• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.1-7
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• 2019

Korean (L1)-English (L2) bilingual adults' and children's production of Korean and English stops was examined to determine the age effects and L2 experience on the development of L1 and L2 stop contrasts. Four groups of Seoul Korean speakers (experienced and inexperienced adult and child groups) and two groups of age-matched native English speakers participated. The overall results of voice onset time (VOT) and fundamental frequency (F0) of phrase-initial stops in Korean and word-intial stops in English showed a delay in the acquisition of L1 due to the dominant exposure to L2. Significantly longer VOT and lower F0 for aspirated stops as well as high temporal variability across repetitions of lenis stops were interpreted to indicate a strong effect of English on Korean stop contrasts for bilingual children. That is, the heavy use of VOT for Korean stop contrasts shows bilingual children's attention to the acoustic cue that are primarily employed in the dominant L2. Furthermore, inexperienced children, but not adults, were shown to create new L2 categories that are distinctive from the L1 within 6 months of L2 experience, suggesting greater independence between the two phonological systems. The implications of bilinguals' age at the time of testing to the degree and direction of L1-L2 interaction are further discussed.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.63-72
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• 2007

In this study, the researchers evaluate the hypothesis that the reaction time (RT) in the brain is largely dependent on age and gender. The researchers tested English and Korean words using two types: reading as visual stimuli, and listening as auditory stimuli. The E-Prime program installed in functional magnetic resonance imaging (f-MRI) was used. There are 136 Korean subjects in three groups: 30 children (5th and 6th grade elementary school students), 76 young adults (college students), and 30 adults (35-53 years old). In the listening test, the variation for the two languages was different among the three age groups, regardless of gender, whereas the data did not show meaningful differences in the reading test. The findings will provide some meaningful information regarding perception and acquisition of a foreign language.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.245-259
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to investigate English teachers' perceptions about doing their own action research to find out the benefits of involvement in action research. I believe that teachers should engage in curriculum research and development because it relates to their own classrooms and because a primary aim for teacher education program is to give teachers ways of exploring their own classrooms. I focused on 17 graduate students who had undertaken action research during the fall semester of 2007 and administered a questionnaire about their perceptions of doing action research. The results revealed that their perceptions of doing action research fell into the following two categories, positive and negative aspects. For positive aspects, they experienced a sense of personal and professional growth and they underwent identity transformation from passive, etic-oriented, and uncritical to active, emic-oriented, and critical teachers. However, many of them expressed that major obstacles to doing action research were time constraints and lack of skills or training in conducting action research. Thus, it is suggested that both pre- and in-service teachers should consider conducting a language teaching diary study, doing collaborative action research, and acquiring all the necessary skills for conducting action research.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.57-69
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• 2017

Due to the development of technology even in learning and education area, many studies have begun to make a new attempts to research by using SNS, breaking away from traditional learning methods. However, the limitations of these studies are restricted only to the use of wireless Internet and writing on Web sites. This study aims to conduct a research on English learning activities that utilize various technologies such as Bigdata, Facebook, Social Network Services (SNS) and English applications. In addition, this study looks into how these modern technologies can be integrated in the classrooms and which activities can be applied in the English classroom. This research is to suggest effective English learning methods through a thorough investigation on the effectivity of various technologies based on the Web 2.0 such as Flickr, blogs, MySpace, and online discussion board within the context of the English learning. To verify the effect of the study, the subjects are divided into experimental and control group. The experiment is proceeded with pre- and post-test. The experimental group is designed to verify the effects using SNS tools such as Facebook, Bigdata, and Online Massive Learning. A survey is conducted to determine the preference of utilizing social networking sites and to analyze the effects in class. The result is that the average scores for experimental group have improved more than the average of control group. The comparison of pre and post-test of the experimental group shows that the significance of the higher and median group was statistically significant at the p<0.01.

• Child Studies in Asia-Pacific Contexts
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.17-29
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• 2016

To help define future research direction and enhance educational service for children from Asian and Latino immigrant backgrounds, this review examines research investigating social competence with reference to host and heritage language skills. A targeted search obtained 14 peer-reviewed studies published from 1994 to 2014 focusing on children aged from birth to 12 years. Social competence is mainly measured by four dimensions: externalizing behaviours, internalizing behaviours, social skills and relationships with others. The evidence suggests that English proficiency levels are positively associated with social skills and parent-child relationships are of higher quality when parent-child heritage language difference is minimal. However the findings are mixed regarding how English levels are associated with externalizing, internalizing behaviours and relationships with others and how heritage language levels are associated with social competence. This review makes a set of recommendations for future research including assessment of participants' language proficiency with language tests and examination of emotional factors in the relationship between English and social competence. The implications of the findings are also discussed for educators.

• Educational Technology International
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.59-78
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• 2009

Language Capital is one of the most important academic abilities and competencies for new era of globalization worldwide. In Europe and Asia where English is not the native language, it is necessary to encourage higher education to improve language competency from both qualitative and quantitative aspects. In so far as online university concerned, it appears of significance to prepare for globalization from the perspective of cross border education, and it needs to focus on how to design and develop English-medium teaching (EMT) or in other words English mediated instruction(EMI) for both teachers and students. In order to provide supportive programs of English-mediated class for teachers and students, the study examined and analyzed what abilities are needed for teachers based on DACUUM approach, suggesting teachers' competency as well as strategies for online- EMT. Based on literature review, DACUUM analysis, focus group interview with teachers and students who experienced online EMT, online programs supporting both teachers and students for online EMI were developed. This program expects to play roles of practical guidelines and reference for both teachers and students online in an extension of language capital improvement.

• Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.261-277
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• 2010

This study is undertaken to present the facilitation plan of English library that specialized the resource-based learning to provide learning that is suited for student's own learning style and self-leading learning as the method to learn contents required for individuals as a method for improving the English education environment in the rural areas. For this purpose, a study was conducted to find out the possibility of facilitating English library in the rural areas on the basis of consulting for structuring and operating English library in public libraries located in isolated areas clustered with low income class in the urban areas where the conditions are similar to the rural areas and results are shown as the followings. First, it displayed the possibility to have the rural area located with many closed schools or small-sized schools to facilitate the available facilities to build up the environment to specialize in English education that would be as comparable as any facilities in any urban setting. Second, it would enable the conditions to moderate the conflict on education environment for local residents who felt inequality in education by providing the benefit for fine education linked to public education through English library without going through private education. And third, English library that has the limitations in locality or economic means would actively participate by local educational institutions and volunteers to enhance the sense of master for the local residents and bring residents together to make positive impact on local economy facilitation.

• Educational Technology International
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.229-254
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• 2018

Universities in Korea have driven universities' new attempts to adopt more learner-centered and active learning in English. Problem-based Learning (PBL) is one of the well-known constructive teaching and learning methodologies in higher education. Our research goal was to design and develop the optimal PBL practices for a college physics course taught in English to promote learning and course satisfaction. For four semesters, we have tried and adjusted PBL components, and looked at the trend of the exam scores and group work achievement in each semester. We found that the number of problems and the duration of problem solving are the critical factors that influence the effect of PBL in a college physics course taught in English by going through iterative implementation. The iterative process of applying, designing, and constructing PBL to physics classes was meaningful not only in that we have found the optimal PBL model for learning a college physics course, but also in that we have been reflecting on the continuous interaction with learners during the course.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.819-828
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• 2014

In this paper, we analyze the characteristics of the English vocalization of deaf students and present the basic data for the development of personalized English learning aid tools that reflect its features. We visited hearing special schools in Seoul and Daegu and recorded English vocalization of the deaf students in order to analyze the characteristics of deaf students' English vocalization. We analyzed the data by Praat program, an professional voice analysis program. The voice features of deaf students' English vocalization were extracted and then compared with those of non-deaf students' English vocalization.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.272-277
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• 2008

Functional MRI technique was used in this study for examining the language switching mechanisms between the first language (L1) and the second language (L2). Language switching mechanism is regarded as a complex task that involves an interaction between L1 and L2. The aim of study is to find out the brain activation patterns during the phonological process of reading real English words and English words written in Korean characters in a bilingual person. Korean-English bilingual subjects were examined while they covertly read four types of words native Korean words, Korean words of a foreign origin, English words written in Korean characters, and English words. The fMRI results reveal that the left hemispheric language-related regions at the brain, such as the left inferior frontal, superior temporal, and parietal cortices, have a greater response to the presentation of English words written in Korean characters than for the other types of words, in addition, a slight difference was observed in the occipital-temporal lobe. These results suggest that a change in the brain circuitry underlying the relational processes of language switching is mainly associated with general executive processing system in the left prefrontal cortex rather than with a similarity-based processing system in the occipital-temporal lobes.