• Journal of English Language & Literature
• /
• v.55 no.5
• /
• pp.821-841
• /
• 2009

This paper explores the ways to reshape humanistic values of the curriculum of the English department of Korean universities. The English curricula are usually composed of three fields of literary studies, general education, and English proficiency, whose conventional humanistic values have been currently dwindling. As for literary studies, teaching literature still hovers over the canonical works of past decades, not allowing students to access the canon with their own ideas and ending up with authoritative monologues. The general education field leans toward edited texts rather than authentic ones, which ignores a genuine path of communication between the author and its readers. Subjects for English proficiency such as "TOEIC" tend to be taught online with no teacher's presence for the nominal purpose of optimizing economic efficiency in teaching. All these testify to the attenuation of humanistic values in the curriculum, which motivates us to suggest some ways to reshape the values. Authoritative monologue in teaching literature can be shifted to the open-ended conversation by using role-play methods as well as accepting extra-canonical works into the curriculum. Authentic texts for general education prove to be preferred by students with the successful result of our experiment. Lastly, it is teacher's presence in the class that helps get higher achievement of "TOEIC" than some online classes. As suggested above, open-ended conversation, wider communication between author and readers, and human presence of the class will help reshape humanistic values in the English curriculum.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.17 no.3
• /
• pp.537-543
• /
• 2016

This paper suggests a class model to improve the English oral proficiency for intermediate low English speaking learners. Utilizing the four English skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking), the class model focuses on the learners' schema and discussion strategies. To enhance the learners' motivation and match their cognitive capacity, 10 discussion topics were prepared by surveying the learners. A pilot experiment was conducted to investigate the teaching effects of the discussion class model with 26 college students majoring in English in Seoul. The participants' oral proficiency was measured both before, and after the instructions by OPIc (Oral Proficiency Interview in computer). As a result of the experiment, the percentage of participants whose oral proficiency levels were lower than intermediate mid decreased from 82% to 47%. In addition, the percentage of participants with higher oral proficiency than intermediate low was increased dramatically from 18% to 53%, which supports the claim that through discussion, the class learners' diverse and creative ideas need to be expressed in a formal and intelligible language. Finally, through the findings of the study, the possibility of a discussion class can be expected, regardless of the learners' low level of oral proficiency.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.7 no.1
• /
• pp.67-89
• /
• 2001

This paper is to introduce assorted features of a four-week English Immersion Program managed by Hongik English Language Institute for the first time in summer 2000. The program was aimed to provide English learners with the English simulation environment where everything was supposed to be English only. Thus being exposed exclusively to the English surroundings the clock around, the learners who had not had enough opportunities to use the language were able to attain a high motivation for speaking English, which eventually led to the increase of their general English language proficiency. Presenting merits and demerits of the curriculum and the overall management of the program, this paper plays a role in directing the program in a more improved way for the future and giving guidelines to other institutes where similar programs are under consideration.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.77-102
• /
• 2002

Factors affecting foreign language learning task are diverse in nature due to the different social and cultural backgrounds so that learners have to somehow use strategies and expressions to adjust diverse factors to their learning environments. The main purpose of this paper is to show how important NNS vs. NNs interaction through CCDL can be in their enhancement of English proficiency by giving examples from their chatting conversation(written conversation) data collected for over two semesters. Chatting as a means of synchronous communication interaction between students from two different cultural backgrounds can act as a predictor of foreign language achievement. Chatting and Telemeet activities have their own advantages in enhancing communicative competence when learning English. By engaging in these synchronous communication activities learners of English from different cultural backgrounds can acquire unique strategies and expressions from which they learn from each other. In short, this study advocates the importance of strategies and patterns foreign language learners can acquire from interaction among culturally different peer groups.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.19
• /
• pp.313-338
• /
• 2010

Attitudes toward target language culture and motivation have been known as important factors in second or foreign language learning. In this study, cadets' attitudes toward the target language community and culture were investigated to find out any relationships with English achievement. Integrative or instrumental motivation in foreign military context was investigated to determine which motivation was more positively related to English proficiency. Cadets' responses were shown highly positive and internally consistent in most cases. Military cadets' attitudes toward American culture were statistically significant and could predict their English achievement. Even though integrative motivation was statistically significant, correlation with English achievement was low. However, instrumental motivation was not significant. This result implies that attitudes toward culture is an important factor in foreign language learning and integrative-instrumental motivation dichotomy might not be enough to explain specific context like cadets' English learning situation at Korea Army Academy at Youngcheon.

• East Asian mathematical journal
• /
• v.40 no.4
• /
• pp.475-506
• /
• 2024

This study aims to develop AI mathematics teaching and learning materials for high school students using interactive AI (ChatGPT). The selected topics include text representation, classification, and prediction related to natural language processing, which are key contents of the 'AI Mathematics' curriculum. Python programming language and ChatGPT are employed as educational tools, with Python being accessible through Google Colab. The developed teaching and learning materials are structured into six block sessions, designed to leverage ChatGPT's language proficiency, information provision, creativity, and programming capabilities. Specifically, students sequentially experience code inspection, improvement, explanation, and generation using ChatGPT's programming abilities, culminating in creating their own chatbot program code. The application of these teaching and learning materials resulted in the participating high school sophomores understanding the principles of chatbots using natural language processing and the mathematical aspects within AI technology. The students exhibited positive responses toward using ChatGPT and Python. This suggests that classes utilizing ChatGPT can enhance students' interest and engagement in AI technology, mathematics, and related tools.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.93-114
• /
• 2011

The aim of this study is twofold. First, this study aimed to explore how Korean university students' English learning motivation is related to their English listening proficiency and study time. Second, it attempted to interpret the English learning motivation linking the two different motivation theories: self-determination theory and L2 motivational self system. The constructs of the students' L2 learning motivation were investigated with the data obtained through the questionnaire from 122 sophomore students. A factor analysis was conducted to extract the major factors of motivation. As a result, 6 factors were extracted: Intrinsic Pleasure, Identified Value Regulation, Intrinsic Accomplishment, Introjected Regulation, External Regulation, and Identified Regulation. The Interrelatedness among the assessment results on the L2 listening proficiency (pre and post test), listening study time, and motivation factors was measured by correlation coefficients. The statistical results indicated that pre-test scores were significantly related to Identified Regulation and Identified Value Regulation toward English learning, and post-test results had significant correlation with Intrinsic Accomplishment and Identified Regulation. However, no motivation subtypes showed statistical association with the students' listening study time. The results were attempted to be interpreted both under L2 motivational self system and self-determination framework to better illuminate the motivation theory with more explanatory power.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.11 no.4
• /
• pp.287-304
• /
• 2005

Since Air and Correspondence High School (ACHS) in Korea was established in 1974, it has been serving many people who couldn't take the opportunities for learning in the regular high school due to several reasons. Regardless of the rapid change in technologies and educational needs during the past 31 years, however, ACHS hasn't changed much. Concerns have been recently made about the validity of the unchanged school system and many issues have been discussed relating to the innovation of the school system. Focusing on the teaching and learning contents, one of the important issues with respect to the school system, this paper examines the 7th English Curriculum for ACHS. The paper also investigates the textbooks used in ACHS to see how closely they align with the students' English proficiency and ACHS' instructional method by employing McDonough and Shaw's(1993) framework for textbook analysis. The results revealed that the current curriculum does not sufficiently reflect ACHS's characteristics, which leads to the adoption and development of inappropriate textbooks in terms of overall coherence, proficiency level, etc. The results suggest that the development of the curriculum and textbooks for ACHS should be based upon the students' needs and their level of proficiency rather than depending on the national curriculum and government-authorized textbooks intended for the relatively homogeneous school-age learners.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.177-197
• /
• 2009

This study investigated the effects of dictation practice, in terms of listening proficiency and the use of listening strategy. The research was implemented for 15 weeks with 89 freshmen and sophomores at a Korean university. The subjects were divided into an experimental group and a control group. All conditions were the same in both groups, except that the experimental group had dictation practice on a regular basis in their listening classes through one semester. For the purpose of the study, two research questions were set; 1) Does dictation practice improve listening proficiency? 2) What are the differences in the use of listening strategies between the two groups? Does dictation practice make the participants use different listening strategies? A sample TOEIC listening test was conducted as a pre-test and post-test. A questionnaire was used to find out the differences in the use of listening strategies between the two groups. The results of this study reveal that there was no statistically difference in improvement between the two groups; however, the experimental group scored much higher on the post-test than the pre-test compared with the control group. In regard to listening strategies, among 6 listening strategies, the use of metacognitive listening strategies had a significant difference between the two groups. On the basis of the results, the study suggested some guidelines for dictation practice in EFL listening classes and called for more studies on its effects.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.153-171
• /
• 2003

The scores of TOEFL, TOEIC, and TEPS have been increasingly used for many purposes in Korea. In particular, these test scores are being used as a predictor for determining readiness for and success in college work, or as a measure of the testees' overall English proficiency. Nonetheless, studies have rarely proposed that the validity of the test scores is used for either purpose. As a preliminary step to explore the predictive validity of the test scores, we collected the scores of TOEFL, TOEIC, and TEPS from thirty students of a university as well as their cumulative grade point averages (GPAs). The correlations between the test scores and GPAs show that TOEFL will be most likely to have the highest validity coefficient as a predictor for determining success in college work as well as a measure of overall English proficiency. Although this study has a few limitations such as the small number of participants, their homogeneousness as a group, etc., it provides some insight into the use of the three tests for college admissions and measurement of overall English proficiency and suggests need for conducting further validation studies in these areas.