• Title/Summary/Keyword: English Skills

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An Instructional Design for International Collaborative Learning Focusing on Communication

  • KAGETO, Makoto
    • Educational Technology International
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    • v.8 no.1
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    • pp.57-69
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    • 2007
  • The advantages of the Internet enable teachers in the world to break the communication barriers between their schools and collaborate with each other, giving them opportunities for richer educational practices than ever accomplished. I assume that collaborative learning like an international exchange naturally lead the students to acquire the knowledge to communicate with their peers using ICT skills. In this paper, two international exchange projects that have years of practice are reported, i.e., new types of collaborative education projects that the development of the Internet has enabled us to carry out. The international exchanges reported here have been possible because both students and teachers have effectively used the various functions of the Internet. To use English as a "common international communication language" is particularly important for the youth in Asia, and the students have come to realize the importance of English as a communication language through these projects. Also, since these practices are based on the infrastructure of the Internet, they have elucidated what kind of Internet use produces richer educational results .At the final stage of the exchanges, "joint presentation in English" is designed. Students communicate and collaborate over the network, and finally meet with each other and try to give a presentation as a product of their collaborative work. The files and scenes of their presentations are stored on the network and used as educational materials in Asia as well as models for the activities in the following years. We will report how to design international exchange education in this Internet age.

Implementing Automated English Error Detecting and Scoring System for Junior High School Students (중학생 영작문 실력 향상을 위한 자동 문법 채점 시스템 구축)

  • Kim, Jee-Eun;Lee, Kong-Joo
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.7 no.5
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    • pp.36-46
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    • 2007
  • This paper presents an automated English scoring system designed to help non-native speakers of English, Korean-speaking learners in particular. The system is developed to help the 3rd grade students in junior high school improve their English grammar skills. Without human's efforts, the system identifies grammar errors in English sentences, provides feedback on the detected errors, and scores the sentences. Detecting grammar errors in the system requires implementing a special type of rules in addition to the rules to parse grammatical sentences. Error production rules are implemented to analyze ungrammatical sentences and recognize syntactic errors. The rules are collected from the junior high school textbooks and real student test data. By firing those rules, the errors are detected followed by setting corresponding error flags, and the system continues the parsing process without a failure. As the final step of the process, the system scores the student sentences based on the errors detected. The system is evaluated with real English test data produced by the students and the answers provided by human teachers.

A Comparison of Two English Reading Classes: With a Focus on Cooperative Learning

  • Suh, Jae-Suk
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.12 no.3
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    • pp.79-98
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    • 2006
  • As one way of changing a teacher-fronted, grammar-based reading class into a meaningful, fun-creating one, this paper compared teacher- fronted reading with student-centered reading framed upon cooperative learning. In a study in which each type of reading method was conducted for college students in an EFL reading course for a period of one semester, data were gathered via questionnaires. The results showed that though each type of reading instruction came with its own strengths and weaknesses, student-centered reading instruction was preferred for various reasons. Most important, through an active participation in cooperative work, subjects were motivated and interested in L2 reading much, were exposed to various reading strategies and skills, and practiced them in a friendly, low-anxiety learning climate.

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A comparative Review between the English Language Programs of Maritime Institutes in Korea and Europe

  • Davy, James G.;Noh, Chang-Kyun
    • Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Navigation and Port Research Conference
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    • 2011.11a
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    • pp.19-20
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    • 2011
  • This paper compares the English language programs of two maritime institutes in very different parts of the world, South Korea and Belgium. It will show that although both institutes comply with the minimum standard set by the STCW Code issued by the IMO, requirements for entry and graduation can vary greatly. Method of class delivery, choice of learning tools and testing systems will also be examined to illustrate these differences. It will also shown that in order to train new seafarers in the best possible ways that will fulfill the IMO mandate of Safer Shipping and Cleaner Oceans, examination of course curriculum at any maritime institute should be an ongoing process so that cadets are encouraged to communicate in a targeted, efficient and professional way within a nautical context.

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On Optimal Conditions in Setting Up Tasks for the Elementary Classroom: A Case Study of Two Classes

  • Kim, Jin-Seok
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.18 no.3
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    • pp.121-134
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    • 2012
  • The purpose of this study is to investigate the optimal conditions for designing tasks appropriate to the elementary classroom based on the correspondence with the national curriculum, integration among four skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), authenticity, and interactivity. For this study, two primary English teachers volunteered to participate in the case study conducted in the spring semester of the 2012 school year. Each class observed was composed of 29 and 30 sixth graders (12-year-old learners). Data were collected through classroom observation and lesson plans. Optimality theory was used to analyze data from the lessons. From the findings, the overall ranking of constraints is Curriculum ${\gg}$ Integration ${\gg}$ Authenticity ${\gg}$ Interactivity. It is also shown that for teacher 'L', the tasks such as 'guessing game', 'photo of me', and 'role play' were appropriate to help students ask questions and give reasons for their choices. As for teacher 'C', the tasks such as 'hand spans', 'transport survey', and 'picture telling' needed to be considered in order to help students understand and write comparative sentences.

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A Survey of Seamus Heaney's "lanmore Sonnets" as Modern Pastoral Lyrics

  • Jeong, Ok-Hee
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.8 no.2
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    • pp.23-38
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    • 2003
  • Seamus Heaney, a famous Irish poet after Yeats, has written some pastoral lyrics from his experiences of farm life and childhood memories. These poems, in spite of his simple overt praise of a rustic farm life, have layers of meaning with their vast allusiveness and implications. He is an extremely literary writer dealing with history from the Celtic myth and a long English literary history. Though his style reminds that of a Victorian poet through his allusions of nature, he is a modern poet of innovative skills and senses. The explication of his representative sonnet sequence, the "Glanmore Sonnets" will reveal exquisite, complicated poetics of a modern poet. The poems are basically love poems, and the love is directed to his beloved wife, his lifetime companion. The poems relate the cultivation of a land to the poet's excavating language from the classics and to the images of love making. Through a careful reading of the sonnets this article will broaden our knowledge on how a modern love lyric of layered meanings can retain the past tradition in its complicated poetics.

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Potential of L1 and L2 Corpora to Identify Target Lexical Bundles for Argumentative Essay Writing

  • Ryo Sawaguchi
    • Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
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    • v.5 no.1
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    • pp.1-21
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    • 2024
  • This study aimed to identify target lexical bundles (e.g., on the other hand, at the same time) for argumentative essay writing and rank them in order of teaching priority for Japanese learners. Despite significant functional roles of lexical bundles in academic writing, the inclusion of lexical bundles in argumentative writing had been underexplored. Since argumentative writing skills help undergraduate students prepare for their academic careers (e.g., writing papers), the lexical bundles under this genre deserve more attention. This study first extracted 78 target bundles from L1 argumentative essay corpora (International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English: ICNALE and Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays: LOCNESS). The study then classified the bundles according to their discourse functions and semantic transparency to estimate the learnability for Japanese learners in L2 compatible corpora with the ICNALE. The results showed that learners had difficulty using the bundles with referential functions (e.g., in the form of) and semantic opaqueness (e.g., when it comes to), suggesting that the bundles in these two categories should be prioritized among the 78 bundles.

Reliability and Validity of A Korean Version of the Practice Skills Inventory I (한국어판 사회복지실천기술 척도(Practice Skills Inventory)의 신뢰도와 타당도 평가 I - 의료사회복지사와 정신보건사회복지사를 대상으로 -)

  • Kim, Yong-Seok;Kim, Jang-Bae;Lee, Young-Sook;Lee, Hyun-Ju
    • Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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    • v.62 no.4
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    • pp.5-32
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    • 2010
  • Although social work practice skills are one of the important components of social work practice, research on social work practice skills has been very scarce. It seems that the reason might be a lack of standardized instruments used to measure social work practice skills. The purpose of this study is to validate a Korean version of the Practice Skills Inventory(PSI) developed by O'Hare and colleagues. The PSI is the only instrument developed in the field of social work to measure the frequency of social work practice skills that social workers use. A total of 310 social workers working in medical or mental health field were participated in this study. A result of confirmatory factor analysis showed that the Korean version of the PSI is composed of 4 factors like its english version. The Korean version of the PSI was also reliable and valid. Implications for social work research, practice and education are provided.

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Analysis of the effectiveness of Maritime English education through the application of a smart platform (스마트 플랫폼 적용을 통한 해사영어 교육 효과 분석)

  • Jin Ki Seor;Dongsu Shin;Young-soo Park
    • Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Navigation and Port Research Conference
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    • 2023.05a
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    • pp.154-155
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    • 2023
  • The International Convention on Standards for Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping of Seafarers (STCW) outlines the qualifications that maritime cadets must meet in order to serve as merchant marine officers. Maritime English is one of the most essential qualifications for STCW, and each national authority is implementing Maritime English education that complies with national and international regulations. In this study, an English proficiency background survey was conducted to investigate the factors related to the Maritime English skills and competencies. In line with this, maritime cadets utilized the Standard Maritime English Communication Phrases (SMCP) learning platform to track their learning progress and its efficacy. This study examined the applicability of the automatic scoring platform for Maritime English education, as well as its future potential for widespread use in the maritime education field.

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Wikispaces: A Social Constructivist Approach to Flipped Learning in Higher Education Contexts

  • Ha, Myung-Jeong
    • International Journal of Contents
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    • v.12 no.4
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    • pp.62-68
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    • 2016
  • This paper describes an attempt to integrate flip teaching into a language classroom by adopting wikispaces as an online learning platform. The purpose of this study is to examine student perceptions of the effectiveness of using video lectures and wikispaces to foster active participation and collaborative learning. Flipped learning was implemented in an English writing class over one semester. Participants were 27 low intermediate level Korean university students. Data collection methods included background questionnaires at the beginning of the semester, learning experience questionnaires at the end of the semester, and semi-structured interviews with 6 focal participants. Because of the significance of video lectures in flip teaching, oCam was used for making weekly online lectures as a way of pre-class activities. Every week, online lectures were posted on the school LMS system (moodle). Every week, participants met in a computer room to perform in-class activities. Both in-class activities and post-class activities were managed by wikispaces. The results indicate that the flipped classroom facilitated student learning in the writing class. More than 53% of the respondents felt that it was useful to develop writing skills in a flipped classroom. Particularly, students felt that the video lectures prior to the class helped them improve their grammar skills. However, with respect to their satisfaction with collaborative works, about 44% of the participants responded positively. Similarly, 44% of the participants felt that in-class group work helped them interact with the other group members. Considering these results, this paper concludes with pedagogical suggestions and implications for further research.