• Journal of The Korean Association of Information Education
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.117-126
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• 2002

Speaking skill is an important quality in expressing oneself in school life. Quite a few students experience difficulties at school because of the lack of adequate speaking ability. In order to help them, a Web-based speaking enhancement system is designed and developed using computers equipped with multimedia devices with which students can practice speaking while they are observing graphical representation of voices, which is to cause interest and voluntary participation in the learning activity. The learning system was tested on a group of 44 students of 4th grade in an elementary school. The students were divided into three smaller groups in terms of speaking ability. The experiment shows the effectiveness of the system in building speaking ability.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.13-20
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• 2016

This study explores the effects of an video-recording English speaking task model on learners. The learning model, a form of mobile learning, was developed to facilitate the learners' output practice applying advantages of a smartphone and Text-to Speech. The survey results shows the positive effects of the speaking task on the domain of pronunciation, speaking, listening, writing in terms of students' confidence, as well as general English ability. The study further examines the possibilities and limitations of the speaking task in assisting Korean learners improve their speaking ability, who do not have sufficient exposure to English input or output practice due to the situational limitations where English is learned as a foreign language.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2012

Many previous studies reported acoustic parameters of English vowels produced by a clear speaking style. In everyday usage, we actually produce speech sounds with various speaking styles. Different styles may yield different acoustic measurements. This study attempts to examine pitch and formant trajectories of eleven English vowels produced by nine American males in order to understand acoustic variations depending on clear and conversational speaking styles. The author used Praat to obtain trajectories systematically at seven equidistant time points over the vowel segment while checking measurement validity. Results showed that pitch trajectories indicated distinct patterns depending on four speaking styles. Generally, higher pitch values were observed in the higher vowels and the pitch was higher in the clear speaking styles than that in the conversational styles. The same trend was observed in the three formant trajectories of front vowels and the first formant trajectories of back vowels. The second and third trajectories of back vowels revealed an opposite or inconsistent trend, which might be attributable to the coarticulation of the following consonant or lip rounding gestures. The author made a tentative conclusion that people tend to produce vowels to enhance pitch and formant differences to transmit their information clearly. Further perceptual studies on synthesized vowels with varying pitch and formant values are desirable to address the conclusion.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.18-31
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• 2019

In addition to technical skills and competencies, communication competence has been identified to be important to engineering students who will be drivers of innovation in a rapidly changing society. Drawing on the previous studies, this research examines the results of an empirical exploration of engineering students' perception of speaking ability and their communicative competence. To date, there has been most of the research conducted on 'writing' (e.g., its educational process, class designs, ability, etc.) for engineering students. However, relatively little attention has been paid to engineering students' speaking ability perception and their competence diagnosis. This study relies on quantitative data obtained from one survey questionnaire and one test conducted respectively. The sample consists of 386 engineering students as well as 481 non-engineering students for the 1st survey. And to measure communicative competence, 150 engineering students as well as 136 non-engineering students participated in the test. Our findings show that firstly, there were significant differences in perception of speaking ability by majors and gender. Whereas there was no difference in the same survey by grade. Secondly, there was a close and significant relationship between sub-factors of speaking ability. Thirdly, there were significant differences in communicative competence by majors. Whereas there was no difference by gender and grade. Fourthly, there was a close and significant relationship between sub-factors of communicative competence. These findings are expected to provide an explanation for the improvement on engineering students' speaking ability and to encourage the participation in extra-curricular activities and programs in engineering school.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.457-472
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• 2011

The word "subject," like its apparent antonym "agent" is ambiguous. By "speaking subject" I intend both meanings: the spoken about, and the speaker, and the spoken about, in more or less that order. The paper contrasts the way women are spoken about in the 19^th Century debate over the role of women between John Ruskin and John Mill, and then in literary criticism of feminists nearer our own time, Kate Millet and Elizabeth Langland. I then move on to women as speaking subjects, first in the form of an imaginary speaking subject created by a male speaker, Charles Dickens channeling the confessional journal of Esther Summerson in Bleak House. The comparison with Elizabeth Gaskell, a genuine speaking subject, is highly instructive. I draw attention to symmetrical, in the sense of opposite, narrative strategies. Where Dickens begins in journalese, with a gritty, realistic opening that only gradually reveals a Cinderella in the ashes, Gaskell begins with a nursery rhyme, in an actual nursery, but goes on to reveal some rather sordid economic facts. Where Dickens creates a ventriloquist's doll, Gaskell succeeds in creating recognizable, if not always admirable, female voices. I conclude that just as the novel may be read as a real utterance in a real conversation, it is also possible to read the true emergence of women novelists in the 19^th Century as nothing more and nothing less than the creation of the first truly womanly words about women: women as speaking subjects in both senses of the word.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.51-58
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• 2020

This study redesigned the Korean speaking classes to foreign undergraduate students as flipped learning classes and verified their effect on speaking-related emotional variables. In addition, international students' perceptions of what experiences are needed to improve speaking efficacy in Korean were examined. For this purpose, the 'Creative speaking' subject for freshmen was redesigned to flipped learning class and operated for one semester. To analyze the effect of speech-related emotions, a paired t-test was conducted on 26 foreign students' pre-post scores of speech efficacy and anxiety. Also awareness of experiences needed to improve speech efficacy was surveyed and content analysis was conducted. As the result, the speaking efficacy of students after flipped-learning has been significantly improved. This means that flipped learning classes for the Korean speaking are effective for the positive emotions of foreign students speaking Korean. In addition, international students perceived that Korean speaking efficacy can be improved by practicing speaking in Korean, learning with Korean colleagues. Based on these results, several discussions and suggestions were presented.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.573-580
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• 2020

The purpose of this study was to explore and to suggest the effective teaching methods for university students to improve their speaking abilities through peer assessment-feedback and self assessment-feedback based presentation and debate class. The objects and content of the study were the students who took a class "Reading and Communication" of H university, and here examine closely the speaking activities and their effects during the integrated activities of 'reading, speaking and writing'. In speaking education peer and self assessment feedback is to form an emotional consensus among the students and encourage active participation, and enable self-discovery and communication learning to students. As a result of the study, it was found that the variety speaking practice had a very positive effect on the attitude of speaking and the psychological aspect, and it was confirmed that the evaluation and feedback activities had a meaningful learning effect on the students. Effective speech education and guidance measures should be continuously studied and developed.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.3172-3179
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• 2015

This study suggests one of English teaching methods to improve English speaking proficiency for adult English learners. Contrary to the traditional English conversation teaching trends such as memorization of specific patterns or grammar-focused practices, the study introduces a storytelling based teaching of English speaking. To theoretically support the storytelling based English speaking teaching, the study investigates the possibility of the teaching method in three ways. First, the 12 speaking strategies focusing on contents of a story are introduced in the way of securing speech amounts as much as possible. Next, the five rhetoric components by Aristotle are introduced to relate to the storytelling teaching for the purpose of achieving the goal of speaking, which is to deliver what a speaker want to say more persuasively. Finally, through the investigation of the learner strategy uses, the possibility of storytelling English speaking teaching can be expected regardless of learners' low level of English proficiency.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.237-254
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• 2011

This study investigated Korean university students' perceptions of NESTs (Native English Speaking Teachers) and NNESTs (Non-native English Speaking Teachers) in TEE (Teaching English through English) courses to examine strengths and weaknesses of NESTs and NNESTs. 100 university students who had an experience in taking TEE courses with both NESTs and NNESTs answered the questionnaire in which they were asked to answer questions of general area, language skills, affective areas, and teaching behaviors. 20 students out of them were also interviewed to consolidate the data. The results revealed that except for speaking ability, students did not express a strong preference for NESTs and they did have a preference in learning some specific skills. In terms of affective areas, students had a preference for NNESTs. In addition, there were differences in teaching behaviors of NESTs and NNESTs. These findings have valuable implications for NNESTs to improve their speaking proficiency: analyzing and participating in discourses, and monitoring teaching practice through videotaping.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.47-50
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• 2002

This paper is to introduce 'Dr. Speaking', which was recently developed by Eonon Inc.. 'Dr. Speaking' is an English pronunciation tutoring system. This has three distinguishing features. First, it teaches how to organize a speaker's vocal organs to pronounce accurately. Second, after it compares a speaker's pronunciation with that of a native speaker's, it grades that speaker's pronunciation level according to phonetic standards. Third, it provides proper information necessary for correcting a speaker's incorrect pronunciation. It is not always easy for a tutoring system to execute the above three almost simutaneously. However, 'Dr. Speaking' proved itself that it is possible by adding speech technology (e.g. speech recognition) to phonetic knowledge.