• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.35-48
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• 2001

One of the areas of second language acquisition that enjoyed popularity in recent years is interlanguage pragmatics. The main reason for this popularity lies in the critical role of pragmatic competence in appropriate use of a target language. The aim of this paper was to examine L2 learners' pragmatic behavior in their speech act performance and determine main sources causing pragmatic difficulty. Four major sources of pragmatic errors were identified: linguistic proficiency, L1 transfer, waffling and teaching activities. Each source was discussed with empirical evidence in some detail, and teaching suggestions were provided for developing learners' pragmatic competence in EFL classrooms.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.163-185
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• 2001

Listening comprehension is an integrative and creative process of interaction through which listeners receive speakers' production of linguistic or non-linguistic knowledge. Improving listening comprehension requires continual attentiveness and interest. .Listening skill can be extended systematically only when students are frequently exposed to a wide range of listening materials with an affective, cultural, social, and psycholinguistic approach. Therefore, teachers should help students learn how to comprehend intactly the overall meaning of intended messages. Practical classroom teaching necessitates a systematic procedure in which students should take part in meaningful tasks and activities. This study purposes to investigate the effects of task-based listening comprehension instruction on improvement of EFL learners' listening comprehension and their attitude and interest. 74 freshmen who enrolled in College English conversation classes in Kongju National University participated in this study. The participants were administered listening comprehension tests and questionnaires. The results show that the listening comprehension instruction through tasks and activities has a positive impact on EFL learners' improvement of listening comprehension and their attitude and interest toward the target language as well.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.83-104
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• 2009

This study examined whether self-correction or metalinguistic explanation might make a difference in the ability to accurately write two English grammatical structures when learners received indirect teacher feedback in the form of underlining target errors in a Korean EFL college classroom. With the goal of helping low-proficiency students improve their ability to accurately write sentences including nonfinite present participial relative clauses and present participial constructions, four groups were formed: a group which received indirect feedback, a group which received indirect feedback and metalinguistic explanation, a group which received indirect feedback and self-corrected errors, and a group which received indirect feedback and self-corrected errors after receiving metalinguistic explanation. The results showed that the effects of either metalinguistic explanation or self-correction integrated with indirect feedback on learners' ability to accurately write the target structures were not meaningful, while the combined effects of metalinguistic explanation and self-correction were statistically significant.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.75-95
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to evaluate a group activity, reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT), in order to investigate advantages and challenges of RPT in promoting cooperative and collaborative learning environment for EFL University reading instruction. The participants in this study were 89 students taking an English reading course at a Korean university. RPT is a learning strategy whereby learners help each other and learn by teaching. This program was supported by a Vygotskyan perspective which assumes that learners gain mastery and develop cognitive skills through social interaction with more proficient others and their environment. This study relied particularly on participant perceptions through questionnaire survey and Anonymous Online class Report of the course. This study showed various advantages for tutors such as learning through teaching and becoming more autonomous and responsible for their own learning. Non-threatening and highly motivating learning atmosphere are parts of benefits for tutees. Other advantages for tutees included improved level of academic self-confidence, and motivation. This study also revealed several drawbacks associated with the problem of inaccuracy in students' production and students' demand for more direct teacher role. (182 words).

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.121-150
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• 2009

This paper deals with contrastive analysis and interlanguage with respect to adjective ordering. It aimed to investigate how similar and different the orders of descriptive adjectives are in English and Korean, and how Korean EFL learners perceive the sequences of English descriptive adjectives. Data were collected from native English speakers and native Korean speakers and Korean EFL learners. The contrastive analysis showed that the order of English adjectives was size, opinion, condition, age, color, shape, material, and origin, whereas the Korean order was condition, age, opinion, color, size, shape, material, and origin. The relative order of the interlanguage was shown to be age, size, opinion, shape, condition, color, origin, and material, with the exceptions of the order of condition preceding age and that of size being the same position as condition. The interlanguage data manifested different aspects of ordering when compared with English and Korean: Some adjective combinations were similar to both English and Korean; Some were different from English or Korean; Some were different from both English and Korean. These ordering patterns are discussed in terms of such principles as the nouniness principle, the subjectivity/objectivity principle, the iconic principle, etc. On the basis of these results, some helpful suggestions are made.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.1193-1220
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• 2009

This study examined the impact of sonority profiles, positional differences and L2 proficiency on Korean EFL learners' perception of English biconsonantal clusters, using nonce words. The overall results showed that major predictions of the sonority-based typological markedness on consonant clusters were supported, as obstruent plus sonorant and sonorant plus obstruent sequences were better perceived than obstruent only or sonorant only sequences. Yet, some consonant clusters did not show a preference for sonority profiles. Positional effects were also confirmed, as word-initial biconsonantal clusters were better perceived than wordfinal ones across all the participant groups. Participants' English proficiency turned out to be also important in the perception of consonant clusters, since university students' mean rate of accuracy was highest, followed by that of high school students, which in turn followed by that of middle school students. Further, the effects of other factors like frequency and stimuli on speech perception were also addressed, along with some implications for future research.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.59-79
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• 2001

This paper examines syntactic categorial properties of “be” in Korean EFL beginners' utterances. Mainly based upon the acquisition data in Han (2000) and Shin (2000), it proposes that the so-called “S-be-X” construction is a projection of “underdeveloped” functional category F. The projection FP is different from other standard functional categories in that its head is not fully fledged.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.273-290
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• 2011

This paper presents a case study involving one Korean primary school student and people around him in order to explore the reading process in English of a young Korean EFL learner and to investigate the social context in which his reading takes place. Six participants were included in the study (one primary school student and five adult participants). The student participant was asked to read a text in English and translate what he read into Korean and the teacher participants were asked to listen to the student's reading. Semi-structured interview was used to collect data from the student as well as five adult participants (his private tutor, his parent, his state school teacher, and two other state school teachers). The analysis reveals four characteristics of the way a young EFL learner approaches reading: word-by-word reading, disconnected word recognition, selective use of cues, and lack of awareness of difficulties. The four characteristics of Kilsu's reading suggest that reading can become a wild guessing game for young foreign learners, if they give selective attention to unimportant cues while reading. The pedagogical implications of this study are also discussed to help teachers designing reading lessons for young learners.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.133-156
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• 2007

Although the understanding of English tense system is a crucial factor for communicative English learning and teaching for EFL students, it has been neglected over the years. As with other areas of the grammar, difficulties may arise from the nature of the system itself or from differences between time, tense and aspect. Consequently, many learners face a considerable difficulty with the English tense system as they are more often unable to grasp the basic conceptual differences of present/present continuous, past/present perfect, will/be going to along with many others. More concerning fact is that lots of instructors or so-called native English teachers seem not to be aware of the importance of teaching English tense system. The purpose of this study is to review and examine various theories and practical usages of tense in order to establish and/or present better methods for teaching tenses. This paper is focused on comparatively exact distinction of time, physical notion from tense, grammatical category as well as sequences of tenses in view of school grammar and communicative function. At the end or middle of each chapter, efficient teaching and learning techniques or strategies on tenses are suggested to help instructors or learners who relentlessly face confusions in understanding tense and its usage for communicative English learning and teaching. This study attempts to influence learners' ability to recognize and write tense in authentic contexts not to mention spoken English.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.159-181
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• 2006

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of presentation-based instruction and to suggest a model of instruction targeted to the Korean intermediate level students learning English as a foreign language (EFL). To achieve this objective, the author examined how the acquisition of practical English through oral presentation would enhance the students' learning motivation, language abilities, and communicative competence in concrete situations. It was confirmed that the trained leader and systematic teaching and learning are needed to maximize the effects of presentation-based instruction. In doing so, the author compared and analyzed the collected data in order to support the validity of this teaching method. It was further pointed out that the teacher should have a close look at the roles of the presenter and learner in an effort to work out the usefulness of such an instruction model. The method of presentation in classroom settings would be a practical mode to attain the essential purpose of EFL teaching particularly to get over the drawbacks of Korean students' communicative competence. As a result, it would be an effective teaching method to meet the nation's long-standing demands for EFL education.