• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.71-80
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• 2016

The phonemic awareness tasks (phonemic synthesis, phonemic elision, phonemic segmentation) by auditory presentation and visual presentation were conducted to 40 children who are 5 and 6 years old. The scores and error types in the sub-tasks by two presentations were compared to each other. Also, the correlation between the performances of phonemic awareness sub-tasks in two presentation conditions were examined. As a result, 6-year-old group showed significantly higher phonemic awareness scores than 5-year-old group. Both group showed significantly higher scores in visual presentation than auditory presentation. While the performance under the visual presentation was significantly lower especially in the segmentation than the other two tasks, there was no significant difference among sub-tasks under the auditory presentation. 5-year-old group showed significantly more 'no response' errors than 6-year-old group and 6-year-old group showed significantly more 'phoneme substitution' and 'phoneme omission' errors than 5-year-old group. Significantly more 'phoneme omission' errors were observed in the segmentation than the elision task, and significantly more 'phoneme addition' errors were observed in elision than the synthesis task. Lastly, there are positive correlations in auditory and visual synthesis tasks, auditory and visual elision tasks, and auditory and visual segmentation tasks. Summarizing the results, children tend to depend on orthographic knowledge when acquiring the initial phonemic awareness. Therefore, the result of this research would support the position that the orthographic knowledge affects the improvement of phonemic awareness.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.37-44
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• 2023

This study investigates perceptual confusions of English fricatives among 121 Korean elementary school English as a foreign language (EFL) learners with shorter periods of learning English. The objective is to examine how they perceive English fricative consonants and to provide educational guidelines. Two sets of English fricative identification tasks-voiceless fricatives and voiced fricatives-were administered to participants in a High Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT) setting. Their phonemic awareness of the fricatives was visualized in perceptual confusion maps via multidimensional scaling analysis. The findings are explored in terms of the impacts of Korean EFL learners' L1 linguistic aspects and a comparison with L1 learners. Learners' phonemic awareness patterns are then compared with their relative importance in speech intelligibility based on a functional load hierarchy. The results indicated that Korean elementary EFL learners recognized English fricatives in a manner largely akin to L1 learners, suggesting their ongoing acquisition progress. Additionally, the findings demonstrated that the young EFL learners possess sufficient phonemic awareness for most high functional load segments but encounter some difficulties with one high and one low functional pair. The findings of this study offer suggestions for diagnosing language learners' phonemic awareness abilities, thereby aiding in the development of practical guidelines for language instructional design and helping educators make informed decisions regarding teaching priority in L2 classes.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.123-141
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• 2006

The phonemic awareness program included construction of 45 activities emphasizing various sounds in speech and letter names using a storybook. The subjects were thirty 1st and 2nd grade low-income(15 experimental and 15 control group) children attending an after-school program in Seoul. Pre- and post-tests assessed children's reading, self-concept, and learning motivation. The experimental group children had rich opportunity to deal with and discuss sounds, syllables, phonemes, and the Korean alphabet names during storybook reading, games, and play over a 12 week period, while the control group children were provided with worksheets, subject tutoring, and homework guidance. Results showed that the phonemic activities were an effective and useful way to enhance children's reading ability, self-concept, and learning motivation.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.219-225
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• 2015

This experimental study aims at understanding the Korean subjects' phonemic awareness in the English minimal pairs. For the purpose of the experiment, English listening comprehension tests were designed using minimal pairs and conducted among subjects, and the results of the tests were analyzed with the help of spectrogram. From the results of this study, I could find out three important things: First, subjects have difficulty in understanding and distinguishing English vowel minimal pairs. Second, among the English vowel minimal pairs, they had much difficulty in distinguishing between /ə:/ and /ɔ:/. Third, subjects could recognize the semivowel /w/ in words without any difficulty. In addition to this, I tried to analyze the results using the spectrogram, which helps to educate students effectively.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.8 no.12
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• pp.235-241
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• 2017

The Effects of the Story Character Phonics on Preschoolers' Early Reading Abilities and Affective Domains The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the story character phonics on preschoolers' early reading abilities (phonemic awareness and phonics abilities) and their affective domains. 24 participants in the present study were seven years old, and they were divided into two different groups at S kindergarten in Chungnam. There were 12 preschoolers in the experimental group with the story character phonics, and 12 preschoolers in the control group learned English by the story phonics focusing on phonemic awareness and vocabulary for 6 weeks. The results were as follows: First, the story character phonics was more effective in improving the preschoolers' early reading abilities than using the story phonics. Secondly, the story character phonics had some positive effects on the preschoolers' affective domains. This study proved that practicing with the story character phonics is more effective for preschoolers to develop their early reading abilities of English and their affective domains.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.35-46
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• 2006

This study investigated whether there are differences between Korean-English bilingual and Korean monolingual children on phonological awareness skills. Participants were 11 Korean-English bilingual children and 12 Korean monolingual children. The children's ages ranged between 6 and 7 years. The results were as follows. First, the bilingual children significantly outperformed monolingual children on overall phonological awareness tasks. The bilinguals performed significantly higher than monolinguals on all three types of phonological awareness tasks (segmentation, deletion, and blending). Second, there was a significant difference between the groups with respect to phonological units of the tasks. The bilinguals performed significantly better than monolinguals on the phonemic unit tasks, but two groups did not differ significantly on syllabic unit tasks. There was an interaction effect between unit size(syllables and phonemes) and group (bilinguals and monolinguals). Third, there were correlations for both bilingual and monolingual children between overall phonological awareness skills and word recognition skills.

• Lingua Humanitatis
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• v.8
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• pp.331-367
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• 2006

In this paper I attempted to investigate the matters related with the clarification of the close relationship between writing system and pronunciation. On the way of pursuing the research on the subject I found the fact that the same topic has been the main academic target in Korea. There have been some remarks about English alphabets and pronunciation. Nevertheless, the relation between alphabet codes and pronunciation tokens wasn't considered as the main key to master the English pronunciation correctly and completely. As the main target of this paper I argue that it is necessary to comprehend the connection. Then, we can recognize the significant role of alphabetic structure for understanding the gist of pronunciation exercise. This paper is classified into four parts. Each part consists of the material to affirm the fact that writing system should be the inevitable equivalent of sound system, and vice versa. In the first section I show that the development of the way of pronouncing English words is closely related with the endeavors of the scholars. While performing the survey of the studies about the alphabetic structure of the age many scholars found that the spelling construction was recorded without any common denominator. Thus, they not only sought to stage the bedrock for the standard written form of words but also to associate the alphabet letters with phonetic features. Secondly I mention the negative aspect of the 'only spelling based English pronunciation education' for the educational goal of 'Phonics methodology.' In this part I suggest the essentiality of phonemic properties with the phonetic prospect: phonemic awareness. Thirdly I refer to the standardization of the spelling system of English. As the realm of application of the language is extended toward the various professional areas such as commercial, scientific, and cultural spheres, it is quite natural to assume that the usage of the language will be transformed according to the areas in the world. Fourthly I introduce the first English-Korean grammar book with the section of 'the introduction to English pronunciation.' At the chapter the author explained the sound features of English based on the regulation of 'Scientific Alphabet' of U.S.A. In the transcribing system all the symbols were postulated on the basis of the English alphabet form instead of the separate phonetic signs of IPA.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.169-172
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to provide preliminary data on the acoustical differences of one syllable words spoken by speakers with different language backgrounds. 20 native speakers of Korean and English were asked to read 7 one-syllable words written in their native language. The phonetic and phonemic characteristics of 7 words were similar between two languages. The ratio of duration of the body (onset+nucleus) and the rhyme(nucleus+coda) relative to the duration of each syllable were calculated using CSL (Computerized Speech Laboratory). The results corresponds to the body-coda structure of the Korean syllable which is supported by the recent experimental psychological studies. More acoustic studies on the Korean syllable structure are required to establish clinical foundation for the phonological awareness and the reading intervention programs.