Increased accuracy in dictation by Korean college students when using the Korean alphabet

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not the use of the Korean alphabet increased the accuracy of English sentences Korean university students produced in dictation. The students were divided into three categories, beginning, intermediate, and advanced, based on the listening comprehension scores of a practice TOEIC test. The total population of 120 students were divided into two groups, control and experiment. In the first testing, the experiment group transcribed the English utterances on a practice TOEIC tape into phonological writing in Korean and then later changed the Korean writing into English words and sentences. In the second testing, the control group became the experiment group and used the Korean alphabet in transcribing the English sounds. Statistically significant differences were found in the improvement of accuracy in dictation when the Korean alphabet was used, especially for the beginning and intermediate students. By using the Korean alphabet as the phonological representation of the sounds, the students in the experiment group produced more accurate English words than the control group who went directly from the English utterances to writing in English. Statistically significant results were not produced for the advanced students. The significance of the present study relates to the need to add to the paucity of available data on the use of the Korean alphabet in teaching listening comprehension.