• Title/Summary/Keyword: Language proficiency

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Constructing a Support Vector Machine for Localization on a Low-End Cluster Sensor Network (로우엔드 클러스터 센서 네트워크에서 위치 측정을 위한 지지 벡터 머신)

  • Moon, Sangook
    • Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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    • v.18 no.12
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    • pp.2885-2890
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    • 2014
  • Localization of a sensor network node using machine learning has been recently studied. It is easy for Support vector machines algorithm to implement in high level language enabling parallelism. Raspberrypi is a linux system which can be used as a sensor node. Pi can be used to construct IP based Hadoop clusters. In this paper, we realized Support vector machine using python language and built a sensor network cluster with 5 Pi's. We also established a Hadoop software framework to employ MapReduce mechanism. In our experiment, we implemented the test sensor network with a variety of parameters and examined based on proficiency, resource evaluation, and processing time. The experimentation showed that with more execution power and memory volume, Pi could be appropriate for a member node of the cluster, accomplishing precise classification for sensor localization using machine learning.

Teaching English Prosody through English Poems with Cloned Native Intonation (프랏을 이용한 영시 운율 교육)

  • Yoon, Kyuchul;Oh, Ji-Yeon;Ahn, Sang-Cheol
    • Journal of English Language & Literature
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    • v.56 no.4
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    • pp.753-772
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    • 2010
  • The purpose of this work is to examine the viability of employing the prosody cloning technique in teaching English prosody. Ten native speakers of Korean high school students with similar level of English proficiency participated in the poem self-study experiment. Five of them were grouped into the experimental group and the remaining five into the control group. One popular English poem from a high school textbook was selected and its recording by a professional native speaker of English was used in the experiment. The members of the two groups made a recording of the poem both before and after the experiment. For the study material, the experimental group used their own recorded utterances with their prosody cloned from the professional English speaker, while the control group used the utterances of the professional speaker alone. The acoustic analysis of the recordings by the prosodic foot both before and after the experiment showed that the experimental group performed slightly better than the control group in the realization of the intensity contour of the poem. There were no significant differences in the realization of the intonation contour and segmental durations between the two groups. The recording after the experiment was also subjectively evaluated by a native speaker of English and the scores for the experimental group were slightly higher than the control group. These findings suggest that the use of English poems with the help of the prosody cloning technique is a potentially viable approach to teaching English intonation to high school students. A long-term study with more students is necessary.

Topic-oriented Liberal English Class Plan for Foreign Learners at University (대학생 외국인 학습자를 위한 주제 중심의 교양 영어 수업방안)

  • Kim Hye-Jeong
    • The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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    • v.9 no.5
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    • pp.111-117
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    • 2023
  • The aim of this study is to present a practical teaching plan for liberal arts English classes that target foreign students. Foreign learners who do not have Korean language proficiency at the university level may struggle to understand the contents of liberal arts classes conducted by Korean language professors. In this study, six topics were selected (K-culture, Online game, Harry Potter, Disney, Marvel, DC) and topic-centered participatory class activities using various media were developed. A questionnaire was conducted to analyze learners' attitudes toward and perceptions regarding topic-oriented classes. It showed that learners' satisfaction with topic-based classes was high (75%), and the reasons for this high level of satisfaction were the instructors' caring attitudes, the comfortable class atmosphere, and the fun learners had in class. Learners also reported high satisfaction with various participatory class activities (81.9%), citing the learning benefits, their increased interest and motivation, and the efficiency of participatory classes. As globalization continues to increase the number of foreign students in South Korea, the need to develop realistic class plans and various class activities that are suitable for them is becoming more and more urgent.

Evaluating ChatGPT's Competency in BIM Related Knowledge via the Korean BIM Expertise Exam (BIM 운용 전문가 시험을 통한 ChatGPT의 BIM 분야 전문 지식 수준 평가)

  • Choi, Jiwon;Koo, Bonsang;Yu, Youngsu;Jeong, Yujeong;Ham, Namhyuk
    • Journal of KIBIM
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    • v.13 no.3
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    • pp.21-29
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    • 2023
  • ChatGPT, a chatbot based on GPT large language models, has gained immense popularity among the general public as well as domain professionals. To assess its proficiency in specialized fields, ChatGPT was tested on mainstream exams like the bar exam and medical licensing tests. This study evaluated ChatGPT's ability to answer questions related to Building Information Modeling (BIM) by testing it on Korea's BIM expertise exam, focusing primarily on multiple-choice problems. Both GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 were tested by prompting them to provide the correct answers to three years' worth of exams, totaling 150 questions. The results showed that both versions passed the test with average scores of 68 and 85, respectively. GPT-4 performed particularly well in categories related to 'BIM software' and 'Smart Construction technology'. However, it did not fare well in 'BIM applications'. Both versions were more proficient with short-answer choices than with sentence-length answers. Additionally, GPT-4 struggled with questions related to BIM policies and regulations specific to the Korean industry. Such limitations might be addressed by using tools like LangChain, which allow for feeding domain-specific documents to customize ChatGPT's responses. These advancements are anticipated to enhance ChatGPT's utility as a virtual assistant for BIM education and modeling automation.

Development of a Health Literacy Assessment Scale for Asian Immigrant Women in South Korea (결혼이주여성의 건강문해력 측정도구 개발)

  • An, Jisook;Yang, Sook Ja
    • Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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    • v.26 no.4
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    • pp.330-341
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    • 2015
  • Purpose: This study developed a self-report measure for easy assessing of the health literacy of Asian immigrant women in South Korea. Methods: After a literature review, focus group interviews, and content validity evaluation, 14 preliminary items were generated. These were translated into Chinese, Vietnamese, and English. Data were collected from 229 Asian immigrant women. Validity and reliability tests were conducted. Results: Factor analysis yielded final 10 items in three factors: primary functional and interactive health literacy, secondary functional and interactive health literacy, and critical health literacy, which explained 61.90% of the total variance of health literacy. In known-group comparisons, health literacy was significantly lower in recent immigrants, those with a low education level, and those with low Korean language proficiency. For convergent validity, health literacy was positively associated with health specific self-efficacy and maternal health knowledge. For criterion-related validity, health literacy was positively associated with the REALM-SF. The overall reliability coefficient (Cronbach's ${\alpha}$) of the instrument was .773. Conclusion: The Health Literacy Assessment Scale for Asian Immigrant Women (HLAS) represents a multidimensional construct which encompasses functional, interactive, and critical health literacy. This self-report HLAS can be a useful and convenient method for appraising the health literacy of Asian immigrant women.

A Korean Elementary School EFL Teacher's Implementation of Teacher-Based Assessment

  • Kang, Dae-Min
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.17 no.2
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    • pp.19-37
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    • 2011
  • This study examines a Korean elementary school EFL teacher's practice of teacher-based assessment (TBA), a subject which has been little researched despite the authorities' strong call for its implementation. The classroom interactions for TBA were observed and audio-recorded in eight fifth-grade classes between March and June 2010. Additionally, the teacher and students were interviewed in a semi-structured way. The results showed that the teacher used three types of TBA: assessment of individual students on different topics, assessment of the entire class on the same topic, and assessment of individual students on the same topic. Due mainly to time constraints during class time and classroom management issues, the teacher preferred implementing the first two types of TBA. During the practice of the types, the teacher provided prompts or posed questions in ways that elicited responses which were short in length and easy. Although the third type of TBA was perceived by both the teacher and students as helping students enhance their EFL proficiency and was the most favored by the students, it was viewed by the teacher as having the potential of causing classroom management difficulties. Based on the findings, a number of implications are suggested.

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Incorporating Oral Corrective Feedback into the Business English Writing Class

  • Kim, Bu-Ja
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.17 no.3
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    • pp.73-98
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    • 2011
  • This study investigated the feasibility and effectiveness of incorporating oral corrective feedback into the content-based business English writing class. Two types of oral corrective feedback, recasts and metalinguistic feedback, were integrated into business English writing classes to help low intermediate-proficiency Korean university students improve the ability to use the simple past, present progressive, and present perfect tenses correctly in their written production. Prior to the treatments, the subjects had basic grammatical knowledge of the target verb tenses, but they had only limited control over them in their written production. Three groups were formed: recast group that received corrective recasting, metalinguistic group that received metalinguistic clues, and control group that received no oral corrective feedback. The study demonstrated that it was feasible to incorporate recasts and metalinguistic feedback into content-based business English writing classes and that metalinguistic feedback had greater and more endurable effects than recasts on promoting the correct use of the target verb tenses in written production. It can be concluded that oral corrective feedback, metalinguistic feedback in particular, can be used in the business English writing classroom to help students gain greater control over already partially acquired forms and therefore improve their writing accuracy.

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Modality in Korean Learners' Spoken Interlanguage

  • Park, Hyeson
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.18 no.1
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    • pp.197-216
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    • 2012
  • This study examines spoken interlanguage of Korean learners of English, focusing on the distribution of modal verbs and devices of epistemic modality. (Semi-) spontaneous speech data were collected from four students participating in a self-organized study group for seven months, which produced a corpus of about 55,000 words. The data analysis reveals the following: 1) The frequency of the modal verbs produced by the learners was lower than that of native speakers; 1.99 vs. 2.32 tokens per 100 words. The range of the modal verbs used by the learners was also very limited, with over-reliance on can (43%). 2) The grammatical categories of the devices marking epistemic modality were in the order of adverbs, lexical verbs, and modal verbs, with a high frequency of a few items in each category. 3) Lexical items conveying certainty and modals of obligation were preferred over markers of weaker commitment, resulting in speech characterized by firmer assertions and a more authoritative tone, a potential cause for pragmatic failure. 4) A weak developmental change was observed in the frequency of modal verbs, but not in their functions over the seven month period of data collection. L1 influence, L2 proficiency, mode of communication, and instruction effects are discussed as possible variables involved in the distribution patterns observed.

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The effect of L2 experience on perception of Korean nasals

  • Yoo, Juyeon;Kang, Seokhan
    • Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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    • v.8 no.4
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    • pp.63-69
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    • 2016
  • Twenty five English native speakers with two different L2 experienced groups and nineteen native Koreans heard both Korean word-initial nasals (/m/ and /n/) in three vowel contexts (low, mid, and high) produced by a native Korean speaker. The experiment examined the hypothesis that Korean nasals are more likely to be judged or perceived correctly by the L2-experienced English learners of Korean than the unexperienced counterparts. The result showed that L2 experienced group was more sensitive to effects of vowel height in judging the Korean nasals in which the perception of nasals before the high vowels was more subject to it. In addition, place of nasal articulation causes asymmetry relations - bilabial nasal /m/ is more likely to be perceived as plosives rather than alveolar nasal /n/. The study found that the L2 experience has a somewhat limited role in perceiving the nasals correctly in the word-initial position, especially before the high vowels, in that even the L2 experienced English subjects have difficulty in identifying the Korean nasals correctly in this environment. Nevertheless, low L2 proficiency might be accounted for the difficulty in the bilabial nasal identification observed by the L2 experienced group.

The interlanguage Speech Intelligibility Benefit for Korean Learners of English: Production of English Front Vowels

  • Han, Jeong-Im;Choi, Tae-Hwan;Lim, In-Jae;Lee, Joo-Kyeong
    • Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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    • v.3 no.2
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    • pp.53-61
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    • 2011
  • The present work is a follow-up study to that of Han, Choi, Lim and Lee (2011), where an asymmetry in the source segments eliciting the interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit (ISIB) was found such that the vowels which did not match any vowel of the Korean language were likely to elicit more ISIB than matched vowels. In order to identify the source of the stronger ISIB in non-matched vowels, acoustic analyses of the stimuli were performed. Two pairs of English front vowels [i] vs. [I], and $[{\varepsilon}]$ vs. $[{\ae}]$ were recorded by English native talkers and two groups of Korean learners according to their English proficiency, and then their vowel duration and the frequencies of the first two formants (F1, F2) were measured. The results demonstrated that the non-matched vowels such as [I], and $[{\ae}]$ produced by Korean talkers seemed to show more deviated acoustic characteristics from those of the natives, with longer duration and with closer formant values to the matched vowels, [i] and $[{\varepsilon}]$, than those of the English natives. Combining the results of acoustic measurements in the present study and those of word identification in Han et al. (2011), we suggest that relatively better performance in word identification by Korean talkers/listeners than the native English talkers/listeners is associated with the shared interlanguage of Korean talkers and listeners.

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