpus-Writing (KSELC-W), and a native speaker (NS) corpus, the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). For this study, the learner corpus, KSELC-W, consisted of 145 writing samples from 74 university students which were collected over three semesters. Log-likelihood calculations showed that the Korean learners in this study significantly overused the and significantly underused a(n) and Ø compared to the NSs of English. According to Huebner (1983a), the students in this study are in Stage 2 of the six stages in the definite article acquisition process where the-flooding is marked and overgeneralization occurs. Furthermore, the students in this study exhibit L2 article production behavior consistent with Stage 5, the > a(n) > Ø, of the five-stage developmental sequence in L2 frequency of article production proposed by Wolfe-Quintero (2000). The current study sheds some light on conducting corpora comparison analyses to supplement existing research on the L2 English article acquisition process.

Interlanguage development of young Korean EFL learners’ modal usage: A learner corpus study

Daria Soon-Young Seog,Incheol Choi 경희대학교 언어정보연구소 2018 언어연구 Vol.35 No.S

The current paper reports on a comparison study conducted between a learner corpus, the KNU English Learner Corpus (KELC), and a native speaker corpus, the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), to investigate in what ways and to what extent the young Korean learners of KELC use English modal verbs. The results reveal that the young Korean learners underused modals could, would, should, may, might and must in general. However, will and can were used frequently with a statistically significant overuse of will occurring after the intermediate level. Furthermore, interlanguage development is observed with nativelike usage frequency of can from the earlier stages while occurrences of should and would emerging at later stages. A closer examination of the observed under and over usages also discloses that the difficulty of combining tense with the modal verbs impedes the learners’ preterit form use of the modal verbs. Additionally, the use of epistemic modality is observed much later than the root modality such as possibility, permission, and ability. These findings coincide with the first language modal acquisition order reported in literature (Coates 1983).

Semantics in English Article Usage by Korean EFL Learners: A Corpus-Based Study

Daria Soon-Young Seog(석순영) 현대문법학회 2018 현대문법연구 Vol.97 No.-

The present study investigates the semantics involved in the L2 English article use by Korean EFL learners. The examined usage data were extracted from the researcher compiled learner corpus, the Kyungpook National University Student English Learner Corpus-Writing (KSELC-W). The importance of current research is in the fact that the investigated data was not collected through formal elicitation tasks or grammar focused activities. Therefore, the learner corpus data represent Korean EFL learners unconscious knowledge of the English article system and their performance on timed writing sessions which did not focus on grammar. The findings reveal that Korean EFL learners do not make random misuse or overuse errors in production of English articles the and a(n) and that the patterns are in accordance with the Fluctuation Hypothesis. Additionally, results show that the semantic feature specificity effects the Korean EFL learners in the current study and provide supporting data for direct UG access underlying article choice. These results support previously reported findings by Ionin et. al. (2004, 2009) and Ko et al. (2009).

Use of English Futures, Will vs. Be Going to: A Corpus-Based Comparison Study

Daria Soon-Young Seog(석데리아순영),Yae-Sheik Lee(이예식),Incheol Choi(최인철) 현대문법학회 2019 현대문법연구 Vol.102 No.-

The present study investigates usage of English futures, will and be going to, by Korean EFL learners and American native English speakers. The examined usage data are extracted from the native speaker corpus, the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), and two learner corpora, the Kyungpook National University (KNU) Student English Learner Corpus-Written (KSELC-W) and the KNU English Learner Corpus (KELC), and compared to determine interlanguage developmental patterns and usage similarities or differences between native speakers and nonnative speakers. In support of existing literature, the findings from the current study reveal that the American native English speakers of COCA significantly overuse both will and be going to in the spoken register compared to the combined written registers. Furthermore, the findings also indicate that although the writing samples of the learner corpora were written during formal EFL education settings, will and be going to usage by the Korean EFL learners closely resemble the usage data of the combined written-all registers of COCA. Finally, semantic analyses show that the advanced learners of KSELC-W use be going to quite correctly with the semantic senses in the present form. In contrast to the learners in Coates (1983), they use be going to to deliver the sense of epistemicity rather than the root intention senses.

Accuracy order of grammatical morphemes of Korean EFL learners: Disparities among the same L1 groups

Young Seog,Daria Soon 경희대학교 언어연구소 2015 언어연구 Vol.32 No.S

Studies questioning the proposed invariant natural order of second language (L2) morpheme acquisition have reported evidence of strong first language (L1) effects on the acquisition order of L2 English grammatical morphemes. In view of these findings, the current study investigated disparities in the morpheme acquisition orders of different groups with the same L1 Korean background. First, this study examined 173 writing samples written by Korean elementary school students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) to investigate the acquisition order of eight grammatical morphemes. Afterwards, the revealed order was compared to the findings from previous studies conducted with L1 Korean groups. The results showed that the acquisition order of the Korean EFL learners of this study did not support the natural order. Furthermore, comparison of findings to previous studies revealed disparities among the L1 Korean groups learning English indicating the need for investigation into methodology as well as other external determinants in addition to L1 transfer. (Kyungpook National University)

An Investigation of Korean EFL Learners’ Grammar of English BE: A Corpus-Based Study

Incheol Choi,Daria Soon-Young Seog 현대문법학회 2021 현대문법연구 Vol.112 No.-

The current study investigates the excessive use of BE by young Korean EFL learners for insights into their L2 English grammar construction. The findings reveal that the young Korean EFL learners’ interlanguage grammar of the English BE is not limited to L1 transfer effects but also associated with the developmental processes in the acquisition of the English language. Although be-insertion errors are caused by the conspiracy of various reasons, they trigger the appearance of inflectional category and eventually become the medium for the fully developed inflectional category.