The Personality Traits of Korean Undergraduate Students and Their Participation in Classroom: The Use of Google Docs and TV Series The Office

In Korea, where English is used as a foreign language, it is hard for language learners to find an opportunity to apply what they have learned from the classroom. Shifting from a teacher-centered classroom to a student-centered classroom ends up making a learner become an active participant in the classroom. The aim of this paper is to explore effective ways to increase students’ participation in the classroom. In a class of 40 students at the college-level, students were assigned to watch the American TV series The Office, and do a script analysis. As a way to increase active participation, students were required to work as a group, and were also informed to use Google Docs as a collaboration tool. Prior to the first class, a brief survey was conducted in order to arrange students for group work, with students’ personality traits taken into consideration. At the end of the course, the instructor asked the students to fill out an evaluation form and their feedback was analyzed. The findings showed that the collaborative work on Google Docs promoted learners’ interaction, provided a comfortable learning environment, and the use of the TV series increased their cultural awareness.