Literacy and Language Loss: Factors in the Attrition of L2 Korean

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Literacy and Language LossFactors in the
Attrition of L2 Korean

• Justin R. Shewell and Dr. Lynne Hansen
• Brigham Young UniversityHawaii

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Contents

• Method
• Subjects
• Instruments and Data Collection
• Results
• Discussion

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Method

• Subjects
• 151 attriters of Korean
• ages ranged between 21 and 56
• traveled to Korea to work as missionaries
• little or no prior exposure to Korean
• Korea not specific field of choice
• high oral competence achieved
• varied levels of reading and writing skills

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Method

• Instruments
• Korean Literacy and Retention Survey
• modified versions of the Clark(1981) can-do
  scales
• self-rating used in many attrition studies
• Korean Language Motivation Survey
• Data Collection
• Email responses to surveys
• setup using existing Geocities parameters
• collected and analyzed using SPSS software

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Results

• Simple correlation and multiple regressions
  techniques used to analyze the data
• Table 1--Correlations
• Table 2--Regressions
• Table 3--Motivation

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Table 1 Correlations of Independent Variable with
Self-Evaluation of Current Speaking Ability
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Table 2Multivariate Results of Current L2
Speaking with the Independent Variables
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Table 3 Correlations of Independent Variable with
Motivational Analysis
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Table 4The Indirect Effect of Motivation on L2
Korean Current Speaking Levels
.381
Total effect .432 Indirect effect .0526
( .329 .160 ) Direct effect .37936 (.432 -
.0526 )