• 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.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.9 no.spc
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• pp.79-98
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• 2003

This article reports that a testee's content schemata have detrimental effects on the validity of standardized reading comprehension tests. in case that the reading passages constitute his prior background knowledge framed by regular academic pursuits focused on a major field of study. The empirical research findings on such a reliability issue have shown that the Korean subjects' familiarity with the content domain of the reading materials may substantially enhance their test performance, operated as unfair advantages over the other participants at the same level of English proficiency who do not possess technical knowledge closely related to the contents of the test passages. Based on these results, it may be argued that the reading text should be composed of maximally neutral contents to every testee to avoid the possible overlapping between a test-taker's content schemata and the content domain of the materials. Therefore, this article claims that the tenets of schema theory with its long-standing foundation on culturally predetermined content and formal schemata need to be expanded to cover professional knowledge structures, like those acquired by higher education, as the hard-wired framework of an individual's original culture-specific background knowledge.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.391-411
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of culture teaching and using web sites as a method of culture teaching in college English education. To achieve these purposes, a web-based culture teaching-learning model was developed and applied in English classes. Then, the effects were compared with those of a culture teaching method which were based on the traditional verbal explanation. As the tools for this study, two test sheets were used to measure language proficiency and American cultural knowledge. Focusing on the study results, the conclusions were summed up as follows: First, for enhancing the American cultural knowledge, using the web was found to be more effective than traditional verbal explanations. Second, for English language enhancement through web-based culture teaching, it is necessary to do it for each level of English proficiency or develop web sites which fit well with students' interests or levels.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.597-610
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to inquiry of influence of Meister high school and specialized vocational high school' students on career maturity in problem solving ability domain of test for enhanced employ ability & upgraded proficiency. Research subjects and region were sophomore students of each one of Meister high schools and specialized vocational high schools in Gwangju region. The sample(N=481) was drawn from 2 high schools and collected data were analyzed with SPSS using t-test, Pearson correlation and Levene's test. Items of problem solving ability domain of test for enhanced employ ability & upgraded proficiency were used test items developed in 2012. Career maturity test in Careernet site was used test items developed in 2001 which was made up 3 domains such as attitude, ability and action and 8 sub-regions such as planning, attitude on the vocation, independence, self-understanding, rational decision-making, explore of information, knowledge of hope vocation and career exploration and preparation of action, and constituted 64 items. The results were as follows. Findings of the analysis in specialized vocational high school students demonstrated the positive results of rational decision-making and explore of information in problem solving ability test for enhanced employ ability & upgraded proficiency. Comparing career maturity influence on Meister high school with specialized vocational high school students about problem solving ability domain of test for enhanced employ ability & upgraded proficiency, Meister high school students' score were more high grade than specialized vocational high school students grade.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.1-13
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• 2020

Objectives : The objective of this survey was to examine students' perception of the clinical performance examination (CPX) in college of traditional Korean medicine using student standardized patients. Methods : College of traditional Korean medicine students who completed the first-semester clinical practice education were selected as the subjects, and they participated in a survey asking questions about the following matters: satisfaction with CPX, self-evaluation, difficulties experienced during the CPX course, level of prior knowledge of clinical practice education, and usefulness of and intimacy with Student Standardized Patients (SSP). Results : Satisfaction with CPX was calculated to be 4.10 (5 being the perfect score), and self-evaluation of CPX was calculated to be 4.12. The subjects chose physical examination as the most difficult item relating to CPX. 80.5% responded positively to the question relating to diverse experiences in practice education, and 52.8% responded positively to the question relating to prior knowledge of diverse standardized patients. 55.6% responded positively to the question relating to performance proficiency of SSP, 63.9% responded positively to the question relating to usefulness of SSP to prepare for CPX, and 69.4% responded positively to the question relating to usefulness of SSP in evaluating CPX, and 55.6% responded positively to the questions relating to intimacy with SSP. It was confirmed that there was a strong quantitative correlation between prior knowledge of clinical practice education and usefulness of SSP, and that there was a strong quantitative correlation between performance proficiency of SSP and usefulness of SSP. It was confirmed that there was a middle-level correlation between performance proficiency of SSP and intimacy with SSP, and that there was a middle-level quantitative correlation between intimacy with SSP and usefulness of SSP. Conclusions : It was confirmed that senior students enrolled in college of traditional Korean medicine were mostly satisfied with the clinical performance examination in college of traditional Korean medicine using SSP, and that usefulness of SSP had a quantitative correlation with prior knowledge of diverse clinical practice educations, performance proficiency of SSP, and intimacy with SSP.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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• 1993.06a
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• pp.1155-1158
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• 1993

Proficiency in creating a knowledge base is required for high accuracy fuzzy control. To overcome this a fuzzy inference method is proposed that take these membership functions from the probability densities showing the distribution of the mesurement values. And a method using a rough fuzzy knowledge base automatically created from the basic measurement data and tuned using the gradient method is proposed. In actual tests, these were applied to automatic high accuracy adjustment devices for magnetic head and for high frequency circuits with good results.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.875-881
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• 2011

This study examined factors influencing college science learning from the perspectives of college students and high school science teachers. Using a survey created based on focus group interviews, college science majors and high school science teachers rated various factors of high school learning that positively influenced college science learning. Findings suggested that the perceptions differed by college major: the physics major students considered math proficiency and logical thinking skills as the important factors; chemistry major students and biology major students considered English proficiency and basic scientific knowledge as the most important factors. Both college students and science teachers emphasized basic science knowledge and math proficiency. However, differences between the two groups were also found in that the students perceived more need to learn about experimentation than the teachers whereas the teachers had a priority in increasing advanced science content.

• International journal of advanced smart convergence
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.121-127
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• 2018

This paper develops and builds an Integrated Assessment System for National Competency Standard Professional Basic. The integrated evaluation system for basic job competency in the National Competency Standards is developed to conduct examination by means of computers, smartphones and tablet PCs. The system can be used for the basic job competency test, examination for online cyber universities, job competency examination for enterprises, and the listening, reading, and speaking test in the foreign language proficiency examination and is even better in terms of facility investment and saved operating costs as well as efficient use of spaces in comparison with conventional evaluation schemes. Even greater synergy effects can be achieved by providing support for the integrated evaluation system for basic job competency in connection with the NCS qualification system. The evaluation system has been tested and practiced at a specialized high school and can be applied to the NCS education evaluation of the college and four-year college and to the selection examination of new employees of the company.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.207-221
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• 2012

This study examines the importance of learning language and cultural integration in general English class focused on TOEIC reading comprehension. The understanding of cultural learning and learners' cultural awareness has long been a subject of debate. This study was not only to analyze the improvement of students' interest and reading comprehension ability of TOEIC through cultural learning, but also to ensure students who learn American culture overcome cross-cultural miscommunication and improve their English reading comprehension skills. Pre-post surveys and the pre-post TOEIC tests were used to measure language proficiency and American cultural knowledge to two groups: the experimental and control group. The results from the study were as follows: First, students had better TOEIC scores with improved motivation after understanding American culture relevant to the lessons. Second, reading comprehension skills with regards to TOEIC also improved, compared with the students who were not exposed to American culture due to lack of opportunity.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.31-68
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• 2006

The present research investigates the acquisition of the English locative alternation by Korean EFL learners, which poses a learnability paradox, taking Pinker's framework of learnability theory as its basis. It addresses two questions (1) how lexical knowledge is represented initially and at different levels of interlanguage development and (2) what kinds of difficulty Korean learners find in the acquisition of English locative verbs and their constructions. Three groups of learners at different proficiency levels with a control group of English native speakers are examined by two instruments: elicited production task and grammaticality judgment task. According to different levels of proficiency, the learners exhibit gradual sensitivity to a change-of-state meaning and obtain complete perception of the meanings of locative verbs (manner-of-motion and change-of-state) and their constructions. Overgeneralization errors are observed in their performance. The errors are due to misinterpretations of particular lexical items in conjunction with the universal linking rules. More fundamental cause of difficulty is accounted for by partial use of learning mechanisms, caused by insufficient L2 input.