• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.437-456
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• 2001

This paper raises a question on the theoretical background behind the English education at the elementary school level. The Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH), supporting the common belief of the earlier the better in foreign language learning, which has promoted the strong trend toward teaching English in Korean elementary schools, is analyzed to determine whether it provides a comprehensible picture to explain age-related factors and whether it is a valid hypothesis which can be applicable in an EFL situation such as Korea. This paper concludes that CPH itself is still considered as an impending hypothesis full of unresolved issues and that the present educational situation of Korean elementary schools is rather far from the environment in which the ideas of CPH could practically apply, and thus it may be desirable to find alternative theoretical backgrounds from which the educational programs can be developed and further expanded.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.135-148
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• 2012

This is a retrospective, quantitative review of the English Teachers Association in Korea, namely the ETAK and its journals during the period of 18 years ever since the establishment in August 1994. It examines the history of the association, its domestic and international conferences, and most importantly, its articles. The purpose was to learn how it has emerged into a full-fledged organization, what the preferred language of the article has been, how the volume size has changed, and how many foreign scholars' articles have been contributed. It also looked into the number of authors each article was written by to examine the trend of cooperative work in the field of English education. Classification of the research topic was focused on the 4 skills of the language, grammar and vocabulary, literature, linguistics and all the rest areas were categorized into others. From the results of the study, suggestions for the future ETAK in the Korean English teaching were to be given.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.365-382
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• 2009

This study aims to examine the reading materials of high school English textbooks to propose the integration of the literary texts into reading materials in the classroom for development of communicative competence. Five kinds of high school English textbooks were critically examined in terms of three factors -limited text types, deficit of emotional adjectives and non-authenticity- selected by the author as characteristics of non-communicative language teaching materials. With regard to text types, more than half of the reading materials were expository and simple narratives. This imbalance of text types led materials to the deficit of emotional vocabulary. These factors seem to be closely related to the issue of authenticity of reading materials. Compared to the authentic texts, fabricated texts are likely to make reading vapid and boring task. On the basis of these results, some pedagogical suggestions are made.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.129-145
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• 2002

This paper compares the four official romanization systems (1948, 1959, 1984 and 2000) and analyzes the third- and fourth-year primary school English textbooks and teacher's guides in terms of romanization of personal names. This study is conducted with the assumption that the inconsistent use of romanization is due to two major causes, i.e., the frequent changes of the formal romanization systems and the exclusion of the romanization system from the school curriculum. The current third- and fourth-year primary school English text books (Ministry of Education, 2001) are chosen for the analysis because they are the first primary school English textbooks to be implemented based on the 7th National Curriculum. The study found that the textbooks and teacher's guides did not state which romanization system they were following and were not consistent in romanizing personal names. This study suggests including the current official romanization system in the current primary school curriculum and outlines a strategy for teaching the romanization system which suits the curriculum.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.53-76
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• 2004

This paper introduces a class model based on a course, Internet English, offered by an English department at a university. The course has dual purposes of developing students I English skills and Internet using skills at the same time. In support of using the Internet for language learning, the advantages of project-based language learning and constructivist learning in relation to CALL are explored. The activities in this course, which are basically project-based under the paradigm of constructivist learning perspective, are explained in detail to show the relationship between second language learning theory and teaching application. The way how the four language skills - speaking, listening, reading, and writing - are integrated in this class is described as well. Finally, judgmental evaluation of the course by the students is noted. The results show that a project-based CALL class could be a promising class model to realize an integrative, constructivist, and authentic learning.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.195-208
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• 2005

This paper discusses the independent seminar as one of the appropriate courses, in particular, for the students who study English literature in the doctoral program. Those who take the Ph.D. program in English literature are considered as future scholars or teachers. In taking the coursework, they not only delve into the knowledge of literature, but also begin to establish broader and deeper senses of research ability. The independent seminar class helps them build such senses through the way in which they experience to the development of the syllabus by themselves. Furthermore, in contrast to a regular class, in which a group of students learn in a classroom, the independent seminar gives each student intensive interactions with his/her professor through the out-of-classroom circumstances, since the seminar is based upon one-on-one study between the student and the professor.

• 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.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.209-224
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• 2009

This study examined the role of contextual knowledge in cross-cultural communication between non-native speakers on an interactive web with a bulletin board system through which college students of English at Japanese and Korean universities interacted with each other discussing the topics of local and global issues. The study investigated the influence of students' relative contextual knowledge on active participation in interactions and discussed the results focusing on the use of discourse strategies for meaning negotiation. The study argues that in interactions even between non-native speakers with limited proficiency, contextual knowledge in the topic under discussion affects the degree to which they accommodate to each other during communication and suggests that the focus of teaching English as a foreign language also should be given to what kind of contextual knowledge students need to obtain and how to express it rather than what level of proficiency in English they need to acquire.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.85-91
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• 2004

The writing styles of TIME and Newsweek are analyzed using a specially developed linguistic program. These two news magazines were chosen because of their wide popularity. As for the results, it became obvious that both the frequency curve of words and that of characters have not changed for the past 60 years. Also, we have found that the frequency curves have some inflection points and that the genre of English writings can be identified by these points. After counting the percentage of required vocabulary for junior high school students and high school students in English writings, we can derive the relative difficulties of them using fuzzy reasoning. Fuzzy rules are constructed using features of the characteristic curves. We feel it would be a good guide index when selecting textbooks or supplementary readers.

• Educational Technology International
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.59-78
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• 2009

Language Capital is one of the most important academic abilities and competencies for new era of globalization worldwide. In Europe and Asia where English is not the native language, it is necessary to encourage higher education to improve language competency from both qualitative and quantitative aspects. In so far as online university concerned, it appears of significance to prepare for globalization from the perspective of cross border education, and it needs to focus on how to design and develop English-medium teaching (EMT) or in other words English mediated instruction(EMI) for both teachers and students. In order to provide supportive programs of English-mediated class for teachers and students, the study examined and analyzed what abilities are needed for teachers based on DACUUM approach, suggesting teachers' competency as well as strategies for online- EMT. Based on literature review, DACUUM analysis, focus group interview with teachers and students who experienced online EMT, online programs supporting both teachers and students for online EMI were developed. This program expects to play roles of practical guidelines and reference for both teachers and students online in an extension of language capital improvement.