• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.131-158
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• 2006

The purpose of the present study is to explore an effective way of teaching English vocabulary which is geared toward improving students' English communicative competence. This study focuses on English verbs, which may be followed by patterns according to subcategorization. Learning verbs must include learning about patterns as well as meaning in order to improve the ability to use verbs receptively and productively, or communicative competence. On the basis of the language progression proposed by Willis (2003), a teaching strategy which helps learners learn English verb patterns effectively and systematically was proposed. The effect of the teaching strategy was investigated. The subjects of the experimental group who learned English verb patterns intentionally through the teaching strategy proposed by this study significantly improved themselves in the ability to use them receptively and productively. This result shows that the teaching strategy including improvisation, recognition, rehearsal, system building, exploration and consolidation is helpful to improving communicative competence.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.117-138
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to increase students' interest in the subject of English, which has been led by some mannerism, and to improve the students' basic scholastic ability and self-controlled problem solving, through adopting an individualized Web Based Instruction(WBI) as a concrete and practical learning method. In order to achieve this, an individualized Web Based Instruction(WBI) homepage has been developed to be applied experimentally to the field of middle school education for 8 months, and a research has been made on its effects on the students' interest in English along with the improvement of English. Two groups which showed almost the same interest were selected as a controlled group and an experimental one. Individualized Web Based Instruction was applied to the experimental group, while the controlled group was not instructed according to student ability. The controlled group was taught using CD added with the textbook. As a result of T-test, the students in the experimental group showed more improvement in communicative competence than those in the controlled group.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.203-224
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to justify the effects of role play with respect to speaking and listening functions and to provide the strategic methodology for improving English communicative competence of fifth grade primary school students. We can expand role play as a strategic teaching method to develop English learning models, so that English can be more easily acquired to the students who are in the critical language acquisition period. Strategic role play reflects the events and experiences of many kinds of people in everyday life. It is suggested that one of the best methods to improve English communicative competence in the primary classroom is through role play. Students can develop meaning for language patterns by portraying situations in which these instances in language would be used. This study proposes to facilitate English communicative ability using various student-centered role play strategies. It is concluded that the student-centered activities using strategic role play help the students to improve their English communicative competence. This is done by deriving their own creative dialogues and presenting the role play with their interests in learning English and with subsequently positive learning effects.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.480-486
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• 2014

This study aims to assure the positive influence of publishing English newspapers on improving English communicative ability and explores possibilities of enforcing an explicitly collaborative and independent learning atmosphere through a cooperative project-based publishing process. The project of publishing first KSA English newspapers has completed with a series of processes adopted from project-based learning and teaching strategies. The project involves the initiative process of selecting student editors based on their English abilities and commitment levels followed by planning subjects, themes and materials, distributing tasks and articles, and integrating and editing the outcome. Throughout the whole process volunteers participated independently and collaboratively with minimum supervision. The survey shows that the successfully published English Newspaper resulted in facilitating volunteers' positive self awareness and independent learning attitude as well as improving general English ability. The study discusses possibilities and advantages of publishing newspapers and magazines not for limited language education only, but for integrated project-based learning and teaching with suggestions for further related studies.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2012

This study explores the effects of phonological awareness instruction with phonetics on listening comprehension and speaking. For the test of measuring the improvement of listening comprehension, two nationwide listening comprehension tests were used for pre-test and post-test. To find out the improvement of speaking ability, students were required to take the Level-3 NEAT speaking tests. There was a notable correlation between phonological awareness instruction with phonetics and listening ability. Also a significant correlation between phonological awareness instruction with phonetics and speaking ability was found. The group with phonological awareness class with phonetics received higher scores in listening and speaking test than the group without phonological awareness class with phonetics in the post-test. This study implies that phonological awareness class with phonetics is helpful for the improvement of listening and speaking ability. With this research, we can also say that students' communicative competence increased.

• 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.16 no.4
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• pp.19-38
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• 2010

This study surveyed L2 learners' needs for different components of communicative competence. It aimed to determine what abilities the learners strongly need to achieve communicative competence in different learning contexts. It also examined gender differences in the learners' need for phonological competence. A total of 359 students participated in this study, divided into three learner groups: high school, vocational college, and university students. The data were collected via a questionnaire, which was based on Bachman's (1990) framework of language competence. The study drew some important findings: (a) The vocational trainees expressed a stronger need for illocutionary competence than the high school students and for sociolinguistic competence than the high school and the university groups; (b) The high school and the university groups equated grammatical, textual, illocutionary, and strategic competences in their needs with lesser attention to sociolinguistic competence; (c) To the high school and the university groups, pragmatic competence was assessed higher than organizational competence; (d) Female students showed greater sensitivity to pronunciation ability than did male students. On the basis of these results, pedagogical implications are discussed, along with some helpful suggestions.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.321-346
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• 2010

This study was performed to develop a task-based English lesson plan. The study reviewed the background theories needed to accomplish the study purpose; types of learning, current trends in English teaching, and the task-based teaching. A frame for the task-based English lesson was developed as the result of this study. An actual task-based lesson plan was made after the frame for the task-based English lesson. The author presented task-based English lesson plans at English education conferences, and applied them to pre-teacher training and in-service trainings for English teachers. It is concluded that the task-based English lesson plan was very effective in enhancing English communicative competence and that the pre-teachers and teachers were satisfied with the lesson plans. It is hoped that more teaching material will be developed based on this task-based English lesson plan.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.21-29
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• 2007

The necessity for improving the English listening ability of Korean learners has been emphasized since the ultimate goal of English education converted to CLT(Communicative Language Teaching) in Korea. Verbotonal Approach as an auditory-based strategy has been proved to be effective substantially in maximizing the listening skill of spoken foreign language. The purpose of this study is to find out an efficient way of improving listening ability for Korean middle school students by employing OFH(Optimal Frequency of Hearing) using Tonality Word Sentence Test, before & after using Listen II Verbotonal training unit based on VTS(Verbotonal System). The results of the listening tests showed that the listening ability of the subjects increased by 16.7% on the words and by 5.5% on the sentences after using Listen II, compared with before using Listen II and that the improvement rate of listening ability on the level of words is much higher than that on the level of sentences. From the results, we can come to a conclusion that training the listening skill with words in mid-tonality and low-tonality based on OFH might give a great positive effect in improving listening ability for Korean learners of English.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.261-286
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• 2005

Lately, teaching methods and instruments have become student-centered and are directed towards developing a communicative competence of learners. However, compared with that of other countries, the level of our students English is not very good. I guess the reason is that our English education is focused on the uniformal teaching methods regardless of the differences of intelligence, affective domains and study time. I tried to find the relationship between these factors and the students' English accomplishments. So I divided the students into 2 groups of superior and inferior students by the standard of intelligence, affective domain and study time and compared the scores between the groups in the fields of reading comprehension, grammar, pronunciation, accent, vocabulary, and listening. These were the results that followed: First, intelligence has a great influence students' English accomplishment in all fields. Second, affective domains such as motivation, anxiety, attitude, confidence, and studying time also have some influence on the students' English accomplishments. Third, the sequence of these factors according to their influence force are as follows: study time, anxiety, intelligence, motivation, attitude, and confidence. So we can conclude that we should teach English according to our students' ability in the field of intelligence and affective domains and should not ignore the individual differences they have.