• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.243-267
• /
• 2006

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a proposal for the betterment of the English curriculum in the Department of Tourism of a women's college. The paper includes not only the needs analysis of students but also that of personnel officers of tourism related companies and offices. Since the students will have to look for desirable jobs after graduation, the needs and demands of their potential employers or personnel officers are crucial in deciding what and how to teach. Based on these analyses, the paper also examines the current curriculum offered by the department. The needs, wants and necessities of the students, potential personnel officers, and the current curriculum will have to be taken into consideration in designing a more effective future curriculum. The results of the study reveal that more emphasis should be given on the improvement of students' communicative abilities and TOEIC scores.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.123-142
• /
• 2009

The present study used multi-faceted Rasch measurement to explore the characteristics and bias patterns of non-native raters when they scored L2 writing tasks. Three raters scored 254 writing tasks written by Korean university students on two topics adapted from the TOEFL Test of Written English (TWE). The written products were assessed using a five-category rating scale (Content, Organization, Language in Use, Grammar, and Mechanics). The raters only showed a difference in severity with regard to rating categories but not in task types. Overall, the raters scored Grammar most harshly and Organization most leniently. The results also indicated several bias patterns of ratings with regard to the rating categories and task types. In rater-task bias interactions, each rater showed recurring bias patterns in their rating between two writing tasks. Analysis of rater-category bias interaction showed that the three raters revealed biased patterns across all the rating categories though they were relatively consistent in their rating. The study has implications for the importance of rater training and task selection in L2 writing assessment.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.16 no.4
• /
• pp.39-69
• /
• 2010

This study aims to identify how participants in online-incorporated English learning perceive interaction between achievement and factors of learning and personality. Using grounded theory analysis, this study attempts to generate a theoretical model depicting how the factors work with the L2 learners situated in the learning setting. A total of 231 college freshmen participated in online and offline EFL learning programs for the duration of one semester. In addition, all respondents completed a survey questionnaire on their learning experiences. In the investigation of the differences between low- and high-proficiency groups, audio-taped interviews with 20 selected students, 10 from each group, have revealed differences not only in the types of personal and instructional factors, but also, more importantly, in the interrelationship between these factors in each group's learning model. These models effectively explained the statistically significant differences in four questionnaire items, such as online learning and contributions of offline class sections to their L2 achievement. These findings entail L2 practitioners' shared understandings of their students' perspectives of learning in the specific L2 learning context.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.19-24
• /
• 2016

The Korean high back vowels /o/ and /u/ have been reported to be in a state of near-merger especially among young female speakers. Along with cross-generational changes, the vowel position within a word has been reported to render different phonetic realization. The current study examines native English speakers' ability to attend to the phonetic cues that distinguish the two merging vowels and the positional effects (word-initial vs. word-final) on the identification accuracy. 28 two-syllable words containing /o/ or /u/ in either initial or final position were produced by native female Korean speakers. The CV part of each target word were excised and presented to six native English speakers. The results showed that although the identification accuracy was the lowest for /o/ in word- final position (41%), it increased up to 80% in word-initial position. The acoustic analyses of the target vowels showed that /o/ and /u/ were differentiated on the height dimension only in word-initial position, suggesting that English speakers may have perceived the distinctive F1 difference retained in the prominent position.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.207-221
• /
• 2012

This study examines the importance of learning language and cultural integration in general English class focused on TOEIC reading comprehension. The understanding of cultural learning and learners' cultural awareness has long been a subject of debate. This study was not only to analyze the improvement of students' interest and reading comprehension ability of TOEIC through cultural learning, but also to ensure students who learn American culture overcome cross-cultural miscommunication and improve their English reading comprehension skills. Pre-post surveys and the pre-post TOEIC tests were used to measure language proficiency and American cultural knowledge to two groups: the experimental and control group. The results from the study were as follows: First, students had better TOEIC scores with improved motivation after understanding American culture relevant to the lessons. Second, reading comprehension skills with regards to TOEIC also improved, compared with the students who were not exposed to American culture due to lack of opportunity.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.77-92
• /
• 2012

This paper explores the learners' experience process and features in the initial stage of extensive reading process through college students' daily based journal writings. The subjects of this study were 10 volunteer students and they kept their journals from 30 minutes to 2 hours daily based for two weeks. The participants took pre and post tests in order to find out how their reading comprehension ability improved. Four of them improved it while the rest of them did not. After writing journals for two weeks, all students agreed on the potential power of extensive reading. In addition, they realized their learning problems and tried to overcome them on their own ways. Although the research period was only two weeks, the students showed the potential of extensive reading in learning English. From the results of the study, extensive reading encouraged the students to read more and they were convinced that extensive reading will lead to successful learning English. It can be meaningful outcome from the 2-week period research. Thus, a longer period scheme could provide more detail information to the extensive reading.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.51-70
• /
• 2009

This study focuses on the asymmetrical realization of homorganic nasal-obstruent stop clusters in English when they occur word medially and word finally. This uneven realization of NC clusters is not only controlled by the place of articulation of the cluster constituents but also by the agreement of voicing feature specifications of the cluster elements. We propose context-sensitive constraints, which are more specified versions than *NC (Pater, 1996, 1999, 2004). The result of the study reveals that homorganic NC clusters consisting of coronal place feature are faithfully realized word finally while they are constrained word medially. The deletion of voiceless post-nasal coronal stop should be considered a new language specific strategy to avoid *NC.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
• /
• v.4 no.2
• /
• pp.151-174
• /
• 2004

A historical investigation reveals that English preposition with underwent a change from OPPOSITION to ASSOCIATION and further to ACCOMPANIMENT, where the first stage shows peculiarity in that the two concepts involved comprise an unusual set to form an extensional chain. Intrigued by this oddity, this paper aims to investigate the semantic structure of English preposition with from a grammaticalization perspective. We review mechanisms and models of semantic change and evaluate their adequacy with the semantic structure and change shown by with. Drawing upon the observed fact that with underwent the apparent antonymic semantic change, it is argued that such semantic change mechanisms as metaphor, metonymy, subjectification, and generalization have difficulties explaining the change, and that only the Frame-of-Focus Variation can effectively account for this peculiar change type. In terms of semantic change models, we argue that the Bleaching Model cannot effectively provide an explanation; that the Loss and Gain Model has problems in explaining the motivation of change directions; that the Metonymic-Metaphoric Model cannot be assessed at the current level of investigation; and that the Overlap Model and the Prototype Extension Model excellently account for the macro-level changes.

• Educational Technology International
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.45-68
• /
• 2006

Living in the Information Age, schools and teachers are expected to utilize new information technology in education to make teaching more effective. In Japan, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has been strongly implementing policies to promote information education (IE) in schools since 1988. According to a survey in 2005 (Japan MEXT, 2005), 100% of high schools in Japan at present have computers and the Internet connections. However, videoconferencing systems have only been introduced only in a small number of schools. This paper is the result of a pilot research to see the effects of using a videoconferencing system in a Japanese high school. The purpose of the research was to clarify the effects of introducing videoconferencing system in a Japanese high school and of utilizing it for conferences with other schools abroad on the studies of global issues. The target students were in the 12th Grade in the year 2006. The counterpart school was an Australian high school in Sydney and the conferences were held in English. International discussions on global warming were conducted between the Japanese and Australian students. Affective competence and cognitive competence were measured using questionnaires and worksheets given to students both before and after the videoconferences. The results showed that both cognitive and affective competences rose after each videoconference. Not only the students who actively participated in the conference but also those who were in the audience showed positive effects. In the field of international cooperation on global issues, especially, the effects were large. These results suggest that in order to teach global issues in which international effort and cooperation are needed, direct contacts with foreign students are effective in increasing student cognitive and affective competences. On the other hand, as English was the main communication tool in the conferences, Japanese students faced a certain difficulty in communication. Also, teachers, especially English teachers, were required to make great efforts to assist students in preparing for the conferences. The effectiveness of an international videoconference depends largely on students' English skills and teachers' efforts.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.2 no.3
• /
• pp.115-124
• /
• 2010

The current study investigated the role of acoustic correlates of domain-initial strengthening in lexical segmentation of a non-native language. In a series of cross-modal identity-priming experiments, native Korean listeners heard English auditory stimuli and made lexical decision to visual targets (i.e., written words). The auditory stimuli contained critical two word sequences which created temporal lexical ambiguity (e.g., 'mill#company', with the competitor 'milk'). There was either an IP boundary or a word boundary between the two words in the critical sequences. The initial CV of the second word (e.g., [$k_{\Lambda}$] in 'company') was spliced from another token of the sequence in IP- or Wd-initial positions. The prime words were postboundary words (e.g., company) in Experiment 1, and preboundary words (e.g., mill) in Experiment 2. In both experiments, Korean listeners showed priming effects only in IP contexts, indicating that they can make use of IP boundary cues of English in lexical segmentation of English. The acoustic correlates of domain-initial strengthening were also exploited by Korean listeners, but significant effects were found only for the segmentation of postboundary words. The results therefore indicate that L2 listeners can make use of prosodically driven phonetic detail in lexical segmentation of L2, as long as the direction of those cues are similar in their L1 and L2. The exact use of the cues by Korean listeners was, however, different from that found with native English listeners in Cho, McQueen, and Cox (2007). The differential use of the prosodically driven phonetic cues by the native and non-native listeners are thus discussed.