• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.77-83
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• 2011

The present study reports the results of an acoustic study of nasal assimilation at word boundaries in Chinese-Korean interlanguage. Twelve Chinese learners of Korean and four Korean native speakers recorded obstruent#nasal sequences in noun compounds and verb phrases, and their different production patterns were examined in detail. While nasalization of the word-final obstruents occurred only in 11.7% of the obstruent#nasal sequences for the Chinese learners, the Korean native speakers showed complete nasalization of those sequences. However, there was small, but consistent effect of learning on the production of external sandhi in L2, because there were shown to be differences in the rate of nasalization between the two proficiency groups of Chinese participants. On average, the intermediate level learners nasalized the target stops at the rate of 16%, and the beginning level learners showed the 7% nasalization rate. In addition, it was found that the context difference such as noun compounds versus verb phrases does not influence the nasalization pattern across word boundaries.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.19-24
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• 2022

This study examined which acoustic cue(s) that Korean learners of English give weight to in perceiving English lexical stress. We manipulated segmental and suprasegmental cues in 5 steps in the first and second syllables of an English stress minimal pair "object". A total of 27 subjects (14 native speakers of English and 13 Korean L2 learners) participated in the English stress judgment task. The results revealed that native Korean listeners used the F0 and intensity cues in identifying English stress and weighted vowel quality most strongly, as native English listeners did. These results indicate that Korean learners' experience with these cues in L1 prosody can help them attend to these cues in their L2 perception. However, L2 learners' perceptual attention is not entirely predicted by their linguistic experience with specific acoustic cues in their native language.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.9 no.spc
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• pp.99-112
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• 2003

This study investigated how different types of formal instruction affect the second language looming of English grammatical structure among Korean high-school students. The linguistic focus of the study was English present perfect, which often creates learning problems for Korean learners of English. Subjects were divided into a control group and an experimental group (Enhanced group). The input the subjects in the experimental group received was manipulated by visually enhancing (with highlighting of the target structures in a reading text). Learners' awareness of the rules throughout the treatment period, as well as accuracy of target structures was measured. Results indicated that subjects in the Enhanced group showed higher performance than the control group. Further, awareness of rules that learners developed over the treatment period did not provide any advantage in learning.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.201-223
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to observe the effects of text modification by comparing differences in Korean reading comprehension levels that arise from differences in vocabulary levels in texts. This study intends to use simplified texts with the vocabulary difficulty adjusted differently from the original text to measure reading comprehension levels of Korean learners and analyze the result. To measure reading comprehension, the researcher divided 55 Korean learners of intermediate to advanced level of fluency into two groups; the control group read the original text and the treatment group read a simplified text in which complex vocabulary were substituted with easier words of medium difficulty. Then the two groups were tested with the same questionnaire to measure comprehension levels of each group. The result showed that the groups that read simplified texts scored higher than the control group; this suggests that the reading comprehension level was increased in the treatment group. The experiment confirmed that unknown vocabulary density has direct impact on Korean reading comprehension. The result shows that the proportion of unknown vocabulary should be reduced for meaning-focused reading. It also demonstrates that comprehension of the learner was enhanced with lexical simplification rather than structural simplification i.e. simplification of grammar or sentences. Thus, diverse reading materials adjusted to the learners' level of fluency should be developed to enable reading for learning Korean. By reducing the burden of understanding the meaning of each vocabulary, learners will be able to achieve the initial goal of reading.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.95-112
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• 2005

We investigate Korean learners' speech-timing of English before and after instruction in comparison with native speech, in an attempt to resolve disagreements in the literature as to whether speech-timing is measurable (Lehiste, 1977; Roach, 1982; Dauer, 1983 vs. Low et al., 2000; Yun 2002; Jian, 2004). We measured the pair-wise variability between the adjacent stressed and unstressed syllables within a foot as well as that among adjacent feet in approximately 555 English sentences, which were read by 29 native speakers and 41 Korean learners in the intermediate proficiency level. The results show that in comparison with native American English, Korean learner speech is before instruction significantly (p<.001) smaller for the pair-wise variability between the adjacent stressed and unstressed syllables within a foot; and significantly (p=.01) bigger for the variability among adjacent feet within the utterance. The learner speech after instruction showed significant (p=.01) improvement in the pair-wise variability of syllable sequence toward native speech values. The variability among adjacent feet was progressively smaller for learner speech before and after instruction and for native speech (p=.03). We thus conclude that the speech timing difference between Korean English and American English is measurable in terms of the duration. of stressed and unstressed syllables and that the latter is stress-timed and the former is syllable-timing interfered.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.193-206
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• 2011

The purpose of the study is to examine the use of emotion vocabulary by Korean English learners. Three basic emotion fields, pleasure, anger, and fear were selected to elicit the participants' responses. L1 English speakers' data was also collected for comparison. The major results are as follows. First, English learners responded with various inappropriate verb forms like I feel~, I am~ while the majority of English native speaking teachers responded with subjunctive forms like I would feel~. In addition, L2 English learners used mostly simple and coordination sentences. Second, the lexical richness, measured through type/token ratio, was higher in English L1 data than in English L2 data. The proportion of emotion lemmas reflects the lexical richness or the diversity of the emotion words. Lastly, L2 English learners' responses focused on a few typical adjectives like happy, angry and scared. This structural and semantic distinctiveness of Korean English learners' emotion words was discussed from pedagogical perspectives.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.443-454
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to reveal the Korean learners' usage pattern of '의', the genitive particle, according to semantic classification, so that it can be referred to in determining the contents and methods of related education. The method of this study adopts a quantitative analysis using learners corpus established by National Institute of Korean Language. As a result of the analysis, as proficiency increases, the overall frequency of '의' increases and the number of meaning senses used increases. However, the frequency of errors also increases with it. As for the usage pattern of each sense, the meaning of 'ownership, belonging' is the most frequent, and followed by 'acting entity', 'kinship, social relations', and 'relationship(area)'. In conclusion, the meanings of 'acting subjects' and 'relationships(area) need to be supplemented with explicit education. Other meanings need to be discussed, and decisions should be made in consideration of learning purpose and proficiency.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.9 no.11
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• pp.315-324
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• 2018

For Korean learners, writing is a harder part than any other areas in Korean languages. But in the future, the ability to organize and write systematically is essential for future koran languages learners to take classes, do assignments and presentations at school, and then adapt to job situations. Therefore, there is a need to devise a direction for this. In general, writing characteristics are viewed in many ways, including writing productivity, writing complexity, and writing errors. Accordingly, the study provided drawings and A4 paper for Vietnamese Korean learners, Chinese Korean learners, and Korean university students, before writing freely. Based on the their writing results, we looked at syntax factors (total C-units, total number of words), syntax complexity (number of words per C-unit and clause density), and writing errors (postposition, spell errors, and connective suffix, space errors) According to the study, Vietnamese and Chinese Korean language learners showed significantly lower syntax productivity and complexity than Korean university students, and showed more writing errors than Korean students in postposition and clause density. Based on the results of the study, we discussed writing guidelines for Korean languages learners. However, this study did not validate the differences in writing characteristics according to the Korean language level and length of residences for the study subjects. Therefore, it is necessary to consider this in future research.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.31-38
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• 2016

The purpose of the current study was to examine the acquisition of the second language prosody by Korean learners of English. Specifically, this study investigated Korean learners' patterns of prosodic phrasing and their use of edge tones (i.e., phrase accents and boundary tones) in English, and then compared the patterns with those of native English speakers. Eight Korean learners and 8 native speakers of English read 5 different English passages. Both groups' patterns of tones and prosodic phrasing were analyzed using the Mainstream American English Tones and Break Indices (MAE_ToBI) transcription conventions. The results indicated that the Korean learners chunked their speech into prosodic phrases more frequently than the native speakers did. This frequent prosodic phrasing pattern was especially noticeable in sentence-internal prosodic phrases, often where there was no punctuation mark. Tonal analyses revealed that the Korean learners put significantly more High phrase accents (H-) on their sentence-internal intermediate phrase boundaries than the native speakers of English. In addition, compared with the native speakers, the Korean learners used significantly more High boundary tones (both H-H% and L-H%) for the sentence-internal intonational phrases, while they used similar proportion of High boundary tones for the sentence-final intonational phrases. Overall, the results suggested that Korean learners of English successfully acquired the meanings and functions of prosodic phrasing and edge tones in English as well as that they are able to efficiently use these prosodic features to convey their own discourse intention.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.149-155
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• 2023

Since developing digital technology requires new skills in digital literacy, digital competence also has become a keystone in English classes. This study explores three aspects of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' digital confidence: information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, and digital content creation, based on the European Digital Competence Framework for Citizens (DigComp). The participants were 150 Korean college students enrolled in two general English classes, and their English proficiency levels were from basic to advanced; each level consisted of 30 participants. In order to assess their digital confidence, I designed a Google survey form and collected data during two semesters. The survey results revealed that the participants had highest digital confidence in information and data literacy and overall, the female participants showed higher digital confidence than their male counterparts. It also showed that the learners' English proficiency and computer skills are important factors.