• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.179-208
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• 2001

Using literary materials as resources for English learning rather than an object of literary study can be a genuine tool for the students to learn English in the form of oral and written communication. This case study treated the applications of a whole text to the overall course divided into pre-reading activities, while-reading activities, and post-reading activities and the applications of some partial passages extracted from various texts to teaching objectives with many levels of difficulty. This study found that literary texts could be good materials to teach the target language in EFL setting. The English-speaking students with little linguistic competence as a foreign language may be limited in learning English at first, but soon they can accelerate their linguistic competence by reinforcing the literary competence through the literary texts. To achieve effectively a desired goal through the use of literary texts as resources for language development several concrete techniques should be introduced: teacher-guided question strategies laying a central emphasis on the text itself, a problem-solving ability through student-centered activities, process-based and open-ended activities should be presented in a variety of ways using many appropriate activities according to teaching procedure with a careful selection of the texts.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.50-67
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• 2020

This study investigated whether writing weekly listening logs could influence college English learners' metacognitive awareness and listening proficiency. In addition, the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) was applied to examine the learners' knowledge of their listening process. It is process-oriented research conducted by analyzing the MALQ and students' listening logs as to how their metacognitive awareness and listening proficiency have changed during the semester. Eighty-nine students who took an English listening practice course at a university participated in this study. The research findings are as follows. First, it turned out that there was a significant relationship between EFL university students' listening comprehension and some subscales of metacognitive awareness. Second, the students had an opportunity to reflect on learning through regular listening activities, and weekly listening logs, which included important information about listening process and practice. Third, as the students' listening proficiency increased at the end of the semester, it was found that introducing listening logs along with classroom lessons helped the students improve their listening ability. Finally, the high proficiency group students used multiple strategies simultaneously, regardless of the type of listening strategies, while the low proficiency group students used one or two limited listening strategies. However, the low proficiency group students may have had trouble expressing their ideas in English or recognizing the listening strategies they used, not because they did not use a lot of listening strategies. Therefore, teachers should regularly check if students are following their instructions and help them use appropriate strategies for better understanding.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.62-78
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• 2021

This ethnographic multiple case study, based on Zappa-Hollman and Duff's construct of individual networks of practice (INoPs), explored English as a second language (L2) competence development and socialization process of a group of English-major undergraduates through their social connections and interactions at a public university located in an underdeveloped city in Northwest China. The study lasted for one academic semester and three students were selected as primary participants. Semi-structured interviews, student observations in English-related micro-settings, and associated texts were used to collect data. These data were coded to identify the thematic categories, and then data triangulation and member checking were conducted to select the most representative evidence to provide an in-depth description of students' perspective about mediating their English L2 socialization by their INoPs. Findings showed that factors in the formation of students' INoPs, including intensity, density, and nature, played significant roles in their academic or affective returns from their English learning, both of which had a substantial influence on the students' English L2 socialization. Considering that the macro-setting was a non-English, underdeveloped monolingual society, both educational institutions and individual students need to seek and create more English-mediated interactional opportunities to develop their English proficiency and adapt to local English learning communities.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.25-38
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• 2017

This study investigates non-native speakers(NNS) of English use of backchannels with beginner-intermediate learners' use of 'uh', 'um(uhm)', 'and' and 'hm' suggesting a view as a possible pedagogical implication. The initial aim of this study was to learn this phenomenon and observe their conversation patterns to compare with previous studies. Based on the previous findings, the analyzed data using conventional Conversation Analysis (CA) methods indicate the possible presence of L1 topic markers, '-un' and '-nun' in the form of L2 backchannel tokens when uttered by beginning and intermediate level speakers of English and the presences of L2 backchannel tokens appear only in front of noun phrases. Additionally, these same words with these tokens and when translated back to Korean also require topic markers of '-un' and '-nun.' Finally, This study discusses possible pedagogical implications with the initial analysis of backchannel tokens for Korean EFL learners. In addition, the ultimate goal of this study is to refine this analysis with follow up experiments to validate this investigation into a working hypothesis generating discussions of this backchannel phenomenon from being viewed as a hindrance to as an positive influence that needs to be understood.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.79-91
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• 2011

The purpose of this paper was to take an in-depth look at early American English around the $17^{th}$ and $18^{th}$ century when immigrants from different European countries started to move into the New World. The paper attempted to describe early American English in relation to the process of immigration and settlement from a historical perspective. With a focus on major features of early American English such as uniformity, archaism and richness of lexicon, the paper tried to answer the questions such as how settlement influenced the formation and distribution of regional dialects across the continent, why immigrants tended to show a preference for a uniform way of speaking rather than choosing a variety of regional dialects for communication, and what role foreign languages played in the development of early American English. The overall findings based on the answers to these questions showed how American English went through a variety of processes and changes at the early stages of its development to become a national language later. The paper concluded with some remarks about the implications of the findings for EFL learning and the direction of future research on early American English.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• no.6
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• pp.1-24
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• 2000

Listening comprehension is an integrative and creative process of interaction through which listeners receive speakers' production of linguistic or non-linguistic knowledge. Compared with reading comprehension, it may arouse difficulties and thus impose more burdens on foreign learners. The Audio-Lingual Method focused primarily on speaking. Mimicry, repetition, rote memory, and transformation drills actually interfered with listening comprehension. So learners lost interest and were not highly motivated. 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. The literature on teaching listening skill suggests various useful activities: TPR, dictation, role playing, singing, picture recognition, completion, prediction, seeking specific information, summarizing, labeling, humor, jokes, cartoons, media, and so on. Practical classroom teaching necessitates a systematic procedure in which students should take part in meaningful tasks/activities. In addition to this, learners must practice listening comprehension trough a self-study process.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.109-126
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• 2007

English article has been considered as one of the most difficult areas to learn among ESL/EFL students. The current paper reviews English learners' article error patterns as well as pedagogy in order to teach English articles and to minimize learning difficulties on English articles. Different pedagogy for English articles on the basis of learners' proficiency levels are suggested as each proficiency level student shows a different error tendency; beginning level language learners used the zero article with the most facility while intermediate level language learners used the definite article the most accurately. However, studies about high advanced level learners' error patterns present that these high accuracy rates among beginning level students might be a result of students' plain guessing. Considering these error patterns, pedagogy for advanced level is also suggested.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.437-456
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• 2001

This paper raises a question on the theoretical background behind the English education at the elementary school level. The Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH), supporting the common belief of the earlier the better in foreign language learning, which has promoted the strong trend toward teaching English in Korean elementary schools, is analyzed to determine whether it provides a comprehensible picture to explain age-related factors and whether it is a valid hypothesis which can be applicable in an EFL situation such as Korea. This paper concludes that CPH itself is still considered as an impending hypothesis full of unresolved issues and that the present educational situation of Korean elementary schools is rather far from the environment in which the ideas of CPH could practically apply, and thus it may be desirable to find alternative theoretical backgrounds from which the educational programs can be developed and further expanded.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.153-178
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• 2004

The purpose of the present study is to develop several types of English teaching/learning models in view of cross-curricular approach in Korean elementary school. Brewster(1992)' model is suitable for younger children as well as the 1st or 2nd graders. For 3rd or 4th graders, Halliwel1(1997)' model seems more proper type in Korean EFL situation. There has been studying for cross-curricular approach in elementary English education. Many studies has recently focused the characteristics of elementary students by cognitive and psychological perspectives. Among them, Park(1996)'s research talks about the elementary school students. Han(1996)'s research based on the notion of applied to other subjects. Kim(1999)'s also emphasized the importance of linking other subjects. Kim(2003) argued the need of integrating English with other subjects. The elementary education as the National Common Basic Curriculum(NCBC) has the essence of cross-curricular approach, so the English education will be linked with other subject matters more and more, not just as for Communicative function based English education but as both content and function based subject matter.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.209-224
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• 2009

This study examined the role of contextual knowledge in cross-cultural communication between non-native speakers on an interactive web with a bulletin board system through which college students of English at Japanese and Korean universities interacted with each other discussing the topics of local and global issues. The study investigated the influence of students' relative contextual knowledge on active participation in interactions and discussed the results focusing on the use of discourse strategies for meaning negotiation. The study argues that in interactions even between non-native speakers with limited proficiency, contextual knowledge in the topic under discussion affects the degree to which they accommodate to each other during communication and suggests that the focus of teaching English as a foreign language also should be given to what kind of contextual knowledge students need to obtain and how to express it rather than what level of proficiency in English they need to acquire.