Effects of the English language intervention as a foreign language for struggling elementary readers in South Korea: a meta-analysis

Abstract This meta-analysis comprehensively examined the effects of English language interventions on struggling elementary school learners in South Korea learning English as a foreign language. A total of 22 studies of experimental and quasi-experimental studies were separately analyzed by the study design using a random-effects model, and the mean effect size was medium ( g = 0.68, SE = 0.26, CI 95 = 0.18, 1.18, p < 0.01) for the experimental studies while the mean effect size was large ( g = 1.39, SE = 0.67, CI 95 = 0.08, 2.69, p < 0.05) for the quasi-experimental studies. Due to the large homogeneity statistics, subgroup analyses were additionally conducted for possible moderator effects contributing to the mean. The subgroup analyses indicated large effects in the affective (e.g., student’s motivation) and achievement (e.g., reading comprehension) type of outcome measures and effective intervention components (e.g., shared reading). Other effective contextual characteristics including the total session numbers, intervention frequency, and classroom type are also discussed along with the study limitations and future directions for the struggling readers learning English as a foreign language.