• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.961-972
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to investigate the improvement of English proficiency of children in the ESL and EFL learning style classrooms through the experiment method. The results of this research are as follows: first, the scores of listening and speaking and the perception of alphabets in the ESL program are higher than that in the EFL program. This means that learning in the ESL style classroom is the better way to improve English skills than in the EFL style classroom, which is common in Korea. Second, there is no difference in the English listening and speaking skills and the perception of the English alphabets between the two gender groups in the ESL & EFL style classrooms. These results suggest that the target language may be used in the English classrooms by the teachers and the students with the materials, books, and equipment are English. Teachers are expected to be in charge of playing decisive roles as demonstrators of speech, models and correctors of pronunciation and providers of materials including TV, VCR, CD players, and cassette recorders, etc.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.37-44
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• 2023

This study investigates perceptual confusions of English fricatives among 121 Korean elementary school English as a foreign language (EFL) learners with shorter periods of learning English. The objective is to examine how they perceive English fricative consonants and to provide educational guidelines. Two sets of English fricative identification tasks-voiceless fricatives and voiced fricatives-were administered to participants in a High Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT) setting. Their phonemic awareness of the fricatives was visualized in perceptual confusion maps via multidimensional scaling analysis. The findings are explored in terms of the impacts of Korean EFL learners' L1 linguistic aspects and a comparison with L1 learners. Learners' phonemic awareness patterns are then compared with their relative importance in speech intelligibility based on a functional load hierarchy. The results indicated that Korean elementary EFL learners recognized English fricatives in a manner largely akin to L1 learners, suggesting their ongoing acquisition progress. Additionally, the findings demonstrated that the young EFL learners possess sufficient phonemic awareness for most high functional load segments but encounter some difficulties with one high and one low functional pair. The findings of this study offer suggestions for diagnosing language learners' phonemic awareness abilities, thereby aiding in the development of practical guidelines for language instructional design and helping educators make informed decisions regarding teaching priority in L2 classes.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• no.6
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• pp.219-239
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• 2000

There has been a growing enthusiasm in Korea for the early education of English as a foreign language (EFL). The present study examined the validity of the Critical Period Hypothesis in terms of the Universal Grammar (UG), in three different types of learning contexts - first language (L1), second language (SL), and foreign language (FL) learning contexts. While previous research findings in L1 and SL learning contexts suggest that UG principles and parameters are accessible to language learners only for the early years of lifetime, this article argues that their results - and even the methods - cannot be applied to EFL settings and that independent studies on the EFL context are, required. It also proposes the recent UG notion of functional categories as the most appropriate subject in the discussion of Korean EFL learners' access to UG. Findings on foreign language contexts, including the author's own, strongly indicate that UG is not sensitive to learners' starting ages in FL settings. If young children in FL contexts cannot develop their interlanguage grammar based on UG, the existing teaching methods for young children should be revised.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.91-110
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• 2005

Many Korean EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students do not have sufficient opportunity to develop cultural knowledge and information in their classrooms. EFL teachers also tend to ignore the teaching of culture. Even though culture is taught, it simply tends to deliver "fact-only" information from the viewpoint of a "tourist level rather than cultural awareness by comparing native with target cultural references. Teaching target cultural knowledge and information should be delivered within the native cultural frame, and teaching of culture must be an integral part of teaching and learning English. The research methodology was quantitative. Quantitative data was gathered from 83 Korean EFL teachers and 286 EFL students by questionnaire. Findings indicated that three of these independent variables (cultural inequality, English-only instruction, and Unoism) were significantly and inversely related to integration of culture.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.189-215
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• 2008

This study proposes using children's literature as a means of teaching and learning English as a foreign language and suggests practical strategies on the basis of transactional theory of reading suggested by Rosenblatt (1994, 1995). This study suggests three novels written for children or young adults: On My Honor (1986) by Marion Dane Bauer, The Giver (1993) by Lois Lowry and Hatchet (1987) by Gary Paulsen. These texts were selected because of their diverse topics, easy and comprehensible language, engaging stories, and authentic and rich expressions, making them effective materials for foreign language learners. This paper is organized as follows: First, it reviews research on teaching literature in English education and response-oriented language teaching to provide theoretical background of literature-based language teaching and learning. Second, it provides the background of the texts selected for the study. Third, it develops diverse, practical strategies for instructors who intend to use children's literature in EFL teaching. We expect to guide EFL instructors in adopting children's literature in their English class by connecting theory and practice and by providing diverse methods and strategies, and sample responses by EFL university students.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.85-102
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• 2002

Learners and users of a second language have to resort to a variety of conversational strategies or structures to enable them to communicate effectively and competently. Factors affecting effective communication among English as a second or English as foreign language (ESL/EFL) learners are diverse in nature because of different socio-cultural backgrounds. Gambits as a conversational strategy are used to a large extent and teachers must be made aware of such conversational strategies used by English as second or foreign language learners. Thus, studies focusing on conversational strategies among ESL/EFL learners in the English language classroom are important in order to identify the types of conversational strategies used and to help teachers to understand the appropriate conversational strategies and structures. Such understanding can be used to guide learners to use correct conversational strategies when communicating in English. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the use of gambits as a communication strategy in conversation among non-native speakers of English in an English as a second language(ESL) context based on Kellers conversational strategy signals. (175 words)

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2000.07a
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• pp.88-95
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• 2000

This paper attempts to investigate characteristic features of Japanese EFL learners' English intonation and how their Japanese accents are affecting their English intonation, focusing on a comparison between the accent patterns of Japanese compounds and the stress patterns of English compounds. It is based on research dedicated to helping to improve the teaching and learning of English intonation (prosody) for Japanese EFL learners. It examines the Fundamental Frequency (henceforth Fx) contours of two EFL college students, one specializing in English and the other in Japanese. Both of them may be considered upper intermediate EFL students with their TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) scores ranging between 500 and 550.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.89-96
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• 2019

This study examines the impact of online collaborative English language learning to enhance learner motivation and classroom engagement in university English instruction. The role of learner motivation and classroom engagement has gained much attention under the premises of current constructivist framework of English as a foreign language education. To promote learner motivation and classroom interaction in English instruction, participants in this study engaged in integrative English learning activities through online group collaboration and peer-tutoring. They exchanged productive peer response and shared their learning experiences throughout the integrative English learning activities. Digital technology played an integral role in motivating the learning process of the participants. Data for this study were gathered through an online questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews. The data were analyzed based on the ARCS motivational model of instructional design to identify the motivational aspects of integrative English learning activities. This study reveals that participants of this study regarded online collaborative English learning activities as the positive and motivating learning experience. The online collaborative English reading instruction had positive effect on improving EFL university students' learning performance. Participants of this study also identified affective and metacognitive benefits of online collaborative EFL learning activities for learner motivation and classroom engagement. This study reveals that the social networking platform in online group collaboration played a crucial role for the participants in understanding the integration of online group collaboration as the positive and effective language learning strategy. This study may have implications in suggesting the effective instructional design for promoting learner motivation and classroom interaction in EFL education.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.151-160
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• 2024

Through the utilization of a contrastive analysis of English consonantal phonemes and their Russian counterparts, the present study investigates the challenges faced by Russian EFL learners in pronouncing English consonantal phonemes, with a particular focus on phoneme substitution errors as a principal source of erroneous pronunciation. We comprehensively explore the characteristics of both the English and Russian consonant systems, highlighting the differences between them. Based on this examination, the study aims to present the detailed articulatory characteristics and phonetic variations of Russian speakers' common mispronunciations or improper substitutes of English consonants, rather than focusing on shared ones between the two languages. Furthermore, it seeks to provide strategies for error correction and effective pedagogical strategies to address specific phonemic challenges and enhance accuracy. Grounded in a comprehensive understanding of the objectives and advantages of comparative analysis within the context of phonemic awareness, the study emphasizes the significant importance of pronunciation instruction. It points out that this area still appears somewhat overlooked in specific EFL teaching situations within the context of English language education.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Language and Information Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.173-181
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• 2007

This is a semantic pilot study which concentrates on how people in Taiwan process the temporal metaphors, ego-moving metaphor and time-moving metaphor. Motivated by the research of Gentner, Imai, and Boroditsky (2002) in which the English native speakers comprehend ego-moving metaphors faster than time-moving metaphors, the present study attempts to reexamine whether the faster reaction to ego-moving metaphors is shared by both the Chinese native speakers and EFL learners. To achieve the goals, 25 Chinese/English bilinguals are invited to be examined via the16 Chinese and 16 English test sentences. The recordings of their accuracy on each item are served as the databases used to compare with the study of Gentner, Imai, and Boroditsky (2002). The two finding presented here are: (1) when the subjects tested in their native language, Chinese, they process ego-moving metaphors better. (2) when tested in the foreign language, English, they conceptualize time-moving metaphors much better.