• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.35-70
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• 2003

This study investigates the acquisition of English prepositions of location and direction by Malaysian Chinese ESL learners. It was conducted with the objective of finding out which of the two types of prepositions was more problematic to the L1 Chinese learners. The study also sought to investigate the effect of age and proficiency levels in English on the acquisition of the English prepositions of location and direction by these learners. Additionally, the study sets out to determine the extent to which the L1 Chinese learners have acquired the English prepositions of location and direction. This study involved three groups of Chinese ESL learners: elementary, intermediate and advanced. They were selected based on their age and their performance on a standardized proficiency test. The instrument used to collect data was a preposition test comprising 85 items. These items on prepositions of location and direction were randomly arranged in the tasks. The test required subjects to respond to multiple choice questions, match given sentences with appropriate prepositions, fill in blanks with the appropriate prepositions, judge given sentences to see if they are grammatical or ungrammatical and correct the ungrammatical sentence by providing the appropriate prepositions. The results indicate that age and proficiency levels of the learners made a difference in the acquisition of English prepositions of location and direction. The older learners with higher proficiency levels seem to fare better than the younger and less proficient learners. The results suggest that the prepositions of location arc slightly more problematic than prepositions of directions to the L1 Chinese learners. Our data also suggest that certain prepositions of each type are more problematic than others.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.7
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• pp.354-361
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to analyze the structural causal relationship between adult learners' participation in lifelong learning, education program satisfaction, and social capital. Also, the study reviews how education program satisfaction variables mediate the relationship between adult learners' participatory motivation and social capital. Subjects included 425 adult learners who participated in lifelong education, and the research hypothesis was verified through structure equation modeling analysis. Results are as follows: First, adult learners' participatory motivation had a positive (+) effect on social capital and education program satisfaction. Secondly, education program satisfaction had a positive (+) effect on social capital. Thirdly, education program satisfaction partially mediated the relationship between adult learners' participatory motivation and social capital and showed a significant indirect effect. This study suggests that it is necessary to develop various programs that can satisfy learners as well as improve social capital, participation motivation, and satisfaction of programs provided by lifelong educational institutions. Based on these results, this study suggests not only the role of lifelong education institutes, but also ways to improve social capital of adult learners within the lifelong education field.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.19-33
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• 2019

This paper examines the perception of Korean phonemes by Egyptian learners of Korean and presents the learnability gradient of Korean consonants and vowels through High Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT). 50 Egyptian learners of Korean (27 low proficiency learners and 23 high proficiency learners) participated in 10 sessions of HVPT for Korean vowels, word initial and final consonants. Participants were tested on their identification ability of Korean vowels, word initial consonants, and syllable codas before and after the training. The results showed that both low and high proficiency groups did benefit from the training. Low proficiency learners showed a higher improvement rate than high proficiency learners. Based on the HVPT results, a learnability gradient was established to give insights into priorities in teaching Korean sounds to Egyptian learners.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.73-100
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to investigate learner-learner dialogue during speaking tasks. In the Korean language classroom, conversation between learners is an important activity as speaking practice. However, learner dialogue is also a tool to enable learners to collaboratively conduct various cognitive activities in the classroom. In previous research, it was unfolded that through learner-learner dialogue, learners can solve second-language related problems and set a goal to carry out tasks. Therefore, this study analyzed learner-learner dialogue to investigate what kinds of cognitive activities are activated during the role-play task. As a result, the learners collaboratively generated and monitored language and content for role play. Also, in order to accomplish tasks more successfully, learners shared the same understanding about the goal of the task, and tried to manage the task procedure. Through learner-learner dialogue, learners can participate in cognitive activities such as content, language construction, and task management voluntarily without the help from teachers. This means that learner-learner dialogue can be an activity to support language learning tasks. Also, it can make learners actively involved in learning and by sharing resources with each other. It is also important that learners can experience language use that participates in real-world communication activities, such as learning in the classroom and collaborating with peer learners. This study is an exploratory study for a basic understanding of learner's conversation as a cognitive activity, and the scope of the study is limited to clarifying contents of learner-learner dialogue as a cognitive activity in speaking tasks. Based on the findings of this study, future research should be conducted on the function of learner-learner dialogue as a cognitive activity in Korean language learning and its role in the classroom of Korean language education.

• Educational Technology International
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.59-85
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• 2016

The purpose of the study is to report differences in the effects of learner characteristics on the self-regulated learning (SRL) abilities between Chinese and Korean distance learners by using a structured SRL scale. A standardized 54-item self-regulated learning scale (SRAS) was used. The reliability was tested both in China and Korea which showed the scale had good reliability. The comparative study were conducted by administering the SRAS on 1999 Chinese distance learners from the Open Distance Education Center of Beijing Normal University and 1941 Korean distance learners from H Cyber University. Data on four dimensions of SRL - planning, control, regulating, and evaluation - were analyzed using 't-test' and 'ANOVA' with regards to the learner characteristics such as gender, age, prior education level, semesters, location and major. Results indicated that the average participant had an above medium level of SRL ability in all of the four dimensions. There were significant differences in the self-regulated learning ability between Chinese and Korean distance learners. Chinese distance learners scored higher in SRAS than Korean distance learners. The effects of learner characteristics on the SRL ability showed different patterns in the two countries. As for gender, male learners scored better in SRL than female learners in China, whereas it was just the opposite in Korea. No age differences were found in China, but Korean data exhibited a consistent age effect in all dimensions. In Korea, the age group older than 46 scored the highest, followed by the group between 35 to 45 years old, the group between 26 to 35 years old and the group younger than 25. As for location, Korean distance students from metropolitan were better than those from other regions, whereas it was on the contrary in China, albeit the location effect was not statistically significant. Prior education level had a clear and consistent effect on the SRL ability in both countries: the distance learners from junior colleges had better planning, regulating and evaluating abilities than those who came from senior high schools. These results have been discussed in various contexts of distance/online education as well as in relation to different culture between China and Korea. The results will also have implications for designing distance and online learning generally.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.11-22
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to find the influence of Chinese falling-rising tone on the pitch pattern of corresponding Sino-Korean words delivered by Chinese learners of Korean and to examine how the falling-rising tone of corresponding Chinese words affect the pitch patterns of Sino-Korean words. The scope of this research is limited to Chinese learners of Korean, especially when they pronounce same-form-same-meaning Sino-Korean words. In this study, Chinese learners pronounced both Chinese words and corresponding Sino-Korean words. Learners' pitch patterns were recorded and analyzed using software and compared with the tone of corresponding Chinese words. Experimental results showed that Sino-Korean words were affected by Chinese 'falling-rising tone - high and level tone' when they started with lenis sounds. On the other hand, when Sino-Korean words started with aspirated sounds they were affected by Chinese 'falling-rising tone - high and level tone', 'falling-rising tone - falling-rising tone', and 'falling-rising tone - falling tone'. In conclusion, the Chinese learners' pitch patterns of Sino-Korean words are affected by Chinese falling-rising tone, especially when Sino-Korean words start with aspirated sounds.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.91-106
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• 2010

This study examines the use of hedges in cross-cultural communication between EFL learners in an e-learning environment. The study analyzes the use of hedges in a corpus of an interactive web with a bulletin board system through which college students of English at Japanese and Korean universities interacted with each other discussing the topics of local and global issues. It compares the use of hedges in the students' corpus to that of a native English speakers' corpus. The result shows that EFL learners tend to use relatively smaller number of hedges than the native speakers in terms of the frequencies of the total tokens. It further reveals that the learners' overuse of a single versatile high-frequency hedging item, I think, results in relative underuse of other hedging devices. This indicates that due to their small repertoire of hedges, EFL learners' overuse of a limited number of hedging items may cause their speech or writing to become less competent. Based on the result and interviews with the learners, the study also argues that hedging should be understood in its social contexts and should not be understood just as a lack of conviction or a mark of low proficiency. Suggestions were made for using computer corpora in understanding EFL learners' language difficulties and helping them develop communicative and pragmatic competence.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.127-134
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• 2014

This paper aims to identify what is needed to improve the English for Specific Purposes(ESP) curriculum for English as a Foreign Language(EFL) college learners at navigation school. Different needs from learners and experienced professionals are identified through diversified methods, and the findings from these are analysed and consolidated from a balanced point of view. For this purpose, putting learners at the centre of analysis, identifying their subjective and objective needs serves as a point of departure in formulating the curriculum. Then, the target situation is analysed according to the short-term aim of getting a job, followed by long-term needs for successfully fulfilling future duties as a pilot. Based on findings, it is suggested that ESP curriculum for learners in navigation studies should be focused on the successful language performance of their actual duties and tasks to be given in the future working situations, rather than on immediate needs for getting a job. In particular, special attention needs to be paid to enhancing learners' productive language competences through a series of hands-on trainings and a wide range of extra-curricular activities, specifically for a higher command of oral communication. For this, not only ESP, curriculum for EGP(English for General Purposes) should be systematically structured as ESP-oriented EGP, and naturally move onto areas of ESP in a coherent manner.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.71-79
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• 2019

This study aims to investigate the rhythmic patterns in the English speech produced by Chinese learners of English who learn English as a foreign language (EFL learners). Utilizing interval-based rhythm metrics, namely, VarcoC, VarcoV, nPVI-C, nPVI-V, and %V, the study compared the rhythmic differences in English speech between ten native speakers from the United States and forty Chinese EFL learners from mainland China. A sentence elicitation task consisting of thirty picture prompts and corresponding thirty stimuli sentences with at least five vocalic and four consonantal intervals was conducted. Statistical results reveal that both Chinese advanced learners and beginners had significantly lower degree of stress-timed in their English speech, indicating that the acquisition of the L2 speech rhythm was influenced by the learners' L1 rhythmic pattern. In addition, the results also show that the Chinese advanced learners had significantly higher degree of stress-timed in their English speech than beginners and showed no significant difference with native speakers in VarcoC and nPVI-C. These results indicate that the direction of L2 speech rhythm development was from more syllable-timed to more stress-timed.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.1-8
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• 2019

This study aims to investigate how prosodic prominence is perceived in relation to word class information (or parts-of-speech) by Korean learners of English compared with native English speakers in public speech. Two groups, Korean learners of English and native English speakers, were asked to judge words perceived as prominent simultaneously while listening to a speech. Parts-of-speech and three acoustic cues (i.e., max F0, mean phone duration, and mean intensity) were analyzed for each word in the speech. The results showed that content words tended to be higher in pitch and longer in duration than function words. Both groups of listeners rated prominence on content words more frequently than on function words. This tendency, however, was significantly greater for Korean learners of English than for native English speakers. Among the parts-of-speech of the content words, Korean learners of English were more likely than native English speakers to judge nouns and verbs as prominent. This study presents evidence that Korean learners of English consider most, if not all, content words as landing locations of prosodic prominence, in alignment with the previous study on the production of prominence.