• Title/Summary/Keyword: vocabulary levels test

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A Validity Study on the Vocabulary Grade Levels Test for Korean Elementary Students

  • Shin, Yousun
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.125-147
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    • 2012
  • The primary goal of the study was to provide some preliminary validity evidence for the Vocabulary Grade Levels Test (Busan Metropolitan City Office of Education, 2009), which is designed to measure the receptive vocabulary knowledge of learners in L2. For the purpose of the current study, 327 participants at the elementary school participated in the study and were asked to take two different vocabulary tests. Namely, a Vocabulary Size Test (Nation, 2001) and a Vocabulary Grade Levels Test. The data were analyzed using correlation in order to discover the relationship between these two types of tests. Following this, the Rasch analysis was conducted to examine the reliability and validity of the measurement in question. The data analysis showed that both grade separation reliability and item separation reliability were high, indicating that the Vocabulary Grade Levels Test well discriminates learners with a wide range of proficiency levels. The findings of the study are discussed, along with further improvements in order to ascertain the validity of this particular vocabulary test.

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Vocabulary Size of Korean EFL University Learners: Using an Item Response Theory Model

  • Lee, Yongsang;Chon, Yuah V.;Shin, Dongkwang
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.18 no.1
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    • pp.171-195
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    • 2012
  • While noticing that there is insufficient interest in the assessment of EFL learners' vocabulary levels or sizes, the researchers developed two tests identical in form (Forms A and B) to assess the lexical knowledge of Korean university learners at the $1^{st}{\sim}10^{th}$ 1,000 word bands by adapting a pre-established vocabulary levels test (VLT). Of equal concern was to investigate if the VLT was equally a valid and reliable instrument to be used on measuring the lexical knowledge of EFL learners. The participants were 804 university freshmen enrolled in a General Education English Course from four different colleges. The learners were asked to respond to either Form A or B. While scores generally fell towards the lower frequency bands, multiple regression found the Korean College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) to be a significant variable for predicting the learners' vocabulary sizes. From a methodological perspective, however, noticeable differences between Forms A and B could be found with item response theory analysis. The findings of the study provide suggestions on how future VLT for testing EFL learners may have to be redesigned.

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One Year Longitudinal Study of the Relationship between Infants' Turn-Taking and Vocabulary Development (영아의 차례 맡기와 어휘발달 관계에 대한 단기 종단연구)

  • Kim, Myoung-Soon;Kim, Eui-Hyang;Lee, Yoo-Jin
    • Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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    • v.50 no.2
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    • pp.75-84
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    • 2012
  • The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between infants' turn-taking and vocabulary development during a one-year longitudinal study. Participants of this study included 46 infants who participated in both of the 1st and the 2nd tests. The infants' turn-taking frequencies were observed during mother-infant's free play for 10 minutes. The infants' vocabulary was investigated with MCDI-K for the 1st test and PRES for the 2nd test. The collected data were analyzed using both t-test and Pearson's correlation. The research results were as follows: First, the turn-taking frequencies and vocabulary of infants increased with age groups. Second, there was positive relationship between the turn-taking and the receptive vocabulary in group A at T1. Third, there were significant differences in receptive vocabulary at T1 and expressive vocabulary at T2 among group A according to the infants' turn-taking levels.

How Derivational Prefix Instruction Impacts Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading Comprehension

  • Choi, Sung-Mook
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.13 no.3
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    • pp.1-22
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    • 2007
  • The study examined the effects of explicit derivational morphology instruction (henceforth DMI) on the incidental vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension of 132 Korean 1st-year high school students who responded to a battery of tests (two vocabulary tests and a reading comprehension test). Multiple statistical tools were used to analyze the data: Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA), Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Simple Regression Analysis, Tests of Simple Main Effects, and effect size computation using Cohen's d. The results indicated that (a) DMI enhanced students' ability to infer word meanings in context, (b) DMI promoted high proficiency students' reading comprehension, whereas it impeded intermediate proficiency students' reading comprehension, (c) vocabulary knowledge has a strong positive predictive value for reading comprehension, and (d) the gaps of vocabulary knowledge across proficiency levels were still substantial, despite the observation that DMI promoted students' vocabulary acquisition. These results have a bearing on English as Foreign Language (EFL) reading pedagogy.

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Comparison of Cognitive Loads between Koreans and Foreigners in the Reading Process

  • Im, Jung Nam;Min, Seung Nam;Cho, Sung Moon
    • Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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    • v.35 no.4
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    • pp.293-305
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    • 2016
  • Objective: This study aims to measure cognitive load levels by analyzing the EEG of Koreans and foreigners, when they read a Korean text with care selected by level from the grammar and vocabulary aspects, and compare the cognitive load levels through quantitative values. The study results can be utilized as basic data for more scientific approach, when Korean texts or books are developed, and an evaluation method is built, when the foreigners encounter them for learning or an assignment. Background: Based on 2014, the number of the foreign students studying in Korea was 84,801, and they increase annually. Most of them are from Asian region, and they come to Korea to enter a university or a graduate school in Korea. Because those foreign students aim to learn within Universities in Korea, they receive Korean education from their preparation for study in Korea. To enter a university in Korea, they must acquire grade 4 or higher level in the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK), or they need to complete a certain educational program at each university's affiliated language institution. In such a program, the learners of the Korean language receive Korean education based on texts, except speaking domain, and the comprehension of texts can determine their academic achievements in studying after they enter their desired schools (Jeon, 2004). However, many foreigners, who finish a language course for the short-term, and need to start university study, cannot properly catch up with university classes requiring expertise with the vocabulary and grammar levels learned during the language course. Therefore, reading education, centered on a strategy to understand university textbooks regarded as top level reading texts to the foreigners, is necessary (Kim and Shin, 2015). This study carried out an experiment from a perspective that quantitative data on the readers of the main player of reading education and teaching materials need to be secured to back up the need for reading education for university study learners, and scientifically approach educational design. Namely, this study grasped the difficulty level of reading through the measurement of cognitive loads indicated in the reading activity of each text by dividing the difficulty of a teaching material (book) into eight levels, and the main player of reading into Koreans and foreigners. Method: To identify cognitive loads indicated upon reading Korean texts with care by Koreans and foreigners, this study recruited 16 participants (eight Koreans and eight foreigners). The foreigners were limited to the language course students studying the intermediate level Korean course at university-affiliated language institutions within Seoul Metropolitan Area. To identify cognitive load, as they read a text by level selected from the Korean books (difficulty: eight levels) published by King Sejong Institute (Sejonghakdang.org), the EEG sensor was attached to the frontal love (Fz) and occipital lobe (Oz). After the experiment, this study carried out a questionnaire survey to measure subjective evaluation, and identified the comprehension and difficulty on grammar and words. To find out the effects on schema that may affect text comprehension, this study controlled the Korean texts, and measured EEG and subjective satisfaction. Results: To identify brain's cognitive load, beta band was extracted. As a result, interactions (Fz: p =0.48; Oz: p =0.00) were revealed according to Koreans and foreigners, and difficulty of the text. The cognitive loads of Koreans, the readers whose mother tongue is Korean, were lower in reading Korean texts than those of the foreigners, and the foreigners' cognitive loads became higher gradually according to the difficulty of the texts. From the text four, which is intermediate level in difficulty, remarkable differences started to appear in comparison of the Koreans and foreigners in the beginner's level text. In the subjective evaluation, interactions were revealed according to the Koreans and foreigners and text difficulty (p =0.00), and satisfaction was lower, as the difficulty of the text became higher. Conclusion: When there was background knowledge in reading, namely schema was formed, the comprehension and satisfaction of the texts were higher, although higher levels of vocabulary and grammar were included in the texts than those of the readers. In the case of a text in which the difficulty of grammar was felt high in the subjective evaluation, foreigners' cognitive loads were also high, which shows the result of the loads' going up higher in proportion to the increase of difficulty. This means that the grammar factor functions as a stress factor to the foreigners' reading comprehension. Application: This study quantitatively evaluated the cognitive loads of Koreans and foreigners through EEG, based on readers and the text difficulty, when they read Korean texts. The results of this study can be used for making Korean teaching materials or Korean education content and topic selection for foreigners. If research scope is expanded to reading process using an eye-tracker, the reading education program and evaluation method for foreigners can be developed on the basis of quantitative values.

The Developmental History and Recent Trends of TOPIK: from the 1st TOPIK in 1997 through the 52nd TOPIK in 2016 (한국어능력시험 20년 발전사와 최근 동향 -1997년 제1회 시험부터 2016년 제52회 시험까지-)

  • Kim, Chungsook
    • Journal of Korean language education
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    • v.28 no.3
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    • pp.1-24
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    • 2017
  • This article explores the developmental history of TOPIK over the last 20 years and its recent trends. Over the last two decades, TOPIK underwent two major systematic reforms, achieving both quantitative and qualitative growth over the course of its 52 testing sessions. TOPIK has utilized a six-level evaluation system from its inception to the present. The evaluation system was amended from the earlier six-test set - whereby each level corresponded with a separate test (1997~2005: the $1^{st}{\sim}9^{th}$) - to the three-test set (2006~2014: the $10^{th}{\sim}34^{th}$), and finally to the two-test set (2014~present: the $35^{th}{\sim}42^{nd}$). In the earlier exams, abilities in Vocabulary Grammar, Writing, Listening, and Reading were assessed. However, beginning with the $35^{th}$ TOPIK, abilities in Listening, Reading, and Writing (only in TOPIK II) were assessed and the evaluation of the writing section was changed to a task-based process, improving TOPIK into a more qualified analysis of proficiency. Over the last 20 years, the number of countries TOPIK is administered in has greatly increased from 4 to 73 countries, and the annual number of test-takers has also significantly increased from 2,692 to 250,141. The distribution of proficiency levels of the test-takers has shifted over time - initially "Beginner>Intermediate>Advanced" in the earlier exams, to "Intermediate>Advanced>Beginner" after the mid 2000s - as the number of those studying the Korean language for specific purposes and continuing education increased. Test-takers have indicated a shift in their purpose for taking the exam, initially citing "to assess proficiency" and more recently selecting "to study abroad," and this could also correlate with changes in the proportion of test-takers' proficiency level. In general, 85~95% of beginner, 50~65% of intermediate, and 45~60% of advanced test applicants passed the respective proficiency level. To date, no practices have yet been implemented to standardize the difficulty level longitudinally across test sets.