• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.273-291
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• 2011

This study investigates factors that influence ESL learners' use/avoidance of English phrasal verbs. It especially focuses on two factors, topic difference and group membership. For the purpose, 60 ESL students who took the University English Proficiency Test (UEPT) were selected, and the 60 essays they wrote for the UEPT were analyzed. All the students were with non-Germanic first language backgrounds. Among the 60 essays, 30 essays were selected from the essays written for the International Students UEPT (IS UEPT), which was required of all new international students. Another 30 essays were selected from the essays written for the Regents' UEPT, which was required of all non-native English speaking undergraduate students as a graduation requirement. Results indicate that the length of residency in the U.S. and/or academic status and semantic complexities of English phrasal verbs but not topic difference nor English proficiency affected the use of English phrasal verbs. The study ends with a discussion of pedagogical implications of the findings.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.153-176
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• 2006

This paper examines "Difference in Requests." The study of speech acts is a crucial area in sociolinguistics and ethnolinguistics, and has aided in the development of TESOL. It also provides a useful means of relating linguistic form and communicative intent. This paper concentrated on 3 request strategies, which were requests made with an explanation, requests made without an explanation and no requests. The purpose of this study, and of concern in TESOL, was to discover whether Koreans framed their requests differently under different conditions. Based on these differences, I wanted to ascertain whether Koreans who spoke English as a second language, and who have lived in the United States, frame their requests as they would in their native tongues thus creating the potential for sociolinguistic failure, or use American sociolinguistic style. As the results of the study, it was found that in the majority of cases, Americans made an explanation with a request. In many cases the Koreans living in Korea would not give an explanation when making a request. Rather, they were direct in request. In many cases the Korean speaking English and living in the US had adopted the American request strategy of giving an explanation.

• 중국학논총
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• no.71
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• pp.23-40
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• 2021

'过' and '了' are the key points, as well as difficult ones, in the academic study of Chinese grammar and language teaching. This article analyzes this language use by taking two sentence structures as example, namely 'Pao le.' and 'Pao guo le.'. As the semantic meanings of 'V+了2' and 'V+过1+了2' are very similar. Therefore, it can be confusing for non-native speakers to master this usage. This article attempts to sort out and analyze the usage environment and pragmatic characteristics of 'V+过1+了2' by employing the examples from the data of Corpus of the Chinese Linguistics Research Center of Peking University. By focusing on the usage environment and pragmatic characteristics of '过' and it is desirable for teachers to combine semantics, syntax and pragmatics while explaining the grammar point, in order for learners to understand accurate information quickly and learn how to use it.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.159-166
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• 2021

The introduction of the communicative approach in the English language education brings in a Korean the English Program in Korea (EPIK), which is a Korean government sponsored program established 1995. by the Korean Ministry of Education improve Korean students' and teachers' communicative competency in English within the public school system in Korea. For this goal, EPIK invites English speakers from 7 major English-speaking countries. However, the effectiveness of this program has been questioned in Korea. Thus, the objective of this paper is to explore the current status, problems, and the directions for the program to be aimed at, and for the effectiveness of EPIK through investigation of the program. Then this paper presents some possible solutions and suggestions including the possibility of VR use in orientation and training programs in order to empower both Korean teachers of English and English native teachers in Korea.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.105-115
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• 2003

The four skills of a language are basically required for a communication. They are very important for a learner to develop the balanced language acquisition. Today both listening and speaking skills are emphasized in the global era rather than reading and writing proficiencies. The reason is really why the learners' communicative competence is more needed than the accurate knowledge of a structure in the language. For this reason, the listening comprehension should be taught effectively using the following strategies. First, the sound difference of a language must be taught. Language is a complicated process to convey the comprehensive meaning combined with the internal and external factors of a language. In other words, the meaning for the sound of language should be transmitted by the unit of vocabulary and syntax. Second, a good listening comprehension requires the familiarity and much experience with a lot of English words to understand English sentences unconsciously. Third, as understanding the structure of language is effective for the listening comprehension, the better listening comprehension can be possible through the meaningful exercise. Fourth, the compound process of listening comprehension requires the comprehensive understanding of language, but not the separate understanding of language. Fifth, the appropriate application of the multimedia courseware helps improve the listening comprehension better than that of the existing audio, video, tape recorder and so on. Using multimedia courseware is useful as follows: A learner is able to take as much lesson as he/she wants. It does take little time to repeat about what he/she takes a lesson. It gives the lively picture with the native speakers' voices. It gives him/her(a learner) a feedback effect continuously through the interaction of computer. It controls his/her lesson in accordance with the level of a learner.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.17-33
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• 2003

College going students who are non-native speakers of English enrolled in English language programmes are not acquiring the needed academic writing skills. Many of these students do not have positive attitudes towards writing, thus forcing language instructors to look for ways of motivating students to write in order to improve writing skills. This action research project investigates the use of portfolio writing to improve writing ability among pre-university students. Research on the use of portfolio writing suggests that it is a useful way for developing interest in writing and for developing effective writing skills over a period of time. Portfolios support the best thinking in composition pedagogy in that it encourages process writing. Although the portfolio is considered a writing product, as a whole it is evidence of the students writing process. An important feature in using portfolios is that students are able to focus on their writing without constantly worrying about grades. Instructors have noticed that students make greater improvement in their writing when their focus is shifted from punitive feedback through letter grades to constructive feedback in the form of suggestions for further revision. This paper describes the use of writing portfolios as an effective means of teaching writing. The findings revealed that writing portfolios helped develop confidence in writing and decreased anxiety towards writing. (217 words)

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.133-156
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• 2007

Although the understanding of English tense system is a crucial factor for communicative English learning and teaching for EFL students, it has been neglected over the years. As with other areas of the grammar, difficulties may arise from the nature of the system itself or from differences between time, tense and aspect. Consequently, many learners face a considerable difficulty with the English tense system as they are more often unable to grasp the basic conceptual differences of present/present continuous, past/present perfect, will/be going to along with many others. More concerning fact is that lots of instructors or so-called native English teachers seem not to be aware of the importance of teaching English tense system. The purpose of this study is to review and examine various theories and practical usages of tense in order to establish and/or present better methods for teaching tenses. This paper is focused on comparatively exact distinction of time, physical notion from tense, grammatical category as well as sequences of tenses in view of school grammar and communicative function. At the end or middle of each chapter, efficient teaching and learning techniques or strategies on tenses are suggested to help instructors or learners who relentlessly face confusions in understanding tense and its usage for communicative English learning and teaching. This study attempts to influence learners' ability to recognize and write tense in authentic contexts not to mention spoken English.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.109-136
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• 2009

This study investigates English medium instruction (EMI) in an institution of higher education in Seoul, Korea to see whether this course creates cultural correction (reproduction of inequitable relations of power in EMI settings) or cultural continuity (opportunities for transporting students into a third space and enabling them to explore cultural diversity and to create new knowledge for themselves). A single site where EMI is carried out, a class on fairy tales and child education taught by a native English speaking professor, was chosen because it was hypothesized that the professor would display some of her unconscious dominant cultural orientation. The results of the study show that there more cases of cultural correction than there were of cultural continuity. Cases of cultural correction included lack of knowledge about the local context, fixing Korean classroom discourse as if it were American classroom discourse, and reproducing orientalism in the local educational setting. Cases of cultural continuity included using comparison to consider the cultural reality of the milieu, creating new knowledge for the local milieu, and learning as a dynamic ongoing process. Implications of this research are discussed including the important realization that EMI should be managed by subject specialists who are trained in language education and have knowledge of the students' needs and discourse in the L1 and in the local context.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.53-80
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• 2011

The study examines how Koreans' politeness is realized in a speech act, request. The main focus is to explore underlying rationale and influence involved in their performance, not just the comparison of difference in politeness realization between native and nonnative speakers of English, as previous studies did. The study employs the DCT, an attached politeness scale questionnaire, and interviews. Twenty nine university students participated in the study. Interchangeable reading of the three data yields some interesting and valuable insights. The participants heavily rely on a few formulaic expressions to express politeness, such as interrogatives with modal verbs, please and excuse me as a politeness marker. They want to use honorific address terms that is literally translated into English, and have a belief that there are honorific words in English as in Korean. The study refers to the participants' voice on indirectness, nonverbal messages, and expressions with different connotations between English and Korean.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.31-68
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• 2006

The present research investigates the acquisition of the English locative alternation by Korean EFL learners, which poses a learnability paradox, taking Pinker's framework of learnability theory as its basis. It addresses two questions (1) how lexical knowledge is represented initially and at different levels of interlanguage development and (2) what kinds of difficulty Korean learners find in the acquisition of English locative verbs and their constructions. Three groups of learners at different proficiency levels with a control group of English native speakers are examined by two instruments: elicited production task and grammaticality judgment task. According to different levels of proficiency, the learners exhibit gradual sensitivity to a change-of-state meaning and obtain complete perception of the meanings of locative verbs (manner-of-motion and change-of-state) and their constructions. Overgeneralization errors are observed in their performance. The errors are due to misinterpretations of particular lexical items in conjunction with the universal linking rules. More fundamental cause of difficulty is accounted for by partial use of learning mechanisms, caused by insufficient L2 input.