Case studies in EFL Reading

Chin,Cheongsook 한국영어어문교육학회 2009 영어어문교육 Vol.15 No.4

This case study aimed to explore proficient EFL readers' perceptions and experiences about reading tasks and how those perceptions and experiences influence their reading processing behaviors, and to examine how the cultural background of a text affects their reading strategies and comprehension Three college students who were non-English majors participated in this study Three data sources were employed questionnaires, interviews, and think-alouds The results showed that (1) the participants emphasized comprehension as the goal of reading and considered themselves good EFL readers, (2) their reading purposes were closely associated with personal pursuits, (3) they preferred to read materials that deal with areas of interest but did not try to take a risk in terms of level of difficulty and/or length, (4) they implemented a multistrategic approach to reading in that the majority of their strategy use was in conjunction with their concern about meaning construction, (5) they were able to develop useful understandings of unknown vocabulary, and (6) their clear awareness of the cultural background presupposed in the text helped them invoke prior knowledge and reduce unknown vocabulary hindrances which contributed to comprehension Pedagogical implications for EFL reading instruction are provided

A Case Study on College EFL Readers: Awareness, Experiences, and Processes

Chin, Cheongsook The English Teachers Association in Korea 2011 영어어문교육 Vol.17 No.3

This research primarily aimed to investigate proficient and less proficient EFL readers' awareness and experiences about learning to read and reading in English. The secondary purpose was to explore the participants' reading strategies, and to discover how the genres of English texts influence their reading processing behaviors. The participants consisted of four college students in engineering aged 21-25 years. Three data sources were employed: questionnaires, interviews, and think-alouds. The findings revealed that: (1) the proficient EFL readers judged themselves to be good readers, while the less proficient EFL readers judged themselves to be fair readers; (2) unknown vocabulary was perceived to be the major impediment to reading comprehension; the think-aloud data, however, demonstrated that unknown vocabulary did not significantly interfere with their reading comprehension; (3) regardless of the genre of the text, the participants employed similar reading strategies; (4) the participants were more likely to tolerate ambiguity and predict the content when reading the narrative text than the expository text; (5) there was no set of strategies that distinguished proficient EFL readers from less proficient EFL readers; and (6) when identifying problems, the proficient EFL readers used fix-up strategies more effectively and were better able to provide satisfactory solutions than their counterparts. Pedagogical implications for EFL reading instruction are discussed.

Case Studies in EFL Reading

Cheongsook Chin 한국영어어문교육학회 2009 영어어문교육 Vol.15 No.4

This case study aimed to explore proficient EFL readers' perceptions and experiences about reading tasks and how those perceptions and experiences influence their reading processing behaviors, and to examine how the cultural background of a text affects their reading strategies and comprehension. Three college students who were non- English majors participated in this study. Three data sources were employed: questionnaires, interviews, and think-alouds. The results showed that: (1) the participants emphasized comprehension as the goal of reading and considered themselves good EFL readers; (2) their reading purposes were closely associated with personal pursuits; (3) they preferred to read materials that deal with areas of interest but did not try to take a risk in terms of level of difficulty and/or length; (4) they implemented a multistrategic approach to reading in that the majority of their strategy use was in conjunction with their concern about meaning construction; (5) they were able to develop useful understandings of unknown vocabulary; and (6) their clear awareness of the cultural background presupposed in the text helped them invoke prior knowledge and reduce unknown vocabulary hindrances which contributed to comprehension. Pedagogical implications for EFL reading instruction are provided.

Beliefs, Preferences, and Processes of College EFL Readers

Cheongsook Chin 한국영어어문교육학회 2009 영어어문교육 Vol.15 No.2

This study aimed to explore EFL learners' beliefs and preferences about reading tasks and to examine the reading processes that they use for making sense of text. The subjects were comprised of 107 college students who were non-English majors and aged 19-28 years. Based on scores achieved on a reading comprehension test, they were divided into two groups (more-skilled and less-skilled readers) and asked to respond to a survey in class. The results of the survey revealed that: (1) a majority rate themselves as fair readers, which might be indicative of the insecurity they feel toward L2 reading; (2) authentic texts (especially magazines) and popular media appear to be their favorite reading materials; (3) unknown vocabulary is a major impediment to their L2 reading comprehension; (4) the more-skilled readers manifest a meaning centered view of reading, whereas the less-skilled readers center on vocabulary; and (5) both groups employ a multistrategic approach to L2 reading; however, the less-skilled readers are less successful in determining the meaning of unknown vocabulary. Pedagogical implications for EFL classroom teachers are provided.

The Impact of Task Type on Advanced EFL Learners' English Verb Usage

Cheongsook Chin 한국영어어문교육학회 2014 영어어문교육 Vol.20 No.1

The purpose of this study was to investigate advanced EFL learners' errors with verb usage in terms of types and frequency, and examine the impact of task type on English verb usage. The participants were 36 college students, aged 21-28 years, with varying majors. All the identified errors in the corpus were assorted into auxiliary verbs and lexical verbs and then given a comparative analysis with regard to two different tasks (i.e. letter writing and descriptive writing). The results showed that task type failed to make a strong impact on English verb usage. Concerning auxiliary verbs, the omission errors were the most common (54.7%) in letter writing, while the omission errors and the misformation errors occurred at the same frequency rate (42.4%) in descriptive writing. As for lexical verbs, the misformation errors were the most dominant both in letter writing and descriptive writing (64.4% vs. 65.8%). The confusion between transitive and intransitive verbs brought about preposition omissions in prepositional verbs. Among the subcategories of misformation errors, improper elements exhibited the highest frequency in both tasks (56.3% vs. 50.4%). Due to lack of confidence, the participants avoided using prepositional verbs and progressive and/or perfective aspects.

EFL Learners’ Beliefs and Learning Style Preferences:Links to Proficiency

Cheongsook Chin 한국영어교과교육학회 2015 영어교과교육 Vol.14 No.2

This study explored EFL learners’ beliefs and perceptual learning style preferences. It also examined the relationship between these beliefs and preferences and their actual proficiency. The participants consisted of 78 college students, aged 21 to 27, from different majors. According to the scores achieved on an English proficiency test, they were placed into two groups (proficient and less-proficient) and asked to respond to a self-report questionnaire in class. The results showed that: (1) the great majority of participants under-rated their own proficiency level; (2) proficient learners were much more likely to believe that anyone can learn to speak English and that if they heard someone speaking English, they would approach them to practice; (3) a few of the less-proficient learners were still not aware of the structural differences between Korean and English; (4) less-proficient learners were much more likely to believe that the most important part of EFL learning is learning a lot of grammar rules; (5) the participants of both groups marked all six learning styles (i.e. visual, tactile, auditory, kinesthetic, group, and individual) as major preferences; but (6) the proficient learners demonstrated a significantly greater preference for tactile and kinesthetic learning styles than the less-proficient learners did.

The Impact of Self-Efficacy and Self-Regulated Learning Strategies on EFL College Students’ Academic Achievement: Links to Gender*

Cheongsook Chin 한국영어어문교육학회 2021 영어어문교육 Vol.27 No.3

This study aims to investigate EFL college students’ self-efficacy and their use of self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies. It also examines how these two constructs relate to each other, how they influence their academic achievement, and how they identify gender differences. The participants were 196 college students aged between 19 and 28 years, who were studying different majors. They all completed two questionnaires about their self-efficacy and use of SRL strategies in learning EFL. They were also required to take an English language test. The results showed that (1) female students reported higher self-efficacy and more frequent use of SRL strategies than male students to a significant degree, despite the fact that men and women attained similar levels of academic achievement; (2) both gender groups revealed the highest levels of self-efficacy in writing and the lowest levels of self-efficacy in listening; (3) gender influenced the frequency of use of SRL strategies; (4) within both gender groups, statistically significant relationships were identified between self-efficacy and use of SRL strategies; and (5) regardless of gender, self-efficacy was a stronger predictor of academic achievement than the use of SRL strategies; frequent use of particular strategies did not correlate with English language test scores. Pedagogical implications for EFL classroom teachers are suggested.

EFL Students’ Perspectives on Speaking Performance and Language Anxiety: Links to Gender

Cheongsook Chin 한국영어교과교육학회 2019 영어교과교육 Vol.18 No.2

This study aimed to investigate EFL students’ perspectives on variables of language anxiety related to speaking performance in the classroom and to identify relevant differences between genders. The participants were 336 college students aged 19-27 who were enrolled in six practical English classes and four freshman English classes. They all responded to a questionnaire and 13 of them were interviewed to complement the questionnaire data. T-tests were run to examine the relationship between gender and each variable. The findings showed that: (1) both genders in general did not fear receiving negative evaluations from their peers; (2) cooperative classroom activities dealing with favorite topics were shown to contribute to lowering both genders’ language anxiety, whereas having to speak in front of the class provoked the most anxiety; (3) female students had higher anxiety about their speaking performance in class, were more concerned about making mistakes, felt more overwhelmed by the number of grammar rules, and showed more perfectionist tendencies than male students to a significant degree. Pedagogical implications for EFL classroom instructors are suggested.

Effects of Prereading Treatments on Low Level EFL Readers' Comprehension of Expository Texts

Chin, Cheongsook The English Teachers Association in Korea 2010 영어어문교육 Vol.16 No.3

This study examined the effects of previewing and providing background knowledge on low level EFL readers' comprehension of expository texts and their responses to these treatments. 130 college freshmen were randomly placed into one of three treatment groups and read two expository texts reflecting unfamiliar cultural information. Prior to reading, one group was given previewing instruction, which included vocabulary preteaching and summaries, and a second group was provided with culture-specific background knowledge through watching videos and slides. The third group read each text without any prereading instruction. Immediately after reading a passage, subjects answered a 10-item multiple-choice test. Results showed significant positive effects of the previewing treatment and weak positive effects of the providing background knowledge treatment. Students' responses on the questionnaires revealed that the majority felt that the experimental treatments contributed to comprehension enhancement, made reading more enjoyable, and expedited their reading process. Students in the control group, however, indicated that they needed explicit prereading instruction in order to understand the texts. Pedagogical implications of the findings for EFL reading instruction are provided.

College EFL Students' Vocabulary Improvement outside of the Classrooms

Chin, Cheongsook 인제대학교 2008 仁濟論叢 Vol.23 No.1

This research study explored source of new vocabulary and the topics and parts of speech found in the L2 vocabulary self-collection. Seventy two college EFL students aged 19-27 and mixed majors were the subjects. The data corpus was collected from the vocabulary lists in which the students were to record (1) each vocabulary obtained. (2) the part of speech, (3) the definition, (4) the context in which the word was included, and (5) the source. Each student was directed to convey twenty new words from outside of the classrooms. The findings showed that words were derived from all areas of the subjects' lives. Written materials were the major sources for incidental L2 vocabulary learning in that authentic texts (especially journals and magazines) seemed to be most prominent. However, a variety of nonreading sources along with Internet were also conducive to vocabulary learning. Nouns were aost popular, followed by verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The topics appeared in the data were differed based on part of speech. Implications of the findings for EFL classrooms are provided.