• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.367-402
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• 2017

The current study seeks to understand the multi-faceted desires of language learners through the theoretical lens of imagined communities (Norton, 2001). Particularly, the study focuses on the learners of Korean language-one of the less commonly taught languages in the U.S. that has received relatively less attention in previous literature on second language motivation. The study analyzed and compared the narratives told by eleven Korean language learners in a post-secondary language program, and identified four types of imagined communities: Communities of K-pop Culture, Communities of Professionals, Communities of Korean Family and Relatives, and Communities of ethnic Koreans. The study found that these imagined communities were not restricted to a specific region or an ethnic group but encompassed various populations connected through the use of Korean language. The study also found variability within what has been readily labelled as heritage motivation (or motivation related to heritage), as well as striking differences between heritage language learners and non-heritage language learners in terms of their scope of imagination.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.335-353
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to identify the characteristics and types of errors in the conceptual image of Korean language learners according to the types of terms in mathematics that are the basis for solving mathematical word problems, and to prepare basic data for effective teaching and learning methods in solving the word problems of Korean language learners. To do this, a case study was conducted targeting four Korean language learners to analyze the specific conceptual images of terms registered in curriculum and terms that were not registered in curriculum but used in textbooks. As a result of this study, first, it is necessary to guide Korean language learners by using sufficient visualization material so that they can form appropriate conceptual definitions for terms in school mathematics. Second, it is necessary to understand the specific relationship between the language used in the home of Korean language learners and the conceptual image of terms in school mathematics. Third, it is necessary to pay attention to the passive term, which has difficulty in understanding the meaning rather than the active term. Fourth, even for Korean language learners who do not have difficulties in daily communication, it is necessary to instruct them on everyday language that are not registered in the curriculum but used in math textbooks. Fifth, terms in school mathematics should be taught in consideration of the types of errors that reflect the linguistic characteristics of Korean language learners shown in the explanation of terms. This recognition is expected to be helpful in teaching word problem solving for Korean language learners with different linguistic backgrounds.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.161-182
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• 2010

The goals of this study were to identify differences in learners' and teachers' perspectives on EFL learners' language anxiety, to identify the differences among teachers coping with learners' language anxiety, and to find how learners cope with their language anxiety. The research was effectuated by means of a survey questionnaire and interviews. The data were collected from 92 teachers and 230 students in four different school settings. There were the $6^{th}$ grade 50 primary school learners, the $2^{nd}$ grade 60 middle school learners, the $11^{th}$ grade 60 high school learners of, and the $2^{nd}$ and $3^{rd}$ grade 60 university learners. There were also 26 primary school teachers, 22 middle school teachers, 21 high school teachers, and 23 university teachers. The findings reveal that there were differences in responses among the respondents. The findings suggest that teachers need to pay attention to their particular learners' anxiety sources: especially in the case of primary school setting, the activity of answering teachers' questions for teachers was the primary source of learner's anxiety, in the case of middle school settings, translating sentences in English into Korean, in the case of high school setting, checking unknown vocabulary, and in the case of university settings, university learners felt anxious when classmates spoke fluently. The implications of the study indicate that these aspects should be handled carefully to motivate certain group of learners.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.1-23
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• 2018

This paper investigates how adult Mandarin- and English- speaking learners of Korean perceive Korean vowels, with focus on the effect of the first language (L1) and the second language (L2) acoustic relationship, as well as the influence of Korean language experience. For this study, native Mandarin and Canadian English speakers who have learned Korean as a foreign language, as well as a control group of native Korean speakers, participated in two experiments. Experiment 1 was designed to examine acoustic similarities between Korean and English vowels, as well as Korean and Mandarin vowels to predict which Korean vowels are relatively easy, or difficult for L2 learners to perceive. The linear discriminant analysis (Klecka, 1980) based on their L1-L2 acoustic similarity predicted that L2 Mandarin learners would have perceptual difficulty rankings for Korean vowels as follows: (the easiest) /i, a, e/ >> /ɨ, ʌ, o, u/ (most difficult), whereas L2 English learners would have perceptual difficulty rankings for Korean vowels as follows: (the easiest) /i, a, e, ɨ, ʌ/ >> /o, u/ (most difficult). The goal of Experiment 2 was to test how accurately L2 Mandarin and English learners perceive Korean vowels /ɨ, ʌ, o, u/ which are considered to be difficult for L2 learners. The results of a mixed-effects logistic model revealed that English listeners showed higher identification accuracy for Korean vowels than Mandarin listeners, indicating that having a larger L1 vowel inventory than the L2 facilitates L2 vowel perception. However, both groups have the same ranking of Korean vowel perceptual difficulty: ɨ > ʌ > u > o. This finding indicates that adult learners of Korean can perceive the new vowel /ɨ/, which does not exist in their L1, more accurately than the vowel /o/, which is acoustically similar to vowels in their L1, suggesting that L2 learners are more likely to establish additional phonetic categories for new vowels. In terms of the influence of experience with L2, it was found that identification accuracy increases as Korean language experience rises. In other words, the more experienced English and Mandarin learners of Korean are, the more likely they are to have better identification accuracy in Korean vowels than less experienced learners of Korean. Moreover, there is no interaction between L1 background and L2 experience, showing that identification accuracy of Korean vowels is higher as Korean language experience increases regardless of their L1 background. Overall, these findings of the two experiments demonstrated that acoustic similarity between L1 and L2 sounds using the LDA model can partially predict perceptual difficulty in L2 acquisition, indicating that other factors such as perceptual similarity between L1 and L2, the merge of Korean /o/ and /u/ may also influence their Korean vowel perception.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.49-72
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to introduce an efficient measure in Korean language education for learners of Korean by applying shadowing techniques which focus on improving not only listening and speaking skills but also reading and writing skills. First of all, the study discusses about the definition of shadowing along with the effect of shadowing. The second part will be about examining the proposed method related to shadowing technique which is comprised of original shadowing techniques and other techniques transformed from the original. Thirdly, the paper will be discussing background information of the shadowing technique in previous researches and experiments using shadowing techniques in Korean language education. Finally, there will be an introduction of learning measures that apply to skill unification. Most of the previous researches of the shadowing technique were limited to a few students with only mid-to-high level learners while this method could cover up to a wide range of learners. The most effective way of learning a foreign language would firstly be the suggested method and the focus should be on repetition and practice of the learners.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.282-291
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• 2022

This research applies a pre-trained bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT) handwriting recognition model to predict foreign Korean-language learners' writing scores. A corpus of 586 answers to midterm and final exams written by foreign learners at the Intermediate 1 level was acquired and used for pre-training, resulting in consistent performance, even with small datasets. The test data were pre-processed and fine-tuned, and the results were calculated in the form of a score prediction. The difference between the prediction and actual score was then calculated. An accuracy of 95.8% was demonstrated, indicating that the prediction results were strong overall; hence, the tool is suitable for the automatic scoring of Korean written test answers, including grammatical errors, written by foreigners. These results are particularly meaningful in that the data included written language text produced by foreign learners, not native speakers.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.19-28
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• 2022

The current study was designed to explore whether taking English pronunciation classes could improve the realization of English rhythm by Korean learners of English. Specifically, this study used various rhythm metrics to examine the extent to which the learners' speech became rhythmically similar to the target language after taking classes that focused on English pronunciation. Sixteen learners who took a 15-week English pronunciation course at a university read an English passage twice (at the beginning and the end of the semester). The rhythm metrics such as Deltas, Varcos, and Pairwise Variability Indices were calculated for the learners' speech, as well as that of 8 native speakers of English. The results demonstrated that the learners' speech was slower, and they put more frequent within-sentence pauses than the native speakers even after the classes. The analyses also indicated that the speech recorded at the beginning of the semester was rhythmically much more different from the target language than at the end of the semester. After the classes, however, the learners' consonantal intervals became much more target-like, while the vocalic intervals were rhythmically even further from those in the target language. Overall, the findings suggested that the pronunciation classes helped the learners to produce English speech that was rhythmically similar to the native speakers.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.23-32
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• 2010

This study aimed at discovering whether Korean language learners who had never been exposed to Korean phones before could distinguish Korean phones and whether learners who had comparatively better ability of identifying phonetic differences displayed a better result in acquiring Korean phonemes. The study conducted two experiments on 25 learners. In Experiment I, an oddball test (ABX) was performed to investigate the learners' ability to discriminate Korean phones on the first day of the course. In Experiment II, an identification test was administered to analyze the ability of identifying Korean phones on the same learners after three weeks of language instruction. The results revealed that the true-beginner learners demonstrated different phonetic discrimination abilities, but these abilities did not seem to correlate with the rate of acquisition.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.129-150
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• 2009

This paper attempts to examine the effect of children's English stories on the development of Korean EFL primary school learners' listening and speaking competences and their motivation to learn English. This paper also discusses factors of English children's stories that make EFL learners' language learning efficient. Participants were 120 primary school students who attend one of the elementary schools in Chungnam province. They were randomly chosen and divided into two groups: experimental and control groups. In order to collect data, students' listening and speaking proficiency pre- and post-tests and the pre- and post-questionnaires regarding the participants' motivation to learn English were administered. The data were analyzed by ANOVA. The results indicate that the application of English children's stories to EFL learning settings can be an efficient way to improve EFL learners' listening and speaking competences and motivation to learn their target language. The findings of this study suggest that English children's stories provide language learners with interest, meaningful and authentic contexts and enjoyment. The pedagogical suggestion and implications are provided for EFL educators and teachers.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.33-60
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• 2004

This study was an attempt to present an appropriate way of interpreting L2 learners' linguistic behavior within Universal Grammar (UG) framework. Based on the Korean EFL adult learners' performance on the Subjacency violation sentences, the study suggested that the EFL learners are able to acquire subtle knowledge of target grammar and their linguistic behavior should be interpreted with the most recent version of UG theory, the Minimalist Program (MP) notion. The MP notion seems more plausible to accommodate incomplete L2 grammar while acknowledging UG-constrained interlanguage which the previous version, Principles and Parameters (P&P) approach, could not explain very well. The study observed no age-effects among the Korean EFL learners in their linguistic competence measured by the performance on the UG-constraint violation sentences. Having suggested that the MP notion can be a more reasonable tool to explain the EFL learners' linguistic behavior, the study introduced comprehensive hypotheses such as Constructionist Model (CM) and the Ontogeny Phylogeny Model (OPM).