• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.395-411
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to explore the elementary English conversation instructors' perception on their professionalism and the needs of teacher training program. The survey data were attained from 136 elementary English conversation instructors. Descriptive statistics were employed to discuss the result of the survey response. The results of this study revealed that the elementary English conversation instructors perceived the need of in-service training program for their professionalism improvement, especially in teaching techniques for four language skills. The result also revealed that the instructors need to be more equipped with the knowledge of elementary learners' developmental psychology and L2 learning process. The study concludes with several suggestions for elementary English conversation instructors' improvement of teaching professionalism and in-service training program.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.17-36
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• 2007

This study examined educational and career backgrounds of 180 early childhood English teachers and curricula of training courses for early childhood English teachers in continuing education centers across 6 areas in Korea. Data analyses showed that (1) curricula for early childhood English teachers consists of basic practical conversation, English teaching skills, understanding early childhood education and general English knowledge. (2) Most teachers are women between 30 to 40 years of age, university graduates with majors in English literature, English education and/or early childhood education with confidence in speaking in and listening to English. (3) They were satisfied with their retraining courses. (4) English pronunciation skill was not always related to English conversation skill, but clarity of pronunciation influenced teaching confidence.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.259-281
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• 2009

The ICELT(In-Service Certificate in English Language Teaching) is a highly practical course-based English teacher education program which integrates classroom teaching and off-site teacher training. This case study analyzes the three-year implementation of the ICELT program in Korea and discusses its effects and the implications for improving the inservice English teacher education system. It has been found that the course participants were satisfied with the quality of its execution, thinking that it contributed to their professional development in the areas of teaching practice, methodology and language competence. The study has identified several success factors as shared program goals among the course participants, including systematic selection of course participants, well-qualified tutors and the proper provision of resources including syllabus, teaching materials and course assessment system. Nonetheless, it has been suggested that attention needs to be paid to generalized application of the ICELT for English teacher education due to the limitations such as the heavy workload caused by the program, lack of course participants' collaboration with other teachers at their schools and tutors' poor understanding of the Korean education context. Bearing this in mind, the implications for improving the inservice English teacher education system in Korea have been discussed. Finally, further studies have been suggested, which are concerned with in-depth investigation in exploring the division of roles between native English speaking tutors and Korean ones and the impact of the program on the sustainability of course participants' professional development and the impact on schools.

• 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.15 no.2
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• pp.245-259
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to investigate English teachers' perceptions about doing their own action research to find out the benefits of involvement in action research. I believe that teachers should engage in curriculum research and development because it relates to their own classrooms and because a primary aim for teacher education program is to give teachers ways of exploring their own classrooms. I focused on 17 graduate students who had undertaken action research during the fall semester of 2007 and administered a questionnaire about their perceptions of doing action research. The results revealed that their perceptions of doing action research fell into the following two categories, positive and negative aspects. For positive aspects, they experienced a sense of personal and professional growth and they underwent identity transformation from passive, etic-oriented, and uncritical to active, emic-oriented, and critical teachers. However, many of them expressed that major obstacles to doing action research were time constraints and lack of skills or training in conducting action research. Thus, it is suggested that both pre- and in-service teachers should consider conducting a language teaching diary study, doing collaborative action research, and acquiring all the necessary skills for conducting action research.

• MALSORI
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• no.44
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• pp.1-14
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• 2002

Because the accuracy and the fluency are the essence in English speaking, both of them are very important in English trencher training and in-service English training programs. To get the accuracy and the fluency, the causes and the phenomena of the unnatural pronunciation have to be diagnosed. Consequently, the problematic and unnatural pronunciation of Korean elementary and secondary English teachers should be analyzed with using Acoustic Analyzing tools like CSL, Multi-speech and Praat. In addition, an attempt to Pinpoint what the causes of unnatural pronunciation was executed. Next a procedure and steps were proposed for in-service training programs that would cultivate the fluency and the accuracy. In case of elementary teachers, the unnatural pronunciation of segmental features and suprasegmental features were found much. therefore segmental features should be emphasized in the begging of pronunciation training courses and then suprasegmental features have to be emphasized. In case of secondary teachers, the unnatural pronunciation of suprasegmental features were found much. Therefore segmental and suprasegmental features have to be focused at the same time. In other words, features in word level should be focused first for elementary English teacher, and features in word level and beyond word level should be trained at the same time for secondary English teachers.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2000.07a
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• pp.255-270
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• 2000

Because the accuracy is essential, in order to get the fluency in speaking, both of them are very important in English education and in-service training programs. To get the accuracy and the fluency, the causes and phenomena of the unnatural pronunciation have to be surveyed first of all. Therefore, this article surveyed the problematic and unnatural pronunciation of Korean English teachers in elementary and secondary schools using CSL and Multi-speech. And also, tried to pinpoint what the causes of unnatural pronunciation are\ulcorner Next a procedure or steps were offered for them to speak naturally through in-service training programs. Through this analysis, it was found that elementary teachers have unnatural pronunciation below, within and beyond word level, and the secondary teacher has unnatural pronunciation within and beyond word level. Therefore, pronunciation training courses have to put emphasis on segment features first, and move to suprasegmental features for elementary teachers. For secondary teachers, pronunciation training courses have to focus on word level and move to suprasegmental features, in other words beyond word level. And these pronunciation training courses have to be run integrated.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.151-168
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• 2009

The present study investigates the impact of trained peer feedback on the quantity and quality of revisions made by EFL students at a low-intermediate level. Peer review training was carried out in experimental group through four in-class training sessions and four peer dyad-instructor conferences after class. Students' $1^{st}$ drafts with written peer feedback and revised drafts prior to and post training were collected and analyzed. Results reveal that after training the students produced more revisions in response to their peer comments (96% of total revisions) and those revisions were counted as enhanced in quality (93% of peer-triggered revisions). In contrast, the results of paired t-test within control group indicate that there was no significant difference between two data collected from week 3 and week 16 (t = -.57, df =19, p = .577 at p < .05). The findings suggest that training as an ongoing process of teacher intervention contributes to effectiveness of the peer feedback activity. The study provides pedagogical implications for how to structure and implement peer review training for the sake of its direct strength in an EFL writing class.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.321-346
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• 2010

This study was performed to develop a task-based English lesson plan. The study reviewed the background theories needed to accomplish the study purpose; types of learning, current trends in English teaching, and the task-based teaching. A frame for the task-based English lesson was developed as the result of this study. An actual task-based lesson plan was made after the frame for the task-based English lesson. The author presented task-based English lesson plans at English education conferences, and applied them to pre-teacher training and in-service trainings for English teachers. It is concluded that the task-based English lesson plan was very effective in enhancing English communicative competence and that the pre-teachers and teachers were satisfied with the lesson plans. It is hoped that more teaching material will be developed based on this task-based English lesson plan.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.85-102
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• 2002

Learners and users of a second language have to resort to a variety of conversational strategies or structures to enable them to communicate effectively and competently. Factors affecting effective communication among English as a second or English as foreign language (ESL/EFL) learners are diverse in nature because of different socio-cultural backgrounds. Gambits as a conversational strategy are used to a large extent and teachers must be made aware of such conversational strategies used by English as second or foreign language learners. Thus, studies focusing on conversational strategies among ESL/EFL learners in the English language classroom are important in order to identify the types of conversational strategies used and to help teachers to understand the appropriate conversational strategies and structures. Such understanding can be used to guide learners to use correct conversational strategies when communicating in English. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the use of gambits as a communication strategy in conversation among non-native speakers of English in an English as a second language(ESL) context based on Kellers conversational strategy signals. (175 words)