• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.101-122
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• 2009

This study was purposed to discuss an educational concept of listening potential in ESL/EFL contexts as a counterpart of the reading potential concept in L1 contexts. As a preliminary condition for the concept of listening potential, this study investigated a relationship between reading and listening proficiency of ESL/EFL learners, focusing on roles of grammar knowledge in reading and listening comprehension. Reading and listening comprehension and grammar knowledge test scores of 231 Korean college students studying at a university in the U.S. were analyzed for this study. This study found that there was a positive correlation between reading proficiency and listening proficiency of Korean ESL college students. Grammar knowledge played significant roles accounting for reading and listening comprehension. Furthermore, this study found a difference between the reading proficiency and the listening proficiency across the stages of language development. However, results of this study did not empirically verify the concept of listening potential.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.187-209
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• 2001

This study attempts to supplement what is known about the influence of prior knowledge on second language listening comprehension. To do so, the study examines the effect of prior knowledge and language proficiency on the ability of L2 listeners to understand texts. The purpose of an experiment was to determine the effect of topic familiarity on the L2 listening comprehension ability of subjects who varied in L2 listening proficiency level. The subjects (N=117) were selected from a population of college students enrolled in the Departments of English and Business in Korea. English listening proficiency levels were designated on the basis of TOEFL listening scores. Subjects listened twice each to texts (more familiar and less familiar). After listening to each text, a ten-item objective test was administered to test the subjects' comprehension of the information presented in the text. Objective tests were analyzed. using repeated measures analysis. A post hoc test was conducted to identify the means that were significantly different. This study yielded the following results: (1) subjects with high prior knowledge comprehended texts significantly better than did subjects with low prior knowledge; (2) the level of L2 listening proficiency had a significant effect on the L2 listening comprehension of texts, but there was no interaction between prior knowledge and the level of L2 listening proficiency.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.189-208
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to investigate knowledge and use of English collocations in their relation to Korean college students' general English proficiency and writing abilities. Participants in the present study were 203 Korean college students. Their knowledge and use of English collocations were measured by a self-designed collocation test and an essay writing test. The findings were as follows: First, there was a significant difference in students' knowledge of collocations according to their general English proficiency. Students' performance in the collocation test increased as their level of proficiency increased. Second, there was a significant difference in students' knowledge of collocations according to their writing abilities. Students showed better performance in the collocation test as their level of writing abilities increased. Third, there was a significant difference in students' use of collocations according to their writing abilities. Students' collocation use in the writing test increased as their level of writing abilities increased. Fourth, there was a strong relationship between the students' knowledge of collocations and their general English proficiency and between the students' use of collocations and their writing abilities. Pedagogical implications of the study and suggestions for further research were discussed on the basis of the research findings.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-16
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• 2011

Listening has been a neglected research area despite the crucial role it plays. The present investigation was aimed at examining how the provision of topical knowledge and learners' listening proficiency level affect learners' listening performance under four different preparatory activity conditions: topical knowledge, vocabulary list, language structure, and no activity. A total of 134 participants, assigned to the four different activity groups, took part in the study. The results revealed that the learners who were provided with topical knowledge before listening performed significantly better than the other learners, followed by the vocabulary list group and language structure group, which might be attributed to the activation of their content schemata. The learners who did not perform any preparatory activities achieved the lowest scores. When it comes to the impact of listening proficiency, it was revealed that learners' proficiency level had a significant influence on learners' listening performance, and there was a significant interaction between the learners' level of listening proficiency and preparatory activity. Providing relevant knowledge was effective for both higher level and lower level learners, whereas teaching vocabulary before listening was effective for higher level learners but was not for lower level ones. Based on the results, some pedagogical implications and suggestions for future research were discussed.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.9
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• pp.217-230
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• 2018

Proficiency-centered manufacturing environment of the past is now expanding into that focused on expertise and knowledge. So the paradigm shift about human resources and management of them is required to maintain competitiveness and run the organization in a stable way. Many studies have shown that in various fields job competence has a positive influence on job satisfaction, but researchers' point of view is limited only to proficiency. With a focus on this situation, this study has analyzed empirically the effect of job knowledge and proficiency on a turnover intention and its mediating effect of job satisfaction in S company whose manufacturing environment is changing fast. The analysis has shown that the job knowledge and proficiency have a positive effect on job satisfaction and that job satisfaction influences a turnover intention. It has an important meaning in that by estimating the relationship between employees' job knowledge and their turnover intention, this study is providing a basic data needed to manage job competence of manufacturing labor force.

• 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.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.50-67
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• 2020

This study investigated whether writing weekly listening logs could influence college English learners' metacognitive awareness and listening proficiency. In addition, the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) was applied to examine the learners' knowledge of their listening process. It is process-oriented research conducted by analyzing the MALQ and students' listening logs as to how their metacognitive awareness and listening proficiency have changed during the semester. Eighty-nine students who took an English listening practice course at a university participated in this study. The research findings are as follows. First, it turned out that there was a significant relationship between EFL university students' listening comprehension and some subscales of metacognitive awareness. Second, the students had an opportunity to reflect on learning through regular listening activities, and weekly listening logs, which included important information about listening process and practice. Third, as the students' listening proficiency increased at the end of the semester, it was found that introducing listening logs along with classroom lessons helped the students improve their listening ability. Finally, the high proficiency group students used multiple strategies simultaneously, regardless of the type of listening strategies, while the low proficiency group students used one or two limited listening strategies. However, the low proficiency group students may have had trouble expressing their ideas in English or recognizing the listening strategies they used, not because they did not use a lot of listening strategies. Therefore, teachers should regularly check if students are following their instructions and help them use appropriate strategies for better understanding.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.1-22
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• 2007

The study examined the effects of explicit derivational morphology instruction (henceforth DMI) on the incidental vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension of 132 Korean 1st-year high school students who responded to a battery of tests (two vocabulary tests and a reading comprehension test). Multiple statistical tools were used to analyze the data: Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA), Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Simple Regression Analysis, Tests of Simple Main Effects, and effect size computation using Cohen's d. The results indicated that (a) DMI enhanced students' ability to infer word meanings in context, (b) DMI promoted high proficiency students' reading comprehension, whereas it impeded intermediate proficiency students' reading comprehension, (c) vocabulary knowledge has a strong positive predictive value for reading comprehension, and (d) the gaps of vocabulary knowledge across proficiency levels were still substantial, despite the observation that DMI promoted students' vocabulary acquisition. These results have a bearing on English as Foreign Language (EFL) reading pedagogy.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aviation and Aeronautics
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.55-65
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• 2012

An airman licensing system is central to the establishment and management of a state's airman licensing which gives official privileges to a person to perform specific activities by evaluating applicant's knowledge and proficiency. In recent decades, the level of the domestic aviation industry continues to leap forward and state's airman licensing system has also been advanced. However, accidents caused by pilot human errors are still occurring. In particular, the pilot occupations require a lot of experience and knowledge and the student pilots receiving the initial flight training have formed their own flight habits based on knowledge, skill, training methods, procedures, etc learned from the flight instructor. This paper discusses possible ways on the improvement for the domestic flight instructor rating by analyzing domestic and international rules and procedures for a flight instructor rating.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.332-344
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• 2016

This study aimed at investigating the effects of grouping participants in pairs according to their relative vocabulary proficiency on the incidental improvement of vocabulary knowledge. Forty six university students were divided into three groups (high-high(n=14), high-low(n=18), or low-low(n=14)) and took part in the study. They performed three vocabulary activities in pairs as extra-class works. Data were collected from one receptive vocabulary knowledge test scores before treatment and two posttest scores after treatment. The results showed that, unlike former study results, HL dyads acquired more vocabulary receptively and productively than HH or LL dyads did, which demonstrated that collaborative pair activity was conducive to the growth of vocabulary knowledge. Furthermore, not only higher proficiency participants in HL pairs made greater vocabulary gains than participants in HH pairs did but also lower proficiency participants gained more vocabulary than participants in LL pairs did. Based on these results, we discussed pedagogical implications.