• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.1-22
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• 2011

Little has been known about the process of the language teacher professional development. The present study aims to investigate an assumption that anybody who has subject matter knowledge will be a good language teacher. A teacher with rich linguistic knowledge started to question the effectiveness of his online class. The teacher, in collaboration with a teacher trainer, became involved in the critical examination of his online class, seeking for more effective ways of teaching. The trainer provided the teacher with clinical supervision, which is characterized as developmental, collaborative, non-judgemental, interactive, and teacher-centered. The data collected at the multi-facets of the online teaching shows how the process of the teacher's decision-making became principled on the basis of recent developments in English language teaching, and how the teacher has gained pedagogical knowledge through reflection upon his teaching. The feedback from the students reveals that such teacher professional development is beneficial to student learning. These findings suggest that language teacher's professional development can take place when they are engaged in reflective teaching and classroom investigation. It is also suggested that the process of teacher development can be enhanced through collaborative supervision with trust, openness and congeniality between parties involved.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.203-224
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to justify the effects of role play with respect to speaking and listening functions and to provide the strategic methodology for improving English communicative competence of fifth grade primary school students. We can expand role play as a strategic teaching method to develop English learning models, so that English can be more easily acquired to the students who are in the critical language acquisition period. Strategic role play reflects the events and experiences of many kinds of people in everyday life. It is suggested that one of the best methods to improve English communicative competence in the primary classroom is through role play. Students can develop meaning for language patterns by portraying situations in which these instances in language would be used. This study proposes to facilitate English communicative ability using various student-centered role play strategies. It is concluded that the student-centered activities using strategic role play help the students to improve their English communicative competence. This is done by deriving their own creative dialogues and presenting the role play with their interests in learning English and with subsequently positive learning effects.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.37-54
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• 2002

Some Korean speakers have trouble in learning the correct pronunciation of many complex English words which have clusters in their onset and coda position. This study shows that the difficulties Korean students have acquiring English pronunciation partly come from syllable structure differences between English and Korean. We provide an analysis based on Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993) of the syllable structure difference and suggest that Korean speakers learn the different constraint ranking between English and Korean. This will offer Korean speakers with some helpful methods which will facilitate their learning.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.91-114
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to investigate teachers' perspectives on content-based instruction (CBI) in English at a higher education in Korea. Based on the assumption that content-based instruction programs could be successful if teachers were actively involved not only in transmitting the content knowledge but also in students' development in the second or foreign language competence, the study explores teachers' treatments of language in relation to the students' language development in CBI classes. Research questions were related to five areas such as (1) the goals of CBI programs, (2) difficulties in CBI classes, (3) the use of native language, (4) teaching strategies and techniques, and (5) factors that affect the success of the CBI programs. Data gathered from 24 college instructors from a large university located in the metropolitan city of Korea. Results of the study indicated that college instructors of CBI programs had keen interest in developing students' language competence, experienced difficulties in designing course syllabus for mixed leveled group of students, rarely used Korean in class and used successful teaching strategies. Also factors needed to improve the CBI programs were recommended at the end of the study. Results of the study implied that teachers needed to be more aware of the students' learning process of English and to be more communicative with students in English in class. Further studies were needed in relation to the CBI courses for students of different age levels.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.89-112
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to verify the effect of the method of English teaching and learning through the student-centered environmental instruction. I've been skeptical about the traditional instruction, which is composed of the teachers-centered instruction, because of the lack of creativity. Until now, I've always wished to have an alternative method that can be substituted for routine's style. To achieve it, I selected 90 students from 2 classes, in the 3rd year at a girls' high school in Chungnam as the subject of study. I divided them into two groups, the student-centered environmental instruction and the teacher-centered traditional instruction. The tools used in this study are a preliminary English achievement test, a self-directed learning attitudes test and two teaching plans. For this test, a high school text book was assigned. I have treated 20 times of the test each for two groups using two types of teaching-learning plans which I made for this purpose. To verify the hypotheses after administrating the test, I selected t-verification for post test result. Based on this test result, I could conclude that there was a significant improvement of English proficiency and a change in the self-directed learning attitudes; also the student-centered environmental instruction is more effective than teachers-centered instruction.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.133-149
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• 2003

As the world becomes a global village, national conferences become more frequent, and the language of choice to mediate the exchange of information is English. Accordingly, the purpose of this research is to find several methods to prepare L2 students for English communication at conferences. Various studies about discourse markers can be found in this study. Discourse markers are indicators of fluency in spoken language, and indicators of improvement from features of spoken English to more typical forms of formal writing. In this study the presentation styles of native speakers and Asian non-native speakers are compared, and the difference between efficient and non-efficient speakers at conferences are discussed. As a study of conference English teaching and learning method, this research targets suggestion and application of discourse markers for L2 speakers. As a result, the fact that discourse markers are very important in effective writing and conference English is found and accordingly we can see that developing the ability to use discourse markers in writing and speaking are essential for L2 speakers.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.197-218
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• 2003

The purpose of this study is to help the students in middle school improve their English listening comprehension by presenting effective teaching and learning techniques using animation. A good animation provides a self-contained world with language expressed in a virtual context. A few animation such as "Mulan", "The Emperor's New Clothes", and "Gulliver's Travel" are presented. The materials are primarily for English listening comprehension, enhance awareness of American culture and life-styles, and to encourage students' active role in learning English. It is suggested that their use with content-based instruction, where animation provides relevant schema background, makes language relevant and comprehensible. Practical aspects of classroom instruction are discussed, focusing on the adaption of pre-viewing, while-viewing, and post-viewing activities to the selected animation. It is concluded that careful animation selection, purposeful lesson planning, and the integration of pre-viewing, while-viewing, and post-viewing activities into the content-based lesson encourage natural language skills, especially the listening comprehension and students' interest in English.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.159-181
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• 2006

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of presentation-based instruction and to suggest a model of instruction targeted to the Korean intermediate level students learning English as a foreign language (EFL). To achieve this objective, the author examined how the acquisition of practical English through oral presentation would enhance the students' learning motivation, language abilities, and communicative competence in concrete situations. It was confirmed that the trained leader and systematic teaching and learning are needed to maximize the effects of presentation-based instruction. In doing so, the author compared and analyzed the collected data in order to support the validity of this teaching method. It was further pointed out that the teacher should have a close look at the roles of the presenter and learner in an effort to work out the usefulness of such an instruction model. The method of presentation in classroom settings would be a practical mode to attain the essential purpose of EFL teaching particularly to get over the drawbacks of Korean students' communicative competence. As a result, it would be an effective teaching method to meet the nation's long-standing demands for EFL education.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.25-36
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• 2021

This study examined the perception and production of eight English fricatives /f/, /v/, /θ/, /ð/, /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, and /ʒ/ by thirty Chinese English majors and thirty Chinese middle school students through a fricative identification test, an intelligibility test, and a goodness rating test and focused on error patterns and the perception-production relationship. The results showed that substitution errors occurred frequently in the perception and production of English fricatives by both the English majors and the middle school students. Further, the error patterns were attributed to various influencing factors such as the negative transfer from Chinese consonant inventory, hypercorrection or overcompensation mistakes, deficiency of L2 teaching, and acoustic similarities. Significant overall correlations were found between the fricative perception and production by the two subject groups but were not manifested in all the eight fricatives, indicating that Chinese learners' perceptual competence of target fricatives was not necessarily tied to their productive excellence of those sounds in all cases. Furthermore, precedences of perception over production were incompletely manifested in the eight fricatives, which suggested that perception might not always be a necessary prerequisite for production. Additionally, subject group and vowel context differences were observed. The English majors performed better than the middle school students, both perceptually and productively, and the subjects' performances in perception and production varied when vowel contexts changed.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.9 no.spc
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• pp.113-129
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• 2003

This study aims to probe for ideological construction within the linguistic structure of newspaper reporting. The study focuses on news reports relating the issue of new IOC chairman election in English version of four mainstream newspaper published in Korea: The Donga Daily News, The Jungang Daily News, The Chosun Daily News, and The Korea Times. The analysis of these reports adheres to the analytic paradigm of critical linguistic analysis and shows how the newspaper articulate conflicting ideological positions in their reports of new IOC chairman election. The analysis demonstrates how the event of new IOC chairman election is naturalized in racist accounts. This study is important for understanding the constructive nature of language practices. The study concludes with a discussion to explain the need for critical awareness in choosing right teaching material, considering that news reports are widely accepted as an authentic material for English education.