• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.8
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• pp.711-723
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• 2007

As the discourse of scientific literacy has broadly summed up the goals of science education in the current decade, this study attempts to question how we contextualize appropriate interpretations and feasible approaches to scientific literacy in K-6 science education. With respect to the complex praxis of scientific knowledge and practice, this study emphasizes the participatory framework of scientific literacy which interweaves children's everyday experiences and science learning. This study also concerns children's abilities to understand and enact scientific enterprises (i.e., children's fundamental sense of scientific literacy). As a way of developing K-6 scientific literacy, this study investigates how using science books can broaden the scope of children's understandings of science in life connections and promote a fundamental sense of scientific literacy through talking, reading, and writing skills in Grade two science classrooms in Canada. Second graders were engaged in learning "sound" for five weeks. During science lessons, children's talks were recorded and their writings were collected for data interpretation. This research finds that using science books can encourage children to become engaged in communicative activities such as talking, reading, and writing in science; furthermore, using science books develops children's inquiry skills. These findings open a further discussion on scientific literacy at the K-6 levels.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.7
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• pp.541-549
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• 2014

This study aims to propose measures to support students' English literacy development in collaboration with public libraries in the community. The literature review shows that students can improve their English literacy skills by not only reading authentic books, but also participating in English literacy programs at the public library. The analysis of the gathered data reveals that public libraries provide extensive programs customized to students' needs. It is also shown that reading programs at the public libraries play an important role in improving students' literacy skills. With the analysis of the literacy programs at various libraries nationwide or abroad, we can understand the importance of the English literacy programs. Especially English Literacy programs in public libraries can be more effective to improve students' English literacy skills. It is suggested that we need to support children's literacy development in collaboration with public libraries in the community.

• 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.17 no.4
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• pp.75-95
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to evaluate a group activity, reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT), in order to investigate advantages and challenges of RPT in promoting cooperative and collaborative learning environment for EFL University reading instruction. The participants in this study were 89 students taking an English reading course at a Korean university. RPT is a learning strategy whereby learners help each other and learn by teaching. This program was supported by a Vygotskyan perspective which assumes that learners gain mastery and develop cognitive skills through social interaction with more proficient others and their environment. This study relied particularly on participant perceptions through questionnaire survey and Anonymous Online class Report of the course. This study showed various advantages for tutors such as learning through teaching and becoming more autonomous and responsible for their own learning. Non-threatening and highly motivating learning atmosphere are parts of benefits for tutees. Other advantages for tutees included improved level of academic self-confidence, and motivation. This study also revealed several drawbacks associated with the problem of inaccuracy in students' production and students' demand for more direct teacher role. (182 words).

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.51-59
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• 2002

This article discusses the teaching of listening and reading skills through enhancing the awareness of pronunciation. First, it examines the problems which take place in listening comprehension, and seeks the ways in which we can teach the skill rather than simply practise it. The approaches proposed are based on micro-listening exercises which practise individual subskills of listening, especially by using the cloze test and tracking. The issue of using authentic materials is then examined for teaching recognition of the features of natural speech. Finally, it is argued that classroom activities need to take account of the true nature of real-life L2 listening.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.161-187
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• 2009

Today's society demands that Individuals need to acquire skills to select information they need, read critically that have been gathered and use them for their advantage. The ability to actively respond to information can be cultivated through reading which facilitates creative, critical thinking, and self-initiated learning. This research presents results from a study in which subject-centered approach to reading guidance was applied to elicit positive changes in reading attitudes and to contribute to the elevation of self-concept among adolescents. Using survey questionnaire, we compared the changes in reading attitude before and after treatment. The results indicate that subject-centered reading instruction brought positive changes in reading attitude among middle school students, contributed positively to the formation of self-concept and the improved student initiated learning.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.157-176
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• 2007

Based on the consensus that vocabulary plays an essential role in improving reading ability, the present study investigates the effects of two different methods of English vocabulary instruction - the traditional wordlist-based vocabulary instruction (G1) and the collocation-based vocabulary instruction (G2) - on improving English reading ability for high school learners. First, the results of the collocation test revealed that G1 and G2 groups attained similar mean scores on the pretests; however, G2 significantly outperformed G1 on the post-test administered at the end of the learning activity. The results proved that students who learned vocabulary in a collocation-oriented setting had better retention through the lexical-chunking achieved by the collection method. Second, in terms of reading comprehension achieved on nationwide academic trial tests, the result was, after considering more tests, that G2 gained a significantly higher mean score on the third and fourth than G1 did, although the two groups yielded a similar mean score on the first and second test. The implication of these results is that collocation-based vocabulary activities had a more significant influence on reading skills than wordlist-oriented ones.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.46 no.10
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• pp.97-106
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• 2008

We examined the effects of family and home literacy environments on the vocabulary and reading abilities of 3 to 5-year-olds. In particular, SES was considered against home literacy environment. The sample consisted of 366 Korean children and their mothers. We found that the level of mother's education was related to the child's vocabulary test score. After controlling for family factors, home literacy environment score positively predicted children's performance both in vocabulary and reading tests. Magnitudes of differences between the two literacy groups (high and low home literacy environment) became larger in the children from relative lower income families. Magnitudes of differences for vocabulary and reading tests was strikingly large in the low-income group both in vocabulary and reading tests. These findings shed lights on the importance of parent education and family services for low-income families with preschool children.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.77-100
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• 2012

This study investigates issues in relation to text segmenting, in particular, line breaks in Korean language textbooks. Research on L1 and L2 reading has shown that readers process texts by chunking (grouping words into phrases or meaningful syntactic units) and, therefore, phrase-cued texts are helpful for readers whose syntactic knowledge has not yet been fully developed. In other words, it would be important for language textbooks to avoid awkward syntactic divisions at the end of a line, in particular, those textbooks for beginners and intermediate level learners. According to our analysis of a number of major Korean language textbooks for beginner-level learners, however, many textbooks were found to display line-breaks of awkward syntactic division. Moreover, some textbooks displayed frequent instances where a single word (or eojeol in the case of Korean) is split between different lines. This can hamper not only learners' learning of the rules of spaces between eojeols in Korean, but also learners' development in automatic word recognition, which is an essential part of reading processes. Based on the findings of our textbook analysis and of existing research on reading, this study suggests ways to overcome awkward line-breaks in Korean language textbooks.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.229-252
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• 2004

The TOEIC has widely used to evaluate business English proficiency in Korea, but those who achieved high scores still often face difficulties in performing their duties in English at work. This implies that the test may not evaluate business English proficiency effectively enough. With an ultimate goal of proposing an effective way of assessing business English proficiency, therefore, his study analyzed the predictive validity of the TOEIC. A correlation analysis was conducted between TOEIC scores of 64 office workers of multinational companies and their working skills in English evaluated by themselves, and their colleagues and seniors. Its results illustrated a significant correlation between their listening and reading scores and their working skills measured by all the groups, but not between their scores and their working skills in speaking and writing. In addition, the study did a delphi study to identify working skills in English to be assessed in business English tests and a contents analysis of the TOEIC. The results suggest business English tests should be able to assess working skills by work types and more direct testing of working skills in speaking and writing is needed.