• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.19-26
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• 2017

The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of utterance internal pause in English speaking evaluation. To avoid possible confusion with other errors caused by segmental and prosodic inaccuracy, stem utterances with two different length obtained from a native speaker were manipulated to make a set of stimuli tokens through insertion of pauses whose length and position vary. After a total of 90 participants classified into three proficiency groups rated the stimuli, the scored data set was statistically analyzed in terms of the mixed effects model. It was confirmed that predictors such as pause length, pause position and utterance length significantly influence raters' evaluation scores. Especially, a dominating effect was found in such a way that raters gradually deducted scores in accordance with the increase of pause duration. In another experiment, a tree-based statistical learning technique was utilized to check which of the significant predictors played a more influential role than others. The findings in this paper are expected to be practically informative for both the test takers who are preparing for an English speaking test and the raters who desire to develop more objective rubric of speaking evaluation.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.733-738
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• 2013

Background: Breast and cervical cancers are significant causes of mortality and morbidity for Asian women, and poor English-speaking ability is a barrier to cancer prevention practices. Materials and Methods: This project tested relationships among English-speaking ability and early detection practices regarding to breast and cervical cancer among female Chinese immigrants. A descriptive cross-sectional survey was used. Results: 175 female Chinese immigrants completed the survey in the breast cancer prevention section, and 35 of them also completed the cervical cancer prevention section. Some 63% of them had heard about the clinical breast exam (CBE), but only 54% had had a CBE. While 46% of the participants were aware of their need for a Pap smear, only 31% had heard about it and had undergone a pelvic exam. Conclusions: English-speaking ability was strongly associated with immigrant women's knowledge of female cancer early detection. Culturally and linguistic issues should be considered as the first step to access immigrant population in designing future education intervention.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.91-99
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• 2014

Speaking styles tend to have an influence on spectral characteristics of produced speech. There are not many studies on the spectral characteristics of speech because of complicated processing of too much spectral data. The purpose of this study was to examine spectral characteristics and formant bandwidths of English vowels produced by nine American males with different speaking styles: clear or conversational styles; high- or low-pitched voices. Praat was used to collect pitch-corrected long-term averaged spectra and bandwidths of the first two formants of eleven vowels in the speaking styles. Results showed that the spectral characteristics of the vowels varied systematically according to the speaking styles. The clear speech showed higher spectral energy of the vowels than that of the conversational speech while the high-pitched voice did the same over the low-pitched voice. In addition, front and back vowel groups showed different spectral characteristics. Secondly, there was no statistically significant difference between B1 and B2 in the speaking styles. B1 was generally lower than B2 when reflecting the source spectrum and radiation effect. However, there was a statistically significant difference in B2 between the front and back vowel groups. The author concluded that spectral characteristics reflect speaking styles systematically while bandwidths measured at a few formant frequency points do not reveal style differences properly. Further studies would be desirable to examine how people would evaluate different sets of synthetic vowels with spectral characteristics or with bandwidths modified.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.120-121
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• 2024

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.550-557
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• 2024

This paper provides a brief overview of cultural noise interference in English communication. Subsequently, it conducts an illustrative analysis using 100 first-year students from Chongqing Vocational College of Light Industry to explore the impact of cultural noise interference on speaking coherence. Initially, a questionnaire is employed to assess the influence of cultural noise on students' judgments of speaking coherence. Different conversation scenarios involving different types of cultural noise interference are introduced to analyze the speaking coherence of students gradually. A significant impact of cultural noise on learners' speaking coherence is revealed by the results. As the variety of cultural noise increases, the influence on speaking coherence grows more pronounced.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.306-319
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to improve a good sense of language through professors' reduced role and university students' cooperative learning with overcoming the limit of existing English teaching materials and learning methods. To analyze the effect of cooperative learning in university general English classes on the improvement of English speaking ability and affective achievement, cooperative learning for English speaking was applied to 50 university students of K university in Seoul for 4 months from March 2 to June 20 in 2018. And then the affective achievement was verified. The results of this study are as follows. Frist, the cooperative learning in university general English classes made a difference in the improvement of English speaking ability (accuracy, fluency, complexity). Second, the cooperative learning in university general English classes made a difference in confidence of learning and interest in learning among the affective achievement but there's no difference in study attitude and learning motivation. Third, the cooperative learning in university general English classes made a difference in the effect of the improvement of English speaking ability (accuracy, fluency, complexity) on the confidence of learning and interest in learning of the affective achievement, but there's no difference in study attitude and learning motivation.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2001

The current status of in-service teacher development shows that teachers' awareness can be enhanced through critical reflection. This study shows how an English teacher improved her own teaching situation through action research. It reports back the action research the teacher-researcher carried out in the EFL classroom setting. Aiming to improve the pupils' English speaking ability, the teacher introduced 'Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT)' to the English class. The teacher and the pupils took part in the evaluation process of learning and teaching. It was found that the new approach to teaching speaking helped the pupils improve speaking ability and take an active role in learning process. It is further suggested that teacher-initiated action research can be done in collaboration with colleagues, administrators and researchers.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.10
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• pp.603-612
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to allow beginner level English learners to experience the English speaking task using pictures, and to analyze the meanings of the experience using a phenomenological research method. As research participants, 10 freshmen majoring in Power Generation Facilities at Korean Polytechnic University in Gangwon-do were selected. Face-to-face interviews and SNS were used for data collection, and Colaizzi's research method was adopted for data analysis. As a result of the analysis, 9 themes, 4 theme clusters, and 2 categories were derived. The results are as follows. First, the participants were able to find hope that they could speak English at their own level through the English speaking task using pictures. Second, they stated that the effect of the visual medium of painting increased concentration and curiosity and lowered anxiety. Third, it was recognized that self-confidence, a speaker like a native speaker, and quickness of speaking improved due to familiarity with speaking English. Fourth, the biggest difficulty in the English speaking task was vocabulary. So, they felt the limitation in explaining the picture, and they were having a lot of trouble in translating Korean words into English words. Finally, through the results of this study, the effect of the medium of picture was confirmed, and necessary future studies were suggested.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.45-50
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• 2018

The vowel/consonant ratio is a well-known cue for the voicing of postvocalic consonants. This study investigates how this ratio changes as a function of speaking rate. Seven speakers of North American English read sentences containing target monosyllabic words that contrasted in coda voicing at three different speaking rates. Duration measures were taken for the voice onset time (VOT) of the onset consonant, the vowel, and the coda. The results show that the durations of the onset VOT and vowel are longer before voiced codas, and that the durations of all segments increase monotonically as speaking rate decreases. Importantly, the vowel/consonant ratio, a primary acoustic cue for coda voicing, was found to pattern asymmetrically for voiced and voiceless codas; it increases for voiced codas but decreases for voiceless codas with the decrease in speaking rate. This finding suggests that there is no stable ratio in the duration of preconsonantal vowels that is maintained in different speaking styles.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.27-46
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• 2007

Teachers can maximize students' L2 learning by knowing preferred learning styles. This paper presents the results of a survey that asked 309 English learners to identify their perceptual learning style preferences. It further compared students' favored learning styles in terms of their gender and major field of study and explored a possible link between learning styles and English achievement. Collected data using Reid's (1995) questionnaire were analyzed by descriptive statistics, MANOVA, ANOVA, correlations, multiple regressions including squared partial correlations, and Cronbach's alpha. The results indicated that Korean students favored English learning in group regardless of gender, while their preferred mode of learning was significantly different in regard to their major field of study. Certain learning styles might be profitable for English achievement. Multiple regression analyses revealed that individual mode of learning was the best predictor of students' English achievement. It furthermore showed significant relationships between visual and individual styles of learning and English performance. The findings of the study reflected students' English learning context in which English native-speaking teachers frequently used communicative pair and small group activities for speaking practices that were consonant with students' learning styles.