• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.67-84
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• 2012

The present study investigated the effect of sentence translation as a production task on short-term and long-term retention of foreign vocabulary. 87 EFL university students at a beginning level, enrolled in reading class participated in the study. The study compared the performance of three groups on vocabulary recall: (1) Control group, (2) Translation group, and (3) Copy group. During the treatment sessions, translation group translated L1 sentences into English, while copy group simply copied given English sentences with each target word. Results of the immediate test were collected each week from week 2 to week 5 and analyzed by one-way ANOVA. Results revealed that regarding short-term vocabulary retention, participants in rote-copy condition outperformed those in translation group. Four weeks later a delayed test was administered to measure long-term vocabulary retention. In contrast, the results of two-way repeated measures ANOVA showed that long-term vocabulary retention of translation group was significantly greater than copy group. The findings suggest that although sentence translation is rather challenging to low-level learners, it may facilitate long-term retention of new vocabulary given the more elaborate and deeper processing the task entails.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.617-635
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• 2010

This paper argues that what Edgar Allan Poe pursues in ;The Man of the Crowd" (1840) is not a story that can be told but an active reading that must be mediated. It is not only because the subject of the pursuit, the secret of the flaneur, remains veiled until the end, but also because the story proves itself to be a reading of various kinds of other texts: that is, the contemporary urban texts as well as the city itself. Although the 'man of the crowd' and his double (i.e. the narrator) embrace the figure of a modern flaneur, it is highly questionable whether the image of flaneur in the story fully qualifies itself as that of an ideal stroller, who can represent the free spirit of a detached collector. Rather, the narrator's flaneur reflects a panoptic perspective, systematically hierarchizing the constituents of the city. Still, it should be noted that ;The Man of the Crowd" raises questions about the idea of creation and appropriation, observation and originality, and reading and storytelling by ascertaining the impossibility of reading and through assimilating to the contemporary texts not without subtle acknowledgement. In short, this novella tries a new way of storytelling, of which meaning is not to be found in creation but to be mediated in modern experiences.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.67-77
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• 2014

This study investigated (1) whether Korean learners of English use discourse-level prosody in L2 production as native speakers of English do, and (2) whether discourse-level prosody is also found in the Korean language, as is evident in the prosody of native speakers of English. The study compared the production of the same 15 sentences in two types of reading materials, sentence-level and discourse-level. This study analyzed the onset pitch, sentence mean pitch and pause length to examine the paratone (intonational paragraph) realization in discourse-level speech. The results showed that in L2 discourse-level prosody, the Korean speakers were limited in displaying paratone and did not made significant difference between sentence-level and discourse-level prosody. On the other hand, in L1 discourse-level text, both English and Korean participants demonstrated paratone using pitch. However, there were differences in using prosodic cues between two groups. In using pauses, the ES group paused longer before both the orthographically marked and not marked topic sentences. The KS group paused longer only before the orthographically marked topic sentence in both L1 and L2 text reading. In the comparison of sentence-level and discourse-level prosody, the topic sentences were marked by different prosodic cues. English participants used higher sentence mean pitch, and the Korean participants used higher onset pitch.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.127-142
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• 2004

This paper examines the relationship between children's English proficiency in grade three and English learning environment and experiences before entering elementary school. In English learning environment and experiences, three influences consisting of children, home environment, and environmental influences of English learning are used to find out which influences contributed to children's English proficiency in grade three of elementary school. The result of this study shows that children with high interest in English have higher proficiency in all language skills reading, writing, listening, and speaking than that of children with low interests. For parents' influences, parents' high interests toward their children's English leaning and high monthly income result in children's high English proficiency. For English environmental influences, children who start at the early age and continue studying English have higher English proficiency.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.57 no.6
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• pp.1111-1130
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• 2011

Reading postmodern texts certainly situates readers in roles different from the ones we have been used to. Recently, postmodern metafiction forms a significant body of children's literature that is intended to challenge and transform the conventions of books in the digital age. While many studies have been done as to how child readers have capabilities to appreciate and interpret postmodern metafiction picture books, few studies on teachers and preservice teachers' reactions are not readily available. The role of teachers and preservice teachers are crucial for child readers to have access to affluent reading resources. This study discusses how preservice teachers read and respond to postmodern metafiction picture books using a deconstructive approach by means of binary opposites. Data was collected with 14 preservice teachers as to their likes/dislikes, reading levels, and reading paths about postmodern metafiction picture books. Expected pedagogical implications for literacy and language education were requested to address in their reading diaries and response papers. With their likes/ dislikes, since binary opposites always imply the hierarchy of power and value, the likes is apparently more valued and appreciated over their dislikes. This differentiated values are discussed in more detail with three recurring themes-Education, Morals and Behavior, and Tradition. With reading levels, there seems to be a gap existing between the authors' implied reader and literary critics' and the preservice teachers' ideal readers for the postmodern metafiction picture books. Although many studies have already revealed young readers' capability of appreciating postmodern metafiction, it depends a lot more on the teachers and preservice teachers whether children's right to have access to affluent literacy resources is respected or not. Preservice teachers' awareness of the potential of postmodern metafiction will work as an initial step to bring and realize the new reading path and new literacies in classrooms. By challenging metanarratives of children's literature, preservice teachers' readings of postmodern picture books reveals potentials to raise different reading paths and develop new literacies and other educational implications.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.1-9
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• 2019

In an effort to explore the effects of Youtube video-watching activities on Korean college students' English reading comprehension skills, 148 undergraduate students who enrolled in a General English class at a university in Korea participated in the present study. Participants were randomly classified into four groups - three experimental groups and one control group - according to when they watch videos: before class (n = 33), during class (n = 42), after class (n = 36), and none (n = 37). Over 16 weeks, the three experimental groups engaged in Youtube video-watching activities for about 10 minutes before, during, and after the class, while the control group did not. Pre- and post-tests were administered to confirm the effects of the use of Youtube videos on improving English reading comprehension skills. To compare the improvement between groups, a one-way ANOVA was also run. Major findings are as follows: First, participants in all the three experimental groups significantly improved their English reading comprehension skills, indicating the beneficial effects of Youtube video-watching activities. However, there was no statistically significant difference in the mean improvement between the groups. Based on this, limitations and suggestions for the future research are discussed at the end.

• Smart Media Journal
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• v.12 no.9
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• pp.142-151
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• 2023

This study is a case study on investigating students' learning behavior in the online English reading class of an on-off course. For this purpose, a survey was conducted on a total of 77 students from an English listening and reading course and phone interview with 5 students was implemented. The findings revealed that regularity of learning interval and learning sequence need to be improved through student management in order to increase the effect of online learning. In case of lecture watching, the students are good at utilizing the strengths of taped lecture, such as using pause and repeating watching. However, more research need to be done on how to develop online lecture to enhance students' understanding of the lecture. Regarding the offline review quiz that is supposed to stimulate students into their more positive watching of the lecture, it is suggested that a few of its related elements such as the online learning period and the number of quiz questions be corrected for its better effect.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.451-459
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• 2017

This study investigates the usage of smartphones in English listening activities. 71 students answered the 10-item questionnaire after doing listening activity using their own smartphone for one semester in the course of Practical English listening and reading. The findings show that listening activity done with smartphone enhanced students' interest in English listening and improved their English listening skills because smart phones made customized learning possible. However, the major limitation of using smart phone is that students are distracted during activity by smart phones' other functions such as SMS and messenger. To reduce such distraction, I suggest that individual listening activity with smart phones be mixed with instructor-led activity using a classroom computer in about 50 to 50 ratio. The ratio might vary depending on the level of students' English listening skills. These findings will make a contribution to the boost of digital convergence English learning.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.89-112
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• 2004

This article examines the ways in which language can be exploited in the manipulation of the reader's interpretation of a text to make him/her take certain lines of thought according to the writer's persuasive intents. Such functions of language provide valid foundations to support the teaching of critical reading skills and to explore an adequate approach to discourse analysis. A pilot study was conducted to find out the extent to which the reader can be coaxed into thinking in some fashions guided by specific linguistic devices employed for ideological texts. Forty-seven subjects divided into two groups (humanities majors and natural science majors at undergraduate level) joined the two-fold questionnaire surveys intended to look at their critical reading abilities. The empirical results indicate that college students whose majors are humanities were more inclined to take a holistic approach in processing commercial advertisement texts and their abilities for critical interpretation appeared to be lower than those of the subjects whose majors are natural sciences, who showed a relatively high tendency to take an analytical approach in decoding the textual facts. As a consequence, pedagogic implications for increasing critical reading abilities have resulted in a set of analytical procedures concerning ideological texts which is linked with instructional guidelines to emphasize the importance of the reader's logical and analytical reasoning power, entirely accepted as a general prerequisite for cracking the covert language gambits.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.157-175
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to compare learners' view on Korean and native teachers of English with regard to competence of teaching skills. A total of 166 high school students attending the same high school in Korea participated in a questionnaire survey. The students were asked a series of questions about their five Korean teachers of English and three natives. The analysis of the results indicates that the learners believed Korean English teachers would be better in teaching vocabulary, grammar and reading than native English teachers. The learners answered native English teachers would be better in teaching speaking, listening, and writing. In the areas of the accuracy of classroom language, the level of teacher-centeredness, and the amount of cultural information given in a classroom, there were no significant differences in the learners' responses between Korea and native teacher of English. By recognizing the differences of the learners' views on two different types of ELT teachers, we suggest that it would be beneficial for learners if we would utilize their views in designing and administrating a team-teaching program.