• International Journal of Knowledge Content Development & Technology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.7-25
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• 2023

This paper presents the outcome of a survey done in two colleges of education in Kumasi, Ghana to determine the reading habits of students. A questionnaire was conveniently administered to the third-year students of Wesley College of Education and St. Louis College of Education all in Kumasi the capital of Ashanti Region of Ghana. One hundred and sixty-two copies of the questionnaire were administered to the students in the two colleges. The study found that both parents and tutors influence students reading at the same rate, in both colleges students read an average of one book in two months which was not encouraging with the most preferred reading materials being course books followed by textbooks and fiction. Their purpose of reading is to broaden their knowledge, and to pass examination. They choose busy schedule on campus and too much academic work as the reasons which affect their reading habits. Furthermore, it was revealed that, too much family responsibilities and lack of conducive environment were major constraints that restrict their reading at home. The study recommends the following to enhance reading habits of the students: parents should create healthy surrounding for learning; students should also be motivated to read through the formation of reading clubs and group presentation of assignment.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.567-578
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• 2013

The research is a correlational study to look for causes and factors relating to the design of written documents (professional reading materials) and identify those relationships that are useful for communication designers. The research specifically targeted the relationships between perception and reader's past experiences and appearance of the written documents. A preliminary survey, such as interviews, discussions, questionnaires and brainstorming sessions are conducted to establish the observable attributes related to perception which are reader's interests, importance of information and written documents complexity. Finally, the research used Structural Equation Model (SEM) to identify significant differences and analyze strong and weak correlations between these attributes. In general, the results of the study shows that the attribute appearances of a written documents with excellent visualizations for information display shows a strong correlation with interests while the attributes importance is weakly correlated with the complexity of the documents.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.26
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• pp.131-168
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• 1997

The future of a country is influenced by the youth. Sound fostering of the youth is important for the country's future. Because of mechanization, industrialization and urbanization of our society, many social problems, such as confusion of the sense of value, dehumanization, money worshi n.0, ppings, juvenile delinquency are increasing. For the solution of problems of juvenile crime and dehumanization, bibliotherapy should be practiced in juvenile reformatories, schools and societies. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness and value of reading. And also the characteristics, brief history, principles and procedures of bibliotherapy are examined. In addition, the book catalog suitable for bibliotherapy is considered. The results of the study are as follows. (1) In order to solve the problem of dehumanization, and the confusion of the sense of value among young adults, we should enrich and cultivate the characters of young adults through the bibliotherapy. So, bibliotherapy for the treatment of human nature of juveniles should be practiced in the juvenile reformatories, schools and societies. (2) The values of reading in the past were inspiration, information and recreation. But, in recent times, the interest in therapeutic value of reading is increasing. (3) Bibliotherapy is a kind of psychotherapy using selected reading materials. A n.0, pplication scopes of bibliotherapy are very wides, including mental medicine, alcoholic poisoning, drug addiction, juvenile delinquency, counselling and education for school life, etc. (4) The principles of bibliotherapy consist of identification, catharsis, insight and it has self therapeutic principles through the reading. The procedures of bibliotherapy is similar to any other kind of psychotherapy: the participant's statement, diagnosis, treatment, continuous recognition of remedial value. (5) The well suited reading materials for bibliotherapy are literature and biography. Literature and biography are familiar to everyone, because they describe the mentalities, emotions and life styles of human beings. (6) The standard reading lists for bibliotherapy for the proper guidance of juvenile delinquency should be prepared for the solution of developmental tasks, such as, drinking, smoking, friendship, family, love, money, marriage, pregnancy, violence, etc. Finally, Bibliotherapy should be introduced to our school settings and corrections institutions for the proper guidance and prevention of the malpractice of the youths. In addition, we should be endeavor to develop the standard reading lists for bibliotherapy and case study.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.9 no.spc
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• pp.79-98
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• 2003

This article reports that a testee's content schemata have detrimental effects on the validity of standardized reading comprehension tests. in case that the reading passages constitute his prior background knowledge framed by regular academic pursuits focused on a major field of study. The empirical research findings on such a reliability issue have shown that the Korean subjects' familiarity with the content domain of the reading materials may substantially enhance their test performance, operated as unfair advantages over the other participants at the same level of English proficiency who do not possess technical knowledge closely related to the contents of the test passages. Based on these results, it may be argued that the reading text should be composed of maximally neutral contents to every testee to avoid the possible overlapping between a test-taker's content schemata and the content domain of the materials. Therefore, this article claims that the tenets of schema theory with its long-standing foundation on culturally predetermined content and formal schemata need to be expanded to cover professional knowledge structures, like those acquired by higher education, as the hard-wired framework of an individual's original culture-specific background knowledge.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.289-293
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• 1996

In Korean, as with Kana and Kanji in Japanese, two kinds of word-writing systems--Hangul (the Korean alphabet) and Hanja (the Chinese character; Kanji in Japanese)--have been and still are being used. Hangul is phonetic while Hanja is ideographic. A phonetic alphabet represents the pronunciation of words, wheras ideographs are where a character of a writing system represents a concept. Aphasics suffer from language disorders following brain damage. The reading and writing of Hangul and Hanja by two Korean Broca's aphasics were analyzed with two goals. The first goal was to confirm the functional autonomy of reading and writing systems in the brain that has been argued by other researchers. The second goal was to reveal what difference the subjects show in reading and writing Hangul and Hanja. As experimental materials, 50 monosyllabic words were chosen in Hangul and Hanja respectively. The 50 word pairs of Hangul and Hanja have the same meaning and are also the most familiar monosyllabic words for a group of normal adults in their fifties and sixties. The errors that the aphasic subjects made in performing the experimental materials are analyzed and discussed here. This analysis has confirmed that reading and writing systems are located in different parts in the brain. Furthemore, it seems clear that the two writing systems of Hangul and Hanja have their own respective processes.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.365-395
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• 2010

This study explores the effect of extensive reading(ER) implemented in middle and high schools in Korean EFL context. Two middle school English teachers and two high school English teachers participated in implementing ER in their classes. Six middle school classes of 239 students and seven high school classes of 268 students participated in ER program guided by the above four teachers. To implement ER, participating teachers had continuously been guided by the researcher about the theoretic reasoning of ER and practical methods for efficient ER in class. The study lasted for two semesters and the teachers and students were surveyed and interviewed during and after the classes. The result showed pretty positive improvement of students' self-confidence, interest and motivation about English through ER implemented in this study. It is hoped that this study would show the possibility of implementing ER in Korean EFL secondary school context and a model for ER and cooperation between university researchers and in-service English teachers.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.630-638
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• 2015

This study examines university students' reading strategies based on English proficiency and reading anxiety. A total of 86 university students participated in the study and completed two questionnaires related to reading strategies[9] and reading anxiety[10]. The collected data was quantitatively analyzed using SPSS 21. The results indicated that advanced and intermediate students preferred to use Problem Solving Strategies(PROB), whereas beginning level readers tended to use and Global Reading strategies(GLOB). There was no significant relationship between reading anxiety and reading strategies. However, there were some differences between two groups. High anxiety students preferred to use reading materials and textual clues and try to focus on their reading when they have a difficulty. Low anxiety students tended to adjust reading pace and try to focus on comprehension and reread when they lost their focus. Based on the results of the study, several implications and limitations were discussed.

• Journal of the Korean BIBLIA Society for library and Information Science
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.157-177
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• 2018

This study identified problems in reading for future careers and suggests approaches to solve the identified problems by analyzing the fundamental vocational competence and reading for a future career. The study included 457 students in the liberal arts college (humanities and education programs) at "A" university. In accordance with the analysis, communication ability (average 3.61), interpersonal relation ability (3.59), literacy (3.40) and problem solving ability (3.39) were relatively high in fundamental vocational competence, while numeracy (2.72) and entrepreneurship (2.89) were low. Next, 65.2% of those reported no reading for their future career. 46.3% answered 'no time to read books related to my future career.' 25.8% selected 'no books worth reading related to my future career.' 22.5% said 'no curiosity about my future career.' Considering that those who did not read any materials related to a future career reached 65.2% and a number of students had low fundamental vocational competence, this paper suggested the implementation of a systematic educational program for standardizing and strengthening fundamental vocational competence and enhancing understanding of future careers.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.139-164
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to analyze the writing activity materials presented in the thirteen middle school textbooks and determine if the writing activity materials are appropriate for the goals and contents of the 7th national curriculum. The writing activity materials are analyzed based on three criteria. First, the writing activity materials are analyzed based on Rivers'(1981) five writing guidances, which are specified with detailed writing activity materials. The first criterion was suggested by Young-Ran Lee(2004). Second, the writing activity materials in the textbooks are analyzed according to the criterion prescribed by the 7th national curriculum, which are specified with writing activities presented by Rivers(1981), Raimes(1983), Hedge(1988), and Beverly and Carol(1988). Third, the writing activity materials related to other skills, such as listening, speaking, and reading, in the textbooks are selected and analyzed according to the proportion of the integration of skills. The results are as follows: First, writing activity materials in the textbooks belong to the type of 'reproduction', ie. the second stage of Rivers' writing guidance, 'recombination, which is the third stage of Rivers' writing guidance, and the type of 'guided writing', noted on the fourth stage of the guidance. Second, the writing activity materials satisfy the criterion in the 7th national curriculum, as for the proportions, but they are not balanced. Third, most of the writing activity materials contain writing activities that involve non-writing skills such as listening, speaking and reading, but they are not balanced. Particularly, writing activity materials related to reading activities are common.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.159-180
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• 2007

The present study proposes a set of activities of teaching English reading through English newspapers to narrow the gap between the English required in authentic situation and the one taught in schools. Newspapers can provide students with opportunities to review what they have studied in the classes. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to investigate how extra-curricular activities using English newspapers have an influence on the development of the three low-achieving high school students' English reading ability. The five-month study yielded that the activities using English newspapers exerted positive effects on the students' interest in English and their English scores. It suggests that using English newspapers as teaching materials may be a desirable way both to motivate students to study English harder and to develop their English reading ability.