Korean ESL Students’ Unfulfilled Expectations in an English-Speaking Country

강수자 한국중앙영어영문학회 2011 영어영문학연구 Vol.53 No.4

This qualitative case study explored Korean ESL students’ expectations and experiences in an English-speaking country. The participants were two Korean students who were studying ESL in an intensive language program at a university in the United States. Through the inductive analysis of the interview data, it was revealed that the participants were unsatisfied with their experiences in the United States. The participants brought their high expectations of developing friendships with Americans and improving their spoken English skills with their American friends. However, their real experiences in the United States were totally different from what they had expected. Unlike their anticipation, the participants did not have any American friends. Instead, they tended to bond with Korean friends because of their need for social cohesion. Due to their unfulfilled expectations, both of the participants struggled. However, the ways they dealt with their social and cultural struggles were different, depending on their personalities, their degrees of motivation to study English, and the atmosphere of the groups in which they got together. Based on the findings, I provided suggestions for language institutes, teachers, and Korean ESL students to help Korean ESL students have more satisfying L2 learning experiences in an English-speaking country.

Korean ESL Students’ Ambivalence: Desire to Have and Desire to Avoid Communication with American Friends

강수자 한국영어교육학회 2007 ENGLISH TEACHING(영어교육) Vol.62 No.3

This article reports on a qualitative case study exploring how Korean students studying ESL in an intensive language program in the US perceive American friends. The findings of this study reveals that the Korean ESL students tended to have ambivalence between (a) the desire to have American friends and communicate with them and (b) the desire to avoid communication with Americans. Drawing on cultural and educational contexts in Korea, I provide an in-depth interpretation of the first desire. As a way to understand the second desire, I present various aspects of the identities they enacted in their real or imagined communication and friendships with Americans: being sensitive to age in friendships, being sexually conservative, being a benefit-taker, being an out-group member, being powerless, and being disrespected. As these identities contrast with their desired self-images, they felt a sense of identity vulnerability, which appeared to make them develop the second desire and feel reluctant to approach Americans. I argue that their identities and these resulting consequences account for, at least in part, the discontentment of the first desire. Drawing on its potential to provide opportunities to practice the target language, I suggest that SLA researchers and ESL/EFL professionals should give more attention to intercultural friendships between ESL students and native speakers.

Time-Gaining Communication Strategies Managing Processing Time Difficulties in L2 Oral Communication

강수자 한국영어교육학회 2008 ENGLISH TEACHING(영어교육) Vol.63 No.3

Despite the long-standing interest in communication strategies (CSs) for lexical problems, there has been a relative lack of attention to CSs that are used to cope with processing time difficulties. This qualitative study reports on how the problem with processing time can be managed by employing CSs in L2 communication. The participants were 12 Korean students studying in a university in the USA, whose language proficiency varied from limited to high advanced. The participants’ natural conversation data were recorded in various settings and stimulated recalls were conducted on the recorded conversations. From an inductive analysis of data, various time-gaining CSs (TGCSs), which refer to strategies managing processing time difficulties, were identified. Based on a taxonomic analysis, this study presents a taxonomy in which various TGCSs are organized into multiple levels. Examples illustrating how participants employed each TGCS are also provided. The participants’ actual use of TGCSs revealed that processing time problems could be managed by employing appropriate TGCSs. Drawing on the findings, this study suggests that L2 learners should be taught TGCSs and encouraged to use them.

Factors Influencing Speakers’Feeling of Security during L2 Communication

강수자 팬코리아영어교육학회 2009 영어교육연구 Vol.21 No.3

Security, a feeling of being safe from fears, is one of the psychological antecedents to willingness to communicate (WTC) (Kang, 2005). This qualitative study reports on factors that influence speakers’ feeling of security during second language (L2) communication. Twelve Korean students studying in a university in the US participated in this study. The participants’ natural conversation data were recorded in various settings and stimulated recalls were conducted as they watched their recorded conversations. This study found that L2 speakers’ feeling of security was affected by various factors: (1) speaker factors, (2) interlocutor factors, and (3) speaker-interlocutor relational factors. Drawing on the findings, this study suggests that L2 educators should understand how L2 learners’ feeling of security can be influenced by the various factors and try to help L2 learners feel secure in their language classrooms. In so doing, L2 educators can help L2 learners create or increase their WTC, actively participate in their classroom discussions, and facilitate their language learning.

Korean ESL Students’ Perceptions of Benefits from American Friends

강수자 한국중앙영어영문학회 2013 영어영문학연구 Vol.55 No.3

Korean ESL students tend to have a desire to have American friends and improve their spoken English skills (Kang, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011). In order to understand the motives behind this desire, this qualitative case study explored Korean ESL students’ perceptions about benefits that they would obtain from American friends. The participants were nine Korean students studying in an intensive English program at a university in the US, five of whom later became regular students in an undergraduate program and a masters program. The findings of this study reveal that the Korean ESL students perceived that they would have four types of benefits from interactions with American friends: (a) improving their English speaking skills (b) learning American culture, (c) getting useful information for their life in the US, and (d) having social support. Among the four benefits, Korean students put the most emphasis on improving their English speaking skills. The findings also show that over time there was a change in Korean students’ perceptions about each benefit. Korean students’ perceptions of improving their speaking skills weakened after experiencing interactions with Americans. In contrast, Korean students’ perceptions of experiencing culture and getting useful information from their American friends strengthened as they stayed in the US longer and interacted with their American friends.

Effects of Learning and Teaching Conditions on L2 Grammar and Comprehension

강수자 한국중원언어학회 2011 언어학연구 Vol.0 No.21

This study explored the effect of learning and teaching conditions on L2 grammar and comprehension and the interaction effect between these two conditions. Two conditions—learning condition (implicit vs. explicit) and teaching condition (formal vs. non-formal instruction)—were manipulated to investigate how the degree of explicitness affects comprehension and grammar skills. Drawing on assumptions and previous findings, six hypotheses were formulated. To test the hypotheses, participants were assigned to four different groups and received four different treatments for the “if” counter-factual conditional sentence in the present-time frame. The results indicated that even though there were some differences between groups that the hypotheses predicted, the differences were not significant enough to support the hypotheses. The results were discussed with reference to several factors to which these insignificant findings were attributable.

Factors Affecting Manageability of L2 Communication Problems and Its Influence on the Choice of Achievement/Avoidance Communication Strategies

강수자 한국현대영어영문학회 2023 현대영어영문학 Vol.67 No.4

Communication strategies (CSs) have been reported to play an important role in managing problems encountered during L2 communication. This qualitative study explored what factors affected L2 learners’ manageability of communication problems and how it influenced their choice between achievement and avoidance CSs. The participants were Korean students studying in a university in the USA with various student status. The data were collected from interviews, natural conversations recorded in various settings, and stimulated recalls on the recorded conversations. Through the inductive analysis of the data, this study found that L2 learners’ perceived manageability was affected by various factors: (1) the complexity of the problem, (2) message factors (the nature of the message, the illocutionary force of the message), (3) participant factors (the participant’s language proficiency, the participant’s experience with the problem and the expression), and (4) interlocutor factors (the interlocutor’s language proficiency, the interlocutor’s background knowledge). In addition, this study revealed that L2 learners’ manageability affected their choice of achievement and avoidance CSs. Drawing on the findings, this study also provided L2 educators with pedagogical suggestions that can contribute to increasing L2 learners’ manageability of communication problems, making them choose an achievement CS rather than an avoidance CS, and helping them manage their communication problems more successfully.

영어 중간문의 총칭성

강수자 한국중앙영어영문학회 1999 영어영문학연구 Vol.41 No.1

L2 Learners’ Communication Strategies: A Data Convergence Analysis

강수자 한국융합학회 2015 한국융합학회논문지 Vol.6 No.6

L2 learners deal with communication problems encountered during the course of their oral communication by employing what are known as communication strategies(CSs). As CSs play a significant role in communication and language learning, identifying CSs that facilitate communication has become important in L2 research. However, there have been some controversies about how to identify CSs, especially about data sources: conversation data, retrospective interview data, or combining two types of data. Drawing on the advantages of converged data, this study aimed to identify CSs that L2 learners use in their English communication through a convergence analysis of data. In this qualitative case study, the data were collected from Korean L2 learners’ conversations and retrospective verbal reports in stimulated recall interviews. Using a data convergence approach, various CSs were identified: definition replacement CSs, message change CSs, time-gaining CSs, and comprehension CSs. This study suggests the effectiveness of CSs in handling L2 communication problems and the usefulness of data convergence in L2 CS research.

Factors Affecting the Fluctuation of Speakers’ Excitement in L2 Communication

강수자 한국중앙영어영문학회 2007 영어영문학연구 Vol.49 No.3

As willingness to communicate (WTC) has been proposed as one of the key concepts in L2 learning and instruction, speakers’ psychological antecedents to WTC and factors affecting them have also become important in the language education field. This study addresses two research questions: (a) Does speakers’ excitement fluctuate during L2 communication? (b) If it does, what factors affect speakers’ excitement? To answer these questions, a qualitative case study was conducted with 12 Korean university students. The data were collected from interviews, observations, conversations, stimulated recalls, and measurement of language proficiency. From an inductive analysis of the data, it was found that L2 speakers’ excitement fluctuated by the role of various primary factors: (a) personal, (b) environmental, and (c) personal-environmental factors. The findings suggest the possibility of changing speakers’ excitement and WTC through a pedagogical intervention. Various affective factors identified in this study can offer useful information as to how to increase L2 learners’ excitement by providing instigative factors and preventing inhibiting factors for it. It is expected that language educators can help L2 learners increase their WTC and facilitate their language learning by boosting their excitement.