• 영어어문교육
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• 제17권3호
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• pp.309-326
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• 2011

This study examines the relationship between second language use outside of class and oral proficiency development. It first identifies out-of-class activities of international graduate students in the U.S. and the average time spent speaking English in those out-of-class activities. Interviews and student self-measurements of time spent speaking English each day were used to investigate the types and quantities of out-of-class activities. In addition, two sets of student oral proficiency test scores were collected. Correlation analysis is used to find out the relationship of the variables between the most salient out-of-class activities and oral proficiency gains. The findings indicate that second language use outside of class is important for international graduate students to improve their oral proficiency. This is especially true with regularized interaction such as talking at work and the average time spent speaking in English a day outside of class. This study suggests that learners of English in an ESL environment should be encouraged to take part in out-of-class activities in addition to English use in the classroom in order for them to improve their oral proficiency.

• 영어어문교육
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• 제15권2호
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• pp.169-184
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to identify the most important factor(s) that contribute(s) to the overall oral proficiency and to examine whether the factor(s) play(s) a different role depending on the proficiency level of learners. Learners were divided into novice group and advanced group and were asked to produce an oral recording of a story based on a comic strip. The recordings were transcribed and graded by three raters. According to the results, the raters attained high inter-rater reliability when assessing advanced learners. However, the reliability level became considerably lower in the assessment of novice learners. The best predictor of oral proficiency among novice learners was sociolinguistic competence and fluency, while grammatical competence and fluency were the strongest predictors for advanced learners. The results suggest the need for a separate assessment tool for different proficiency levels and the need for a different focus in the classroom depending on the learners' proficiency level.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제9권3호
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• pp.49-56
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• 2017

Much research attention has been directed to identify how native speakers perceive non-native speakers' oral proficiency. To investigate the generalizability of previous findings, this study examined segmental, phonological, accentual, and temporal correlates of native speakers' evaluation of L2 Korean proficiency produced by learners with various levels and nationalities. Our experiment results show that proficiency ratings by native speakers significantly correlate not only with rate of speech, but also with the segmental accuracies. The influence of segmental errors has the highest correlation with the proficiency of L2 Korean speech. We further verified this finding within substitution, deletion, insertion error rates. Although phonological accuracy was expected to be highly correlated with the proficiency score, it was the least influential measure. Another new finding in this study is that the role of pitch and accent has been underemphasized so far in the non-native Korean speech perception studies. This work will serve as the groundwork for the development of automatic assessment module in Korean CAPT system.

• 한국산학기술학회논문지
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• 제17권3호
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• pp.537-543
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• 2016

본 연구는 중급 하 수준의 성인 영어 학습자의 말하기능력향상을 위한 토론수업모형을 제시하고 있다. 수업모형은 읽기, 쓰기, 듣기, 말하기의 네 가지 기술을 모두 사용하여 학습자의 스키마(schema)지식을 높이고 토론전략을 연습하는 단계로 구성한다. 토론주제는 학습자들의 인지능력에 적합하고 언어학습의 동기를 높이기 위해 학습자를 대상으로 설문을 통하여 10가지 주제를 선정한다. 토론식 수업모형의 교육적 효과를 살펴보기 위해 서울소재 영어과 2학년 26명을 대상으로 파일럿 실험을 한다. 공인영어말하기시험인 OPIc(Oral Proficiency Interview in computer)을 사용하여 사전, 사후시험을 실시하고 두 시험의 결과를 분석한다. 실험결과 참가자 대부분(82%)을 차지한 중급 하 수준이하의 학습자들은 실험 후 47%로 감소하였고, 실험 전 18%(5명)의 중급 중이상의 언어숙련도 분포는 실험 후 53%(14명)로 증가하였다. 전체적으로 한 단계 수준상승이 있었다. 토론식 수업모형은 학습자들의 언어숙련도 수준에 관계없이 토론수업을 할 수 있다는 가능성을 보여준다. 대학교 수준이상의 영어학습자들은 자신의 인지능력에 적합한 다양하고 창의적인 생각들을 좀 더 형식을 갖춘 지적인 언어로 표현할 필요가 있다. 토론식 수업모형은 종전의 대화식 영어회화와는 다른 새롭고 효과적인 교수법의 대안이 될 수 있다는 긍정적 평가가 기대된다.

• 한국치위생학회지
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• 제15권1호
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• pp.19-29
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• 2015

Objectives: The purpose of the study is to investigate the related factors to dental care utilization, oral health behaviors, and oral health status in immigrant workers in Korea. Methods: The subjects were 504 foreign immigrant male workers over 20 years old who visited Daegu labor consultation center for oral health survey and oral examination. The questionnaire included 5 questions of socioeconomic characteristics, 8 questions of oral health practice behavior, 6 questions of dental clinic visit, 8 questions of social relations and Korean language proficiency. The question for health behavior was measure by body mass index(BMI). Social relations and Korean language proficiency instrument was modified by Seol from "Family welfare survey in Korean international marriage" and scored by Liker 5 scale. Results: The oral health examination of the immigrant workers was as follows: decayed teeth - 76.6%, filling teeth - 27.4%, missing teeth - 69.8%, dental caries experience above five or more - 60.2%, periodontal pocket tissues - 58.9%. Simplified Oral Hygiene Index was very poor and accounted for 49.0%. Dental care utilization experience was closely associated with social relation indexes including attendance in family events, household stuff help, financial help and counseling for hard work(p<0.01). Dental care utilization experience proportionally increased with proficiency in Korean literacy including speaking, listening, and writing abilities of Korean language(p<0.01). Conclusions: In order to improve the oral health condition of the immigrant workers, it is important to provide social network, Korean language proficiency support, and health insurance coverage through economic burden reduction by the Korean government.

• 음성과학
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• 제14권3호
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• pp.77-89
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• 2007

This paper examined the intonation contours of English sentences produced by the Korean students. Thirty students participated in the speaking tasks made up of three parts: an oral interview, picture description and a conversational text reading. Their pronunciations in the parts were recorded on a minidisk. Then, two native instructors evaluated their proficiency level focusing on general intelligibility and suprasegmental aspects of the speech. Based on the results of evaluation they were divided into two groups: high and low proficiency groups. The pitch contours of three sentences produced by both the Korean students and a native speaker were compared to find any similarities and differences in the students' intonation patterns using Praat. Results showed that there was a moderate correlation in the proficiency scores of the students by the two native speakers. Secondly, students who earned high scores in the proficiency level matched better the native model. Thirdly, the high group students knew more on the pitch contour and tried to carefully realize them while fewer students in the low group answered positively on the questionnaire. In conclusion, English learners need to know the proper intonation patterns and to practice them consciously and sufficiently to realize correct intonation contours. Further studies would be desirable on the students' pronunciation focused on discourse structure.

• 한국산학기술학회논문지
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• 제12권1호
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• pp.195-199
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• 2011

영어 능력평가를 위한 테스트는 평가자, 과제, 인터뷰의 주제, 그리고 평가 받는 사람의 성별 등 여러 가지 이유 때문에 그 평가 결과가 아주 다양할 수 있다. 이전의 자료는 평가자가 외국어로서의 영어구술 능력 평가 결과에 아주 중요한 영향을 끼친다는 것을 증명해 왔다. 이렇게 영어 능력 구술 평가에 영향을 미치는 평가자에 대한 많은 조사는 있었지만 평가 과정에 잠재적으로 영향을 줄 수 있는 평가자의 가변성에 대한 조사는 극히 드물었다. 시험 환경이 달라지면 그에 따라 구술 평가가 달라지고 그 평가 기준은 또 완전히 달라진다. 그러므로 다양한 시험 수행 과제에 대해 똑같은 평가 기준을 적용하는 것은 적당치 않다. 즉 평가 과정에 대한 더 많은 원안 분석과 심도 있는 연구가 필요하다. 제 2외국어로서 영어 능력평가를 위한 구술시험은 보다 더 현실적이고 효율적인 장치가 만들어져야 할 것이다.

• 아시아태평양코퍼스연구
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• 제2권1호
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• pp.35-45
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• 2021

With the wide spread of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) scales, many studies attempt to apply them in routine teaching and rater training, while more evidence regarding criterial features at different CEFR levels are still urgently needed. The current study aims to explore complexity features that distinguish and predict CEFR proficiency levels in oral performance. Using a quantitative/corpus-based approach, this research analyzed lexical and syntactic complexity features over 80 transcriptions (includes A1, A2, B1 CEFR levels, and native speakers), based on an interview test, Standard Speaking Test (SST). ANOVA and correlation analysis were conducted to exclude insignificant complexity indices before the discriminant analysis. In the result, distinctive differences in complexity between CEFR speaking levels were observed, and with a combination of six major complexity features as predictors, 78.8% of the oral transcriptions were classified into the appropriate CEFR proficiency levels. It further confirms the possibility of predicting CEFR level of L2 learners based on their objective linguistic features. This study can be helpful as an empirical reference in language pedagogy, especially for L2 learners' self-assessment and teachers' prediction of students' proficiency levels. Also, it offers implications for the validation of the rating criteria, and improvement of rating system.

• 비교문화연구
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• 제20권
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• pp.29-66
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• 2010

This paper is a qualitative study of the experiences of Korean heritage language learners (KHLLs) with literacy (reading and writing), particularly before they enter the college-level heritage language classroom. Previous research, both qualitative and quantitative, has addressed the overall language background of KHLLs, including oral and aural proficiency and writing and reading ability, as well as demographic information (such as when the student immigrated to the United States) in relation to language test scores. This study addresses KHLL experiences in the following six areas as they relate to student perceptions and attitudes toward their own heritage language literacy: language proficiency, motivation for learning, academic preparedness, cultural connectedness, emotional factors, and social factors. Fourteen undergraduate students at a university in the western United States participated in a convenience sample by responding to a 10-question survey. Trends in responses indicated that KHLLs entered the classroom with high integrational motivation and experienced great satisfaction with perceived progress in literacy, but students also expressed regret for having missed childhood learning experiences that would likely have resulted in higher proficiency. These experiences include informal and formal instruction in the home and formal instruction outside of the home.

• 디지털융복합연구
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• 제15권5호
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• pp.71-77
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• 2017

본 연구는 사내 영어 교육이 직장인의 영어 말하기 능력 향상에 미치는 영향을 조사한 것으로, 교육을 통해 참가자의 영어 말하기 능력이 실제로 상승하는지에 대한 여부와 사내 영어 교육에 대한 참가자의 인식을 파악하는 데 그 목적이 있다. 국내 대기업 종사자 68명이 12주 동안 사내 영어 교육 프로그램에 참가하였으며, 참가자 전원 모두 교육 시작 전과 종료 후 두 차례에 걸쳐 사전 사후 말하기 평가 및 설문에 참여하였다. 연구의 주요 결과 및 시사점을 살펴보면, 교육 참가자의 영어 말하기 능력은 교육 전에 비해 교육 종료 후 대체로 상승하였고, 참가자 대부분이 사내 영어 교육 프로그램에 대해 영어 능력을 향상시킬 수 있는 효과적인 프로그램이라고 긍정적으로 인식하고 있음을 알 수 있었다. 최근 기업 내 영어 교육 프로그램이 증가하는데 비해 그에 대한 실증적인 연구가 부족하다는 점을 고려해 볼 때, 본 연구가 갖는 시사점은 크다고 할 수 있다.