• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.49 no.7
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• pp.51-66
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to review the current language level of children from multi-cultural background and whether the language level of these children would be increased after participating in the 'We Start Language Intervention Program'. The subjects were 30 36-75-month old children attending daycare centers in Ansan city, South Korea. The results showed that the receptive and expressive language levels of children from multi-cultural families were low compared to those of other children, and that their expressive language level was evaluated more negatively than their receptive language level. After participating in the 'We Start Language Intervention Program', language test scores, language age and language percentile rank were all increased. It was also found that the developmental language level of multi-cultural children increased, and that of the children that had a language delay or language disorder decreased.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.119-131
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• 2000

Three levels(high, medium, low) of maternal language were used to examine the ways in which mothers interact with their children while reading together. Eighty pairs of mothers and their children were observed in their homes. Findings were that mothers made increased use of high level language with increase in children's age and IQ. Mothers' use of high level language was greater for 6-year-olds than for 5-year-olds and use of low level language was greater for 5-year-olds than for 6-year-olds. The more educated mothers used a higher level of language while less educated mothers used a lower level of language. Mothers' use of low level language predicted lower reading ability in children.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.22
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• pp.303-327
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• 2011

This study aims to uncover the learner's language proficiency shown in the writing data of Chinese elementary/intermediate level learners. Language proficiency of the learners acquired by error analysis provides only partial information, and thus this study analyses the interlanguage of Korean learners in terms of 'Mean Length of Utterance, MLU' to discover the overall aspect of learner's language proficiency more symmetrically. The analysis of vocabulary area is to be enforced after generally studying the learner's language development aspect in accordance with MLU-m(orpheme) and MLU-(w)ord found in compositions by Chinese speaking Korean language learners. In terms of MLU, it has been slightly increased as the level of proficiency between elementary level and intermediate level learners; however, the morpheme seemed to be difficult to use, since the difference between Chinese learners and Korean university students has been notably shown. Vocabulary diversity, using aspect for each word class, and using aspect of the predicate are studied for vocabulary area; more various and numerous vocabulary tend to be used as the level of proficiency increases. In terms of predicate use, Chinese learners use less numerous vocabulary types.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.23-36
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• 2009

Relationships between immigrant mothers' Korean language ability and preschoolers' language development in multi-cultural families were studied with 91 mothers and their children. Language capacity of mothers and children was measured by receptive and expressive vocabulary test, sentence comprehension test and two kinds of reading tests. Results showed that mothers' level of comprehension was relatively low but their reading ability was higher than that of elementary school first-grade Korean students. Comprehension of children in multi-cultural families with non-immigrant counterparts showed a lower level of language ability. Mother's level of expressive vocabulary, receptive vocabulary and reading ability correlated with children's language development. These results indicate a relationship between children's delayed language development in multi-cultural families and mother's low proficiency in Korean language.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.19-34
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• 2002

This study explored the relationship between language and play of 42 infants(21 boys and 21 girls) from 13 months to 23 months old and examined how their maternal language and play were related to the infants' language and play. The play of infant-mother and maternal language were videotaped at home. The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory-Korean(MCDI-K; Fenson, 1991; Pae, 1993) was used to measure infant's language. The score of the infants' receptive language was higher than that of expressive language. Mean level of the infant's play was in the relational play, that is, he/she integrated two or more toys in an inappropriate manner during the play. There was no significant sex difference in the total language scores and in their play. The development of the infant's language was positively correlated with the infant's play level. The maternal language and play were positively correlated with the infant's language and play development.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.3-10
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• 2010

The present study aims to investigate neural activations according to the level of code switching in English proficient bilinguals and to find the relationship between the performance of language switching and proficiency level using ERPs (event-related potentials). First, when comparing high-proficient (HP) with low-proficient (LP) bilingual performance in a native language environment, the activation level of N2 was observed to be higher in the HP group than in the LP group, but only under two conditions: 1) the language switching (between-language) condition known as indexing attention of code switching and 2) the inhibition of current language for L1. Another effect of N400 can be shown in both groups only in the language non-switching (within-language) condition. This effect suggests that both groups completed the semantic acceptability task well in their native language environment without the burden of language switching, irrespective of high or low performance. The latencies of N400 are only about 100ms earlier in the HP group than in the LP group. This difference can be interpreted as facilitation of the given task. These results suggest that HP showed the differential activation in inhibitory system for L1 in switching condition of L1-to-L2 to be contrary to inactivation of inhibitory system for the LP group. Despite the absence of an N400 effect at the given task in both groups, differential latencies between the peaks were attributed to the differences of efficiency in semantic processing.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.41-50
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• 2012

This study was performed to understand the depression of children with hearing impairment with relation to their mothers' nurturing attitude and sign language level. The subjects were 131 hearing impaired children aged from 9 to 16 years and their mothers, who had no hearing impairments. The children's depression was assessed by CDI(Kovacs 1983) adapted by Cho and Lee(1990), and the maternal attitude was measured through the instrument developed by Oh and Lee(1982) and revised by Lim(1987). The results were as follows. First, the girls' depression was higher than the boys', and children in a dormitory type of school showed higher depression than those in a general type of school. Second, children's depression did not show differences according to mother-child communication methods but differed according to mothers' sign language level. Children whose mothers had high level of sign language showed the highest depression and those whose mothers had beginning level of sign language showed the lowest depression. And mothers' affective, goal- achieving and rational attitude were negatively related with children's depression. Third, the depression of hearing impairment children was influenced mainly by the maternal affective attitude, and the next order was the type of school the children attend.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.65-92
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• 2018

This study explored how a particular social media can be used to supplement elementary-level Korean language course in the US public university. The researchers administered a survey measuring students' patterns and habits of social media use. Based on the survey results, researchers designed six different types of learning materials and uploaded them regularly to Instagram throughout the semester. At the end of the semester, a survey was conducted to find out students' satisfactory level. From the 44 students' responses, the study found out that using Instagram 1) is more accessible to students than any other learning management system, 2) is fun and students are willing to participate, 3) increased the target language exposure and authentic language use, 4) increased interaction between teachers, students and even other native speakers, and 5) is helpful to improve listening and other language skills. The study closes with the suggestion for further experimental studies.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.808-817
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• 2016

This study aims at reviewing differences of awareness toward speech-language therapy according to background variables of child-care teachers, and establishing a basic data necessary for special education support programs afterwards based on child-care centers and its characteristics with the results. Researcher carried out a survey by objecting child-care teachers of Chungcheongbuk-do, Korea, and looked into existence of some differences through SPSS 20.0 for Window, independent sample t-Test, ANOVA, Scheffe post verification on background characteristics such as level of education, working career, license grade, whether or not to have objects of speech-language objects in the class. Research results are same as follows. First, significant differences in awareness of child-care teachers toward speech-language therapy appeared from license grade among characteristics like level of education, license grade, whether or not to have objects of speech-language therapy in the class. Second, significant differences were displayed from whether or not to have objects of speech-language therapy in the class among characteristics such as level of education, working career, license grade, and whether or not to have objects of speech-language therapy. When putting these results together, a conclusion could be made such like awareness of child-care teachers toward speech-language therapy and therapists is able to be different a little according to background variables of teachers.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.699-710
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• 2007

The study purposes to explore the effects of individual characteristics and home environments of children on their bilingual language aquisition, that is, to examine whether their English language competency is different from their Korean language competency depending on those variables. Thus English or Korean language competency of children who had had early exposure in English learning were studied in terms of child's individual characteristics such as age, gender, exposure period to English, intelligence, and experiences of visiting English-speaking countries, and home environments such as parental age, educational level, income level, their perceived English competency, their perceived significance of English and Korean language, and the frequency of using English at home. 72 children who went to English kindergarten were tested with Peabody Pictures Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) in Korean version and in English version respectively. The results show that child's intelligence and experiences of visiting English-speaking countries influence their Korean language competency. Also child's age, exposure period to English and experiences of visiting English-speaking countries influence their English language competency. Moreover their mother's educational background, father's English fluency, mothers' English fluency, and the frequency of using English at home influence child's English language competency, whereas any variables did not influence child's Korean language competency. Accordingly, child's English and Korean language competencies are related to each other.