• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.137-160
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• 2001

This paper is to suggest the way to improve EFL reading skill through semantic mapping by leveled group activities. Semantic mapping is a categorical structuring of information in graphic forms or diagrams. It can be used to activate and organize background knowledge on topics in classrooms. For small group activities, the class is divided into higher leveled groups and lower leveled groups of four members based on their grades. The teaching process has three stages: Pre-reading, while-reading, and post-reading. In the pre-reading stage, students discuss what they know about the topic. They map ideas with a brainstorming technique. In the while-reading stage, they read the text about the topic. While they are reading, they could ask some questions they might have and discuss the information in the text and categorize them with semantic mapping. In the post-reading stage, they discuss what they thought of the topic and add some information about the topic with semantic mapping. For the subjects of this study, third grade, middle school students were selected: 41 students for the experimental group and 35 students for the control group. The experimental period covered almost one semester from March to August, 2000. The results were as follows: 1) The students in the experimental group had higher scores in reading comprehension than those in the control group when semantic mapping was used; 2) The use of semantic mapping in reading comprehension was found to be much more effective in the higher leveled group than in the lower leveled group; 3) The results of questionnaires showed that many students became more interested and motivated in English, and semantic mapping helped them to participate positively in reading the English text. Thus, using semantic mapping by leveled group activities can be an effective alternative to traditional teaching methods for teachers who desire to improve reading skill in middle school students' English classes.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• no.3
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• pp.95-122
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• 1997

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of content and formal schema on reading comprehension. Five hundred fiftynine subjects from high school were assigned to one of the following levels and treatment conditions : (1) Higher level & Schema Activation, (2) Higher level & Non-schema Activation, (3) Lower level & Schema Activation, and (4) Lower level & Non-schema Activation. To evaluate the effects of schema activation. two experiments were conducted : one was related to the content schema and the other to the formal schema. To evaluate the effects of content schema, three different types of tests were conducted : (1) cloze test, (2) guessing the meanings of nonsense words, and (3) immediate recall test. To evaluate the effects of formal schema instruction, four kinds of tests were conducted : (1) sorting the sentences according to the importance, (2) identifying the signal words, (3) immediate recall test, and (4) identifying the specific information. For content schema condition, results indicated that the subjects given the titles or pictures before reading in "Content Schema Activation" treatment had better grades than those of the other treatment in all types of tests. regardless of their levels. Schema activation helped the subjects to increase the cognitive predictability of missing words and to participate in the tasks more actively with risk-taking. And it was also shown that good readers tend to process the words meaningfully, while poor readers tend to process the words phonetically or morphologically. Formal schema activation through teaching the text organization also had a significant influence on three types of tests: sorting the sentences according to the importance, identifying the signal words, and immediate recall test, but not on identifying the specific information. The implications from this study can be briefly noted as follows : (l) In teaching reading, the student's background knowledge should be activated as a pre-reading activity. (2) In reading, it is more important to emphasize the student's schema than the features of the text. (3) Various educational interventions should be introduced, especially for the lower level students. (4) Teaching text structures can be a powerful method for the top-down processing strategy.

• 대한공업교육학회지
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to measure the level and importance of the key competencies of technical high school students in order to improve their key competencies. The subject was 12 teachers in charge of school-to-work education in a technical high school and 7 managers responsible for an apprentice in a company. The results of this study showed there was a difference in perception of the key competencies between teachers in charge of school-to-work education and managers responsible for that part in a company. Especially, both of two groups, teacher group and manager group, estimated apprentice's comprehension ability of the English documents low and also regarded its importance as low. So the comprehension ability of the English documents needs to be reconsidered as the key competencies. It appeared that the reading comprehension ability of Chinese characters and the ability of listening courteously needed to be added to the existing key competencies. To cultivate them, the key competencies should be examined accurately which technical high school students have to master. And on the basis of this, an instrument to measure the key competencies needs to be developed.