• 영어어문교육
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• 제18권3호
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• pp.207-221
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• 2012

This study examines the importance of learning language and cultural integration in general English class focused on TOEIC reading comprehension. The understanding of cultural learning and learners' cultural awareness has long been a subject of debate. This study was not only to analyze the improvement of students' interest and reading comprehension ability of TOEIC through cultural learning, but also to ensure students who learn American culture overcome cross-cultural miscommunication and improve their English reading comprehension skills. Pre-post surveys and the pre-post TOEIC tests were used to measure language proficiency and American cultural knowledge to two groups: the experimental and control group. The results from the study were as follows: First, students had better TOEIC scores with improved motivation after understanding American culture relevant to the lessons. Second, reading comprehension skills with regards to TOEIC also improved, compared with the students who were not exposed to American culture due to lack of opportunity.

• 한국콘텐츠학회논문지
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• 제18권5호
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• pp.123-130
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• 2018

본 연구의 목적은 한국대학생의 통합과 분리 형태초점 교수법에 대한 견해를 조사하고, 이러한 견해가 집중도와 문법학습의 믿음과 어떠한 상관관계가 있는 지, 추가적으로 수준별 성별 차이점을 조사하는 것이다. 본 연구의 목적을 위해서 서울소재 대학생 157명을 대상으로 실시한 설문지 조사 결과를 상관관계분석과 T 검정을 사용하여 분석하였다. 참여 학생들은 통합 형태초점교수법을 선호하는 것으로 나타났으며, 통합 형태초점교수법의 선호도는 학습자의 영어 수업시간의 집중도와 영어 수준과 유의미하게 연관성이 있다는 것을 보여준다. 다른 한편으로 분리 형태초점 교수법의 선호도는 학습자의 문법에 대한 믿음과 유의미한 상관관계를 보여주었고 수준별 성별로 모든 학생들이 공통적인 결과로 나타났다. 결론적으로 통합 형태초점 교수법은 학습자의 집중도와 영어 수준에, 분리 형태초점 교수법은 학습자의 문법 학습에 대한 믿음에 영향을 받는다는 것을 알 수 있다. 결론적으로 교실현장에서 통합 형태초점교수법을 사용할 필요하며, 이러한 접근도 학습자의 수준과 집중도를 고려할 필요가 있다는 것을 보여준다.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제1권3호
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• pp.3-18
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• 2009

Do loanword properties emerge in the acquisition of a foreign language and if so, how? Classic studies in adult language learning assumed loanword properties that range from near-ceiling to near-chance level of appearance depending on speech proficiency. The present research argues that such variations reflect different phonological types, rather than speech proficiency. To investigate the difference between learner speech and loanword phonology, the current research analyzes the speech data from five different proficiency levels of 92 Korean speakers who read 19 pairs of English words and sentences that contained loanwords. The experimental method is primarily an acoustical one, by which the phonological cause in the loanwords (e.g., the insertion of [$\Box$] at the end of the word stamp) would be attested to appear in learner speech, in comparison with native speech from 11 English speakers and 11 Korean speakers. The data investigated for the research are of segment deletion, insertion, substitution, and alternation in both learner speech and the native speech. The results indicate that learner speech does not present the loanword properties in many cases, but depends on the types of phonological causes. The relatively easy acquisition of target pronunciation is evidenced in the cases of segment deletion, insertion, substitution, and alternation, except when the loanword property involves the successful command of the target phonology such as the de-aspiration of [p] in apple. Such a case of difficult learning draws a sharp distinction from the cases of easy learning in the development of learner speech, particularly beyond the intermediate level of proficiency. Overall, learner speech departs from loanword phonology and develops toward the native speech value, depending on phonological contrasts in the native and foreign languages.

• 유통과학연구
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• 제14권10호
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• pp.127-136
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• 2016

Purpose - This study investigated the effects of lectures in the English medium (EML) on understanding and learning outcomes. Sixty percent of EML lectures in Korea also use Korean for further support. Thus, this situation needs to clearly distinguish the specific impacts of the EML classes on learning outcomes. Here, we use the same English materials, including PowerPoint slides and video content, given in the Korean and English lectures. The difference between the lectures becomes only whether the lecture is delivered in Korean or English. Thus, we can clearly identify whether the language difference makes any difference in learning outcomes. Research design, data, and methodology - Our sample consisted of 91 students taking an international business course the spring of 2015. All course materials, including textbooks, PowerPoint slides, exams, video, and support content, were presented in English. Survey data and exam results were used. Students filled out their student identification number and name, so we could match the surveys against the exam results. Results - First, results show that whether the lecture was delivered in English or Korean was an important factor when students chose the class. Second, English proficiency related to international business and general English levels were higher in the English class than in the Korean class. However, the understanding of key concepts and reading abilities of international business newspapers were the same for students in both classes. Third, teaching materials and lectures were the most important material for the understanding of key concepts in the business major. Fourth, the exam results showed no difference in performance of the students in the English versus the Korean class. This shows that EML classes were not necessarily detrimental to the understanding of major concepts of the lecture. Thus, it is important that researchers carefully design empirical settings to study the effectiveness of EML. Conclusions - The English lecture can be as helpful for enhancing knowledge in the business major as the Korean lecture. For further research, various English lecture forms can be considered to distinguish the effects of the English lecture.

• 영어어문교육
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• 제15권3호
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• pp.249-282
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• 2009

This study reports on the use of the trait and state cognitive/metacognitive strategy use and the difference of the trait/state strategy use according to students' proficiency level. First of all, for checking up the trait strategy use, 119 first-grade male students in a high school completed the questionnaire on strategies which they thought they used during a reading test. Secondly, to find out their state strategy use, students took a fifteen-item reading comprehension test, followed by filling out questionnaires on cognitive and metacognitive strategies used in the test. This study employed quantitative data analysis. The results suggested that (1) the cognitive and metacognitive strategy use in the trait and state conditions are used the most by the high proficiency group and they are correlated respectively; (2) these strategies are used with statistically significant difference according to students' proficiency level, especially to the lower level students. The highly successful group uses the cognitive and metacognitive strategy in the actual test situation more than the lower proficient group; there is no difference in trait and state strategy use.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제16권2호
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• pp.11-17
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• 2024

The goal of the current study is to investigate whether L2 learners' perceptual ability regarding epenthetic vowels is interconnected with other aspects of speech recognition, such as lexical stress, sentence focus, and vowel recognition. Twenty-five Korean L2 learners of English participated in perception experiments assessing vowel epenthesis oddity, lexical stress oddity, sentence focus oddity, and vowel identification. Results indicate that accuracy on the vowel epenthesis oddity test is influenced by both lexical stress and sentence focus, suggesting that perceptual ability regarding epenthetic vowels is influenced by the acquisition of L2 rhythmic structure at both word and sentence levels. Additionally, this study identifies a proficiency effect on vowel epenthesis recognition, implying that the influence of L1 phonotactics diminishes as L2 proficiency increases. Taken together, this study illustrates the interaction between perceptual abilities in vowel epenthesis and prosodic stress in the field of L2 speech perception.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제4권3호
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• pp.59-73
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• 2012

This study attempts to investigate the contribution of prosody to the foreign accent in Chinese speakers' English production by examining the synthesized speech of crossing native and non-native talkers' prosody and segments. For the stimuli of the foreign accent ratings, we transplanted gender-matched native speakers' prosody onto non-native talkers' segments and vice versa, utilizing the TD-PSOLA algorithm. Eight English native listeners participated in judging foreign accent and comprehensibility of the transplanted stimuli. Results showed that the synthesized stimuli were perceived as stronger foreign accent regardless of speakers' proficiency when English speakers' prosody was crossed with Chinese speakers' segments. This suggests that segments contribute more than prosody to native listeners' evaluation of foreign accent. When transplanted with English speakers' segments, Chinese speakers' prosody showed a difference in duration rather than pitch between high and low proficiency such that stronger foreign accent was detected when low proficient Chinese speakers' duration was crossed with English speakers' segments. This indicated that prosody, more specifically duration, plays a role though the prosodic role is not overall as significant as segments. According to the post acoustic analysis, the temporal features contributing to making the duration parameter prominent as opposed to pitch were found out to be speaking rate, pause duration and pause frequency. Finally, foreign accent and comprehensibility showed no significant correlation such that native listeners had no difficulty listening to highly foreign accented speech.

• 음성과학
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• 제11권2호
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• pp.105-117
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• 2004

Recently, many scholars have emphasized the importance of English listening ability for smoother communication. Most audio materials, however, were recorded in a quiet sound-proof booth. Therefore, students who have spent so much time listening to the ideal audio materials are expected to have difficulty communicating with native speakers in the real life. In this study, we examined how well thirty three Korean university students and five native speakers will repeat the recorded English sentences under noise and speed conditions. The subjects' production was scored by listening to each recorded sentence and counting the number of words correctly produced and determined the percent ratios of correctly produced words to the total words in each sentence. Results showed that the student group correctly repeated around 65% of all the words in each sentence while the native speakers demonstrated almost perfect match. It seemed that the students had difficulty perceiving and repeating function words in various conditions. Also, high-proficiency student group outperformed the low-proficiency student group particularly in their repetition of function words. In addition, the student subjects' accuracy of repetition remarkably dropped when the normal sentences were both sped up and mixed with noise. Finally, it was observed that the Korean students' percent correct ratio fell down as the stimulus sentence became longer.

• 영어어문교육
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• 제15권4호
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• pp.177-197
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• 2009

This study investigated the effects of dictation practice, in terms of listening proficiency and the use of listening strategy. The research was implemented for 15 weeks with 89 freshmen and sophomores at a Korean university. The subjects were divided into an experimental group and a control group. All conditions were the same in both groups, except that the experimental group had dictation practice on a regular basis in their listening classes through one semester. For the purpose of the study, two research questions were set; 1) Does dictation practice improve listening proficiency? 2) What are the differences in the use of listening strategies between the two groups? Does dictation practice make the participants use different listening strategies? A sample TOEIC listening test was conducted as a pre-test and post-test. A questionnaire was used to find out the differences in the use of listening strategies between the two groups. The results of this study reveal that there was no statistically difference in improvement between the two groups; however, the experimental group scored much higher on the post-test than the pre-test compared with the control group. In regard to listening strategies, among 6 listening strategies, the use of metacognitive listening strategies had a significant difference between the two groups. On the basis of the results, the study suggested some guidelines for dictation practice in EFL listening classes and called for more studies on its effects.

• 한국어교육
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• 제29권1호
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• pp.163-197
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• 2018

The present study suggests ways to improve the Korean proficiency screening test through an analysis of WIDA tests. A review of WIDA Screener, WIDA MODEL, and W-APT reveals that each of these three tests consists of four or five tests, corresponding to grade-level clusters. In addition, the WIDA screening tests assess both English for social communication and academic English, according to WIDA's five English Language Development (ELD) standards. Thematic folders of the ELD standards have different ranges of item difficulty, and the WIDA screening tests are adaptive tests. Lastly, the writing tests consist of performance-based tasks, and the rubric is holistic. As suggestions for improvement for Korean screening tests of the KSL curriculum, this study proposes (a) to devise items to assess academic Korean, so as to evaluate students' overall proficiency more accurately, (b) to utilize an adaptive method to screen students' proficiency more efficiently, and (c) to revise the writing tasks and rubric of the current KSL screening tests.