Teaching APA Style in an English Culture Class: A Case Study

Teaching APA Style in an English Culture Class: A Case Study

Teaching content courses to students majoring in English education may involve teaching them not only English for academic purposes (EAP) but also academic conventions for EAP communication involving the general organization of academic research reports and ways of referencing and citation. This research is a case study of teaching American Psychological Association (APA) Style in the 2017 fall semester to students (N=31) taking Studies of Cultures of English-Speaking Countries and Multi-cultural Society, a content course offered in a department of English education in Seoul. The research questions include: (A) What variations do Korean college students show in referencing? (B) What variations do Korean college students show in in-text citation? (C) What improvement do Korean college students make in reference/citation linking? The educational interventions included two short sessions on referencing and citation and consistent corrective feedback on relevant student errors and mistakes during the second half of the course. An analysis of the students’ group reports showed that students initially showed a few creative variations in referencing and citation, but many of them gradually improved in referencing, citation, and reference/citation linking. Eventually, half of the eight groups showed acceptable performance. Based on this result, the researchers suggest that APA Style be taught more explicitly in EAP education in Korea.