• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.127-142
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• 2004

This paper examines the relationship between children's English proficiency in grade three and English learning environment and experiences before entering elementary school. In English learning environment and experiences, three influences consisting of children, home environment, and environmental influences of English learning are used to find out which influences contributed to children's English proficiency in grade three of elementary school. The result of this study shows that children with high interest in English have higher proficiency in all language skills reading, writing, listening, and speaking than that of children with low interests. For parents' influences, parents' high interests toward their children's English leaning and high monthly income result in children's high English proficiency. For English environmental influences, children who start at the early age and continue studying English have higher English proficiency.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.753-772
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• 2010

The purpose of this work is to examine the viability of employing the prosody cloning technique in teaching English prosody. Ten native speakers of Korean high school students with similar level of English proficiency participated in the poem self-study experiment. Five of them were grouped into the experimental group and the remaining five into the control group. One popular English poem from a high school textbook was selected and its recording by a professional native speaker of English was used in the experiment. The members of the two groups made a recording of the poem both before and after the experiment. For the study material, the experimental group used their own recorded utterances with their prosody cloned from the professional English speaker, while the control group used the utterances of the professional speaker alone. The acoustic analysis of the recordings by the prosodic foot both before and after the experiment showed that the experimental group performed slightly better than the control group in the realization of the intensity contour of the poem. There were no significant differences in the realization of the intonation contour and segmental durations between the two groups. The recording after the experiment was also subjectively evaluated by a native speaker of English and the scores for the experimental group were slightly higher than the control group. These findings suggest that the use of English poems with the help of the prosody cloning technique is a potentially viable approach to teaching English intonation to high school students. A long-term study with more students is necessary.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• no.6
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• pp.75-88
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• 2000

There are many reasons why foreigners have difficulties learning English. In addition to the difference between English and the learner's grammar, the large number of irregularities found in English become another obstacle to learning English. Understanding the difference and the irregularities will help us not only have a good command of English but also teach English more effectively. Many irregular or alternating patterns, or even anomalies in Modern English are the results of historical changes. In this paper, I would like to focus on some of the irregular or alternating patterns found in different components of the grammar of English and to show how they can be accounted for historically. Through this study, I would like to show that the irregular patterns and anomalies in English were once regular and systematic, they have deviated from the regular patterns of the grammar as time has gone by, and they have survived in Modern English as irregular and alternating patterns. Many of the irregular or alternating patterns can be traced back by phonological, morphological and/or semantic changes in the history of English. Finally, by looking at language history, we can hold a more tolerant view on many anomalies present in English.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.97-120
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• 2005

Production and perception of second language sounds are typically influenced by second language learners' native language sounds. In this study we investigate how the Korean language influences Korean speakers' production of English alphabets. In the experiment conducted to prepare for this study 16 native speakers of Korean pronounced English alphabets. Then three native speakers of English evaluated the Korean subjects' pronunciation of them. The results show that the Korean subjects' native language (i.e., Korean) influences their production of the English alphabets. When Korean has sounds corresponding to English alphabets, the English subjects rate the Korean subjects' production of them good. For instance, Korean has voiceless stop phonemes, hence their production of English alphabets was rated good by the English subjects. The Korean subjects' production of English alphabets containing the sounds that do not exist in Korean was rated poor by the English subjects. For instance, Korean does not have voiced fricative phonemes, hence their production of English alphabets was rated poor.

• 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.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.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.57 no.6
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• pp.1017-1041
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• 2011

This study investigates Korean EFL learners' awareness and use of the English existential there-construction by examining data collected from 54 Korean EFL learners of English by means of a pragmalinguistic judgment task and a controlled discourse completion task. The results of the judgment task reveal that lower proficiency learners rated canonical sentences and existentials with a preposed locative best in the communicative situations where the use of existentials would have been most appropriate. A comparison of the ratings by more proficient learners and native speakers shows that existentials received highest ratings by both groups where they are the most natural option, while canonical sentences received significantly higher ratings by the learners. With regard to the production data, learners tended to avoid existentials, but rather relied on canonical sentences. Existentials were rarely used by lower proficiency learners and not used productively even by more proficient learners in the situations where existentials would have been the most natural option. These results suggest that Korean learners' difficulty with the use of existentials is not merely a product of performance limitations, but attributable to limited knowledge about existentials and their syntactic alternatives in terms of contextual appropriateness. Lower proficiency learners lack such knowledge, and more proficient learners, while showing better awareness of the use of existentials, have problems as to the placement of new information when engaging in writing tasks that place lower level of demands on attention to the information status of noun phrases compared to communicative, oral tasks.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.9-16
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• 2023

The current study investigated the influence of age of L2 acquisition (AOA) and length of residence (LOR) in the L2 setting country on the production of voicing-conditioned vowel duration and spectral qualities in English by Korean learners. The primary aim was to explore the ways in which the language-specific phonetic features are acquired by the age of onset and L2 experience. Analyses of the archived corpus data produced by 45 native speakers of Korean showed that, regardless of AOA or LOR, absolute vowel duration was used as a salient correlate of voicing contrast in English for Korean learners. The accuracy of relative vowel duration was influenced more by onset age than by L2 experience, suggesting that being exposed to English at an early age may benefit the acquisition of temporal dimension. On the other hand, the spectral characteristics of English vowels were more consistently influenced by L2 experience, indicating that immersive experience in the L2 speaking environment are likely to improve the accurate production of vowel quality. The distinct influence of the onset age and L2 experience on the specific phonetic cues in L2 vowel production provides insight into the intricate relationship between the two factors on the manifestation of L2 phonological knowledge.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.115-137
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• 2011

The tourism industry has attained remarkable growth, and the need for professional Tourism English education has increased. Universities of online education can offer an environment for education to both job applicants and laymen who are interested in Tourism English. Tourism English belongs to English for Specific Purposes, which reflects the needs of specific area. The aim of this study is to propose improvements in classes design for online Tourism English instruction. The results of a needs analysis conducted on 160 Korean online university students suggest that online Tourism English class should be different from a traditional classroom-based one in regards to aims, contents, and methods. Online Tourism English class should not only focus on English for specific purposes, but also include more generalized topics. This comes as a result of the diverse backgrounds of online students. The results suggest that extralinguistic elements, such as culture and etiquette differences among English-speaking countries, become more interesting when introduced using pictures, videos, animations, etc. Additionally, SMS or emails can be utilized to raise students' motivation for online Tourism English class.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.255-272
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• 2011

As the demand of English education is increasing, the demand for Native English speaking teachers (NEST) is rising, especially in Asian countries. However, due to the low number of NEST, the Korean government is suggesting that Filipino Women be used as English teachers as an alternative. This study aims to answer three questions: (1) are Filipino women in Korea qualified to teach English based on the error analysis of their written essays? (2) what are the linguistic features found in their diagnostic essays? and (3) is their written English better than Korean college students' written English based on the comparison of the two groups? The findings from the Filipino participants show the most frequently occurring errors are related to punctuation usage (commas and hyphens), vocabulary (word choice), verb usage, redundancy, and even as basic as capitalization usage. The results from the comparison of the two groups show that the percentage of the Filipino participants' written error was 14% while the percentage of the Korean participants was 17%. The findings would give us some ideas on the qualification of Filipino women in Korea as English teachers.