• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.153-169
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• 2012

This study reviews an English enhancement course implemented for medical and nursing college students of 2011 to improve their standardized English test scores. A total of 117 first-year students underwent the pre-test and the post-TOEIC in November 2011. After the pre-test, lectures on listening enhancement strategies and problem solving tactics on reading comprehension were supplemented with 4 times of enhancement-tests. Their pre- and post-TOEIC results were compared to see if such enhancement strategies were effective to improve their TOEIC scores. It was further to investigate, through survey questionnaires, how the subjects felt about a number of pre-test-type TOEIC exercise with what-to-listen and how-to-infer listening strategies and pattern-drill practices for reading comprehension. It was found that the scores of listening comprehension improved significantly for both major students whereas reading scores showed slight decrease among nursing majors. It is concluded that administering numerous pre-test-type-TOEIC exercise is effective for students to improve their listening scores supplemented with listening strategies Also, students' response showed positive toward the enhancement course.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.39-45
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• 2014

This study investigates twenty four Korean females' production of English front vowels focusing on the distinction in /i/ vs /ɪ/ and /ɛ/ vs /${\ae}$/ and formant values of stressed and unstressed vowels compared with those of native English speakers. The Korean learners were asked to read a textbook passage which includes ten sentences including target vowels. The major results indicate that: (1) Korean learners have trouble producing a distinct version (tense and lax) of front vowels in the paragraph reading; (2) The vowel space of the stressed vowels in a paragraph is smaller than that of embedded sentences; and (3) The vowel quality of the unstressed vowels produced by the Korean learners is similar to that of the native English speakers. The findings from this study can be applied to the pronunciation teaching for the Korean learners of English vowels and realization of English stress.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.24
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• pp.99-111
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• 2011

This paper is a comparative study of English loans in Russian and Swahili. In the twenty first century, due to the advantage of English as a global language, a language of technology and business, it has had contact with many languages of the world and has become a major source of loans to many languages. Though very different from each other, both Russian and Swahili currently have English as their main source of loanwords. This study reports the extensive adaptation of English loans by Russian and Swahili and examines how these loan items are assimilated into the two languages. It concludes that besides the adaption of pure English loans they have both employed other strategies such as loan translations, semantic extensions and loanblends for vocabulary expansion.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.39-47
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is, targeting 88 students in the department of English education for Children, D University, to examine the relationships between self-esteem, major satisfaction, career identity, and university life adjustment. A survey was performed, and collected questionnaires were analyzed with IBM SPSS Statistics 22 using reliability analysis, factorial analysis, frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, t-test, variance analysis, correlation and multiple regression analysis. As a result of the analysis, self-esteem, career identity, major satisfaction and career identity had high correlations with university life adjustment, in order. Self-esteem (${\beta}=.664$, p=.000) and major satisfaction(${\beta}=.349$, p=.000) influenced university life adjustment. In order to raise the university life adjustment ability of students in the department of English education for children, it is needed to develop systematic and specific programs for improving self-esteem and major satisfaction.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.35-46
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• 2017

According to domestic and foreign research, one of the common characteristics of good teaching is a variety of class activities. To make 'Business Major English' a good class, the researcher used a variety of class activities such as professor explanation, group activities & presentation, vocabulary quizzes, reading comprehension, homework and test feedback. The participants were 39 junior students who took 'Business Major English' in 2015 and 2016. Data on student perception were gathered from questionnaires. The analysis of the data showed, first, that the class activity the students preferred the most was professor explanation. Second, the class activity which was the most helpful in understanding text content and English sentence structures was professor explanation. Third, there were not many students preferring group activities & presentation and the students found group activities & presentation the least helpful in understanding text content and English sentence structures. Given the results, this study implies that for English class activities, students' preferences and the help they perceive have a relation to the characteristics of a class and students' English proficiency.

• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.131-144
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• 2015

As Smart-Learning has widely spread based on the advances of smart technologies in recent days, utilization of digital content has gradually become popular in English education. Considering the present situation, therefore, it can be predicted that games will draw attention as one of the commonly utilized digital contents in the English education field. This study focuses on finding out the major interfaces in game which could be applied properly to English learning and teaching activities. To achieve the research goals, this study elicited games which were able to represent their own genre and analyzed the aforementioned games by monitoring players' gameplay video clips to determine the interfaces which got the most selections. After that, this study examined the major interfaces to find out relative linguistic attributes. By synthesizing these results and methodological aspects of the English learning and teaching, this paper suggests game interfaces, which could be applied appropriately to teaching and learning in English education.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.585-599
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• 2020

This study investigated children's interests in learning English, affected by educational activities in and out of institutes, and mothers' perceptions regarding early childhood English education. We recruited, 253 mothers of 3- to 5-year-old children in either general kindergartens or English immersion institutes. They answered questions on socioeconomic status, perceived interest in English by their children, their perceptions regarding early childhood English education, and English education outside institutes. In addition, 42 English teachers provided information within institutes such as class time per week, teacher-pupil rate, and language use policy during class. The collected data were analyzed through SPSS 22 for frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, independent t-test, and hierarchical multiple regression analysis. The major findings are as follows. First, the two groups were in distinct learning environment. Second, mothers' perceptions and outside-institute activities were significantly different between the two groups. Third, the English interests of children at both institutes were influenced by mothers' worries and at-home English interactions. Fourth, education within institutes did not affect both group's English interests. Fifth, private education and socioeconomic status did not affect both group's English interests. Lastly, only the children's interests in English immersion institutes were affected by gender and mother's perceived necessities. Focusing children's interests, this study helps in understanding young children's affective aspects regarding learning English. The findings are expected to be a guideline for each home and institute to increase children's interest in learning English.

• 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.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.103-129
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• 2006

This paper presents a case study of the effectiveness of debate class in promoting speaking skills of advanced learners. The researcher adopted English debate techniques in an English speaking class during four-week teacher training program and investigated how teachers responded to the new technique. Forty-five middle and high school teachers participated in the study and classroom observation, pre-survey, post-survey, and focus group interviews were used as the major research methods. The teacher pre-survey results presented that teachers prefer a conversation class where they can directly acquire proper sentence patterns and speaking strategies rather than spend time in performing communicative events. The results of the focus group interview and post-survey confirmed that a debate class can meet this specific teachers' needs. Most teachers responded positively to the debate classes since: 1) debate techniques are relatively new ideas to Korean teachers; 2) debate techniques require speed and accuracy in speech; thus teachers could learn to present their ideas logically and efficiently in a limited time through repeated argument exercises. The study result implies that debate technique can be an effective vehicle in an EFL context to promote advanced learners' logical thinking skills and logical English sentence structures.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.1-26
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• 2007

This study aimed to investigate how EFL learners perceived English writing tasks and teachers' written feedback. The subjects were 82 mixed major college EFL students aged 19-24; the majority were freshmen females. Based on the scores estimated from the essay evaluation test, they were placed into two groups (proficienand less-proficient writers) and responded to an in-class questionnaire. The results indicated that: (1) regardless of writing proficiency, a large number of the students felt that they were just fair writers, which could be derived from low confidence and high anxiety; (2) grammar and vocabulary were perceived as the main features that determined good EFL writers and also prevented the students from performing the writing task successfully; (3) they believed that teachers' feedback contributed to the development of their English writing skills because it helped them apprehend what to improve or avoid in the future, acquire better English usage, and correct their errors; and (4) the proficient writers were more willing to correct errors themselves after being provided clues than the less-proficient writers. Implications of the findings for EFL classrooms are discussed.