• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.57-71
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to investigate the possibility of the use of reading aloud as a way of teaching English reading in a formal college-level English reading classroom. The study tried to examine the effects of reading aloud on the development of English reading ability in terms of comprehension and speed and the students' perceptions of the use of reading aloud in an English reading classroom. The participants of the study were 36 third year students at a college. The results of the cloze test and reading speed test showed that reading aloud had a positive effect on the improvement of English reading ability. The students received higher scores in the cloze test after the course and read a text faster than before the course. The analysis of the course evaluation questionnaire indicated that the students in the study showed positive attitudes toward the use of reading aloud in an English reading classroom. Most of the students reported that reading aloud was an effective way of improving their English reading comprehension and speed. However, the students were not fully satisfied with the reading materials used in the study. The results of the present study indicated that reading aloud may be incorporated into a formal English reading classroom effectively.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.25-36
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• 2021

This study examined the perception and production of eight English fricatives /f/, /v/, /θ/, /ð/, /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, and /ʒ/ by thirty Chinese English majors and thirty Chinese middle school students through a fricative identification test, an intelligibility test, and a goodness rating test and focused on error patterns and the perception-production relationship. The results showed that substitution errors occurred frequently in the perception and production of English fricatives by both the English majors and the middle school students. Further, the error patterns were attributed to various influencing factors such as the negative transfer from Chinese consonant inventory, hypercorrection or overcompensation mistakes, deficiency of L2 teaching, and acoustic similarities. Significant overall correlations were found between the fricative perception and production by the two subject groups but were not manifested in all the eight fricatives, indicating that Chinese learners' perceptual competence of target fricatives was not necessarily tied to their productive excellence of those sounds in all cases. Furthermore, precedences of perception over production were incompletely manifested in the eight fricatives, which suggested that perception might not always be a necessary prerequisite for production. Additionally, subject group and vowel context differences were observed. The English majors performed better than the middle school students, both perceptually and productively, and the subjects' performances in perception and production varied when vowel contexts changed.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.249-277
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• 2002

The purpose of this paper is to show that Web-Based English Instruction (WBEI) focused on writing is effective in learning English in Korea. To investigate the effectiveness of WBEI, a survey was conducted to the experimental group after WBEI and a test was taken to compare the difference of the score of the experimental group and control group. According to the survey, almost all students thought that WBEI was a most effective way to improve communicative competence by exchanging electronic mails with native speakers. The test showed that the experimental group's score was somewhat low in comparison with the control group's in pre-test, but the former groups' was rather higher than the control groups' in post-test. This study also suggests that we should develop more effective Web-based English teaching-learning methods to activate WBEI in our classroom.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.89-112
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to verify the effect of the method of English teaching and learning through the student-centered environmental instruction. I've been skeptical about the traditional instruction, which is composed of the teachers-centered instruction, because of the lack of creativity. Until now, I've always wished to have an alternative method that can be substituted for routine's style. To achieve it, I selected 90 students from 2 classes, in the 3rd year at a girls' high school in Chungnam as the subject of study. I divided them into two groups, the student-centered environmental instruction and the teacher-centered traditional instruction. The tools used in this study are a preliminary English achievement test, a self-directed learning attitudes test and two teaching plans. For this test, a high school text book was assigned. I have treated 20 times of the test each for two groups using two types of teaching-learning plans which I made for this purpose. To verify the hypotheses after administrating the test, I selected t-verification for post test result. Based on this test result, I could conclude that there was a significant improvement of English proficiency and a change in the self-directed learning attitudes; also the student-centered environmental instruction is more effective than teachers-centered instruction.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.549-553
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• 2014

This study is a report of an intensive ESP(English for Specific Purposes) program conducted for the College of Economic students in Korean University. This is planned for the students to enhance their English achievement in comprehending the subject contents which they would learn in the near future. In order to determine whether the course helped the students enhance their English achievement or not, a pre and post test were taken, one at the beginning of the semester and the other at the end of semester. The result of the test shows that this program benefits relevant students, especially lower level students. In accordance with a general accepted view, the English for Specific Purposes(ESP) program is generally targeted for students who expect to learn the basic knowledge of English through mediated courses. Since students already have specific purpose of studying for their major courses, their motivation and interest in the course are higher than the students who don't have any specific purpose. Therefore, this study shows that the students who took English for Specific Purposes(ESP) had higher motivation and interest to study English related to their major courses as the test results were higher than before they had taken the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) program.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.153-184
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• 2010

On the bases of the 5 principles and the 4 criteria for designing and developing of the listening and the reading test of National English Ability Test (NEAT), this study presents Item-Types Decision-Making Model as a blueprint for designing and constructing the two tests. It sets up the criteria for validating item types, designs a modular type of test specifications, constructs an item-types bank, and specifies a complementary type of test specifications of the two tests. To gather all these threads up, it constructs Item-Types Decision-Making Model which consists of such components as the item-type pool, the validity criteria and the procedures of testing item types, the item-types bank, the modular and the complementary type test specification. Thus, it shows how the Model works in developing and constructing the two level-differentiated listening and reading tests (the 2nd and the 3rd rank) of NEAT. Finally, it discusses some implications and applications of the Model to the two level-differentiated tests (the A and the B type) of 2014 CSAT (College Scholastic Ability Test) systems, National Assessment of Educational Achievement (NAEA), and classroom testing. In conclusion, Item-Types Decision-Making Model functions as a testing template in an item development system and as a matrix in an item-types bank system.

• MALSORI
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• no.57
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• pp.1-14
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• 2006

This study examines personal factors that affect Korean speakers' English pronunciation. Personal factors which are examined here are as follows: personality type, cognitive system, motivational orientation type, interest in English, how often they listen to tapes, and academic achievements. Data were collected through MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) Test, Group Embedded Figural Test, and a Questionnaire. The participants consisted of 65 college students. All the results were statistically analyzed: Korean students' personality type and cognitive system are not related with their pronunciation, but motivational orientation type, how often they listen to tapes, academic achievements, and interest in English study are correlated with their pronunciation.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.15-20
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• 2013

The result of the English test for freshmen showed wide difference in the ability of students, which means the graded class is strongly required. This paper describes the case study about the graded English class that was carried out for the freshman. Every freshman must take an English placement test from problems bank and were classified according to the result of the test. In order to resolve the dissatisfaction of the high level students, the statutes of my university for credit were modified. In order to analyze the effect of the graded class, evaluation test using similar problems was carried out at the end of the semester. The effect of the graded class was analyzed by using the paired samples t-test method and there was a meaningful performance improvement at the average score. Additional improvements in the method of classification and credit granted were made by analyzing the results of the evaluation test and survey.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.21-44
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• 2012

This paper aims to discuss the effects of learning how to write English interrogative sentences. 122 students who participated in the study learned basic structural components of English questions and practiced writing questions by inversing the subject and the verb in a given declarative sentence. The participants were divided into two groups: Group 1 which was given a brief explanation of interrogative structures and practices, and Group 2 which was given the same explanation and practices in addition to an assignment for which they had to make one or two comprehension questions based on reading a passage. For the pre-tests and the post-tests, they took a TOEIC reading test with 40 questions and a structure test with 25 questions. The results of the tests show that both groups improved significantly in the two post-tests, benefiting from this learning method. However, the additional treatment for Group 2 did not seem to be highly effective. In the questionnaire survey, the participants think that the method of learning English questions has helped them better understand English grammar as well as interrogative structures. The participants were also divided into three different levels: high, intermediate, and low. The intermediate level group students benefited most from learning writing questions as the results of the post-test of the 25-questions test and the final exam of the course show.

• Language and Information
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.185-220
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• 1998

The purpose of this research is to propose a set of basic guidelines for the construction of English test suites, a set of basic guidelines for the construction of Korean test suites to objectively evaluate the performance of machine translation systems. For this end, we constructed 650 English test sentences, 650 Korean test sentences, and developed the statistical methods and tools for the comparative evaluation of the English-Korean machine translation systems. It also evaluates the existing commercial English-Korean machine translation systems. The importance of this research lies in that it will promote an awareness of the importance and need of testing machine translation systems within the Natural Language Community. This research will also make a big contribution to the development of evaluation methods and techniques for appropriate test suites for Korean information processing systems. The results of this research can be used by the natural language community to test the performance and development of their information processing systems or machine translation systems.