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

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.123-139
• /
• 2011

The purpose of the current study is to analyze a model of OPIc-based speaking test for Korea English classroom. The research questions were (1). What is the English teachers' opinion on the current speaking teaching and testing? (2). Is the OPIc speaking test appropriate in the Korea English class? and (3). What are the English education students' perceptions of the OPIc-based speaking test for English classes? To answer the first research question, a survey was conducted targeting one hundred and forty-seven teachers. The result of the survey shows that Korea English teachers' great concern on the English teaching and speaking test are "communicative competence," "scoring and criteria," and "condition and need." To answer the second research question, the OPIc speaking test for the class was analyzed and it was found that in terms of the communicative competence," "scoring and criteria," and "condition and need" issues, OPIc based speaking test is appropriate in Korea English class. For the third research question, Q methodology was used targeting English education students and the result shows that most English education students strongly agree to the statements that the OPIc-based speaking test has the advantage to improve communicative competence. This study may provide the information about creating and adopting tests for English classes and relating standardized test and the English classes.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.48
• /
• pp.223-252
• /
• 2017

This study explores effects of two types of chatbots - voice-based and text-based - on Korean EFL learners' speaking competence and learner perception. Participants were 80 freshmen students taking an English-speaking class at a university in Korea. They were divided into two experimental groups at random. During the sixteen-week experimental period, participants engaged in 10 chat sessions with the two different types of chatbots. To take a close examination of effects on the improvement of speaking competence, they took the TOEIC speaking test as pre- and post-tests. Structured questionnaire-based surveys were conducted before and after treatment to determine if there are changes in perception. Findings reveal two chatbots effectively contribute to improvement of speaking competence among EFL learners. Particularly, the voice-based chatbot was as effective as the text-based chatbot. An analysis of survey results indicates perception of chatbot-assisted language learning changed positively over time. In particular, most participants preferred voice-based chatbot over text-based chatbot. This study provides insight on the use of chatbots in EFL learning, suggesting that EFL teachers should integrate chatbot technology in their classrooms.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.18 no.1
• /
• pp.1-22
• /
• 2012

This study explores the effects of phonological awareness instruction with phonetics on listening comprehension and speaking. For the test of measuring the improvement of listening comprehension, two nationwide listening comprehension tests were used for pre-test and post-test. To find out the improvement of speaking ability, students were required to take the Level-3 NEAT speaking tests. There was a notable correlation between phonological awareness instruction with phonetics and listening ability. Also a significant correlation between phonological awareness instruction with phonetics and speaking ability was found. The group with phonological awareness class with phonetics received higher scores in listening and speaking test than the group without phonological awareness class with phonetics in the post-test. This study implies that phonological awareness class with phonetics is helpful for the improvement of listening and speaking ability. With this research, we can also say that students' communicative competence increased.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.11 no.4
• /
• pp.305-333
• /
• 2005

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of teaching English through the techniques of storytelling with dramatization upon children's competence of English speaking and listening. These techniques are considered to enable children to have ample opportunity of use in and exposure to English, as well as interest. This study is sequenced as selecting stories by way of consulting literatures, developing a teaching model for practising classes through storytelling with dramatization, and analyzing the data resulting from the pre- and post-listening/speaking tests using the SPSS program. The results of this study can be summarized as follows: the experimental group shows better significance than the control one in the listening and speaking post-test. Therefore, literary units also need to be incorporated into English textbooks in order to improve children's aural-oral competence through the storytelling with dramatization.

• Journal of Korean language education
• /
• v.29 no.3
• /
• pp.255-292
• /
• 2018

Most grading scales of Korean language proficiency tests are based on existing grading scales that are not empirically verified. The purpose of this study is to develop an empirically verified scale descriptor. The 'Performance data-driven approach' that is suggested by Fulcher (1987) was used to develop the detailed description of characteristics for each level of performance. This study is focused on the functional phase of speech samples analysis (coding data) to create explanatory categories of discourse skills into which individual observations of speech phenomena can be scored. The speech samples that were collected through this study demonstrated stages of speech that can be a foundation of a grading scale. The data used in the study was collected from 23 native speakers of Korean. Speech samples were recorded from simulated speaking tests using the 'REFUSAL' task, and transcribed for analysis. The transcript was analyzed using discourse analysis. The result showed that the 'REFUSAL' task needs to go through four functional phases in actual communication. Furthermore, this study found specific and detailed explanatory categories of discourse competence based on the actual native speaker's speech data. Such findings are expected to contribute to the development of more valid and reliable speaking assessment.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.47-58
• /
• 2012

The purpose of this paper is to verify the education effects of program for engineering students and extract the essential components to be included in the learning contents. For this, we investigated the lecture contents critically and analyzed the evaluation result of questionnaire to examine the students' learning satisfaction and learners' needs concerning the effectiveness of course. The survey using two types of questionnaires was conducted with 210 junior and senior students taking lectures of ${\ll}$Presentation and Debate Skills${\gg}$ in the college of engineering at Pusan National University. According to the evaluation result, students experienced various speech education's effects concerning (1) verbal components, (2) non-verbal components, (3) problem solving competence, (4) teamwork skills, etc. On the other side there have been pointed out as problems in the ${\ll}$Presentation and Debate Skills${\gg}$ class, such as (1) a large number of assignments, (2) insufficiency of more refined evaluation method for the individuals and (3) a well-balanced arrangement between 'theory' and 'practice' was needed. However more importantly, the individual students can not do practice sufficiently owing to the large scale of class. Therefore the various and effective ways to help students improve their communicative competence have to be developed further. Finally, there have been extracted several essential components to be included in the class and implications for ameliorating the class were discussed and suggested in detail.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.187-210
• /
• 2002

The goal of this study is to investigate the course development for the Korean students in the immersion English program. This study describes the detailed curriculum and makes some suggestions to improve the courses for regular, extracurricular, and special activities in the five-week immersion English program managed by KAIST in summer 2001. This immersion English program was designed to develop the students' communicative competence in speaking English with native speakers in the age of globalization, by providing students with the English-speaking immersion setting. The results of the students' tests and the data concerning the program revealed that the program was very significant in improving students' communicative competence focused on communication and presentation and in attaining the high motivation for the natural English communication by performing the student-centered and task-based extracurricular activities and special events.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
• /
• v.4 no.2
• /
• pp.1-39
• /
• 2023

Recent research in usage-based Second Language Acquisition has provided new insights into second language (L2) learners' development of formulaic language (Wulff, 2019). The current study examines the use of phrase-frames, which are recurring sequences of words including one or more variable slots (e.g., it is * that), in written and oral production data from Asian learners of English across four proficiency levels (beginner, low-intermediate, high-intermediate, advanced) and native English speakers. The variability, predictability, and discourse functions of the most frequent 4-word phrase-frames from the written essay and spoken dialogue sub-corpora of the International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English (ICNALE) were analyzed and then compared across groups and modes. The results revealed that while learners' phrase-frames in writing became more variable and unpredictable as proficiency increased, no clear developmental patterns were found in speaking, although all groups used more fixed and predictable phrase-frames than the reference group. Further, no developmental trajectories in the functions of the most frequent phrase-frames were found in both modes. Additionally, lower-level learners and the reference group used more variable phrase-frames in speaking, whereas advanced-level learners showed more variability in writing. This study contributes to a better understanding of the development of L2 phraseological competence.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
• /
• v.14 no.4
• /
• pp.88-96
• /
• 2011

This paper aims to develop the learning contents of PBL based program and analyze the result of evaluation questionnaire to examine the students' thoughts concerning the effectiveness of PBL course and their satisfaction. 'Discussion' is one of the representative communicative types, especially requesting both communication competence and teamwork among team members. This study was conducted with 218 junior and senior students taking lectures of ${\ll}$Presentation and Debate Skills${\gg}$ in the college of engineering at Pusan National University. According to the evaluation result, students experienced various effects of PBL such as (1) self-directed learning, (2) cooperative learning, (3) problem solving skills, etc. Students pointed out also as merits of PBL course, (1) knowledge acquisition and information sharing among students, (2) improvement of communicative competence, (3) amelioration of teamwork, (4) progress of the problem solving skills. However, there have been several difficulties and problems during PBL process, implications for ameliorating PBL based were discussed and suggested in detail.