• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.667-690
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• 2010

This essay attempts to read Percy Bysshe Shelley s The Mask of Anarchy by attending to a political agenda that Shelley seeks to propose and embody in the poem. This poem was written as a response to an exceptional political event, the Peterloo Massacre, and thus it is evident that Shelley intended to engage in contemporary politics by writing this poem. As many critics have pointed out, however, the way in which this poem addresses social, plitical issues is ambivalent and even confusing, since it contains many elements that contradict each other, and sometimes its political visions are based on incoherent conceptions. For this reason, this poem has been considered to be a failure as an occasional poem which should provide the reader with a clear direction for political actions. Faced with this critical problem, this essay proposes that the ambivalence this poem reveals-e.g., the confrontation between moderate artistic fantasy and radical tenets-is not a retreat from political activism, as some critics suggested, but a result of its creation and embodiment of a public sphere which invites various social classes and their positions. The mode in which Shelley conceives this unified public sphere in the course of writing The Mask of Anarchy can be interpreted in terms of the following three features. First, this poem underscores the significance of thoughts in constituting a communal space between people, thus asking the reader to participate in this process of thinking on given issues. Second, this poem suggests that people should enlighten each other by engaging in communicative reciprocations. Lastly, the public sphere formulated by the previous two features should incorporate various socio-political agents beyond class boundaries (even oppressors themselves) into its own working field. After explaining how these three features are manifested in the poem, this essay argues that the unified public sphere thus formed in the poem is the very agenda that Shelley aims to propose for the contemporaneous politics and culture. As a conclusion, this essay highlights how Shelley s project of creating a unified public sphere finally failed in contemporary history through observing two contrasting receptions of Shelley s works.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.24-32
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• 2013

This paper determined students' ranks of difficulty on the use of materials in terms of 1) understanding the layout of the learning materials, 2) reading comprehension of the learning materials, and 3) realization on relevance to needs of the learning materials. It also determined students' 4) rank and frequency of attitude on the materials. With the data gathered through 128 survey questionnaires, 7 focused group discussions, and 10 interviews, the results were found out that there was an inappropriate assessment procedure set by this particular university. The researcher concludes that: 1) design of four types of classes by just using the two textbooks with their respective workbooks is grammar-based with limited conversation activities; 2) placement for these students in one big class size was implemented without considering their common interest and motivation and language levels; and, 3) qualification of teachers teaching these EFL students did not support students' real needs and the language program itself. Content professors who were made to teach may have the ability to input learning, but their teaching styles may differ from the ones who are real English teachers. This paper then recommends that teachers and school administration should have an appropriate placement exam before students attend the class, especially in a big class size. There could only be a few problems among students in one big class size when students' level of competence is proportioned. With this, topics and conversation activities can even be more flexible with the maneuver of art of questioning, various dimensions of thinking, strategic competence, learning attitude or behavior, etc. to ensure sustenance of communicative mode and level of interest and motivation in the classroom. Grammar-based instruction can only be taught when a need arises. Thus, the course description of each class will be able to transact the objectives ready for developing students' communication competence. Moreover, proper measurement can be utilized to validly assess the amount of students' learning and the progress of language curriculum design in terms of materials selection and teaching approach.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.48
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• pp.223-252
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• 2017

This study explores effects of two types of chatbots - voice-based and text-based - on Korean EFL learners' speaking competence and learner perception. Participants were 80 freshmen students taking an English-speaking class at a university in Korea. They were divided into two experimental groups at random. During the sixteen-week experimental period, participants engaged in 10 chat sessions with the two different types of chatbots. To take a close examination of effects on the improvement of speaking competence, they took the TOEIC speaking test as pre- and post-tests. Structured questionnaire-based surveys were conducted before and after treatment to determine if there are changes in perception. Findings reveal two chatbots effectively contribute to improvement of speaking competence among EFL learners. Particularly, the voice-based chatbot was as effective as the text-based chatbot. An analysis of survey results indicates perception of chatbot-assisted language learning changed positively over time. In particular, most participants preferred voice-based chatbot over text-based chatbot. This study provides insight on the use of chatbots in EFL learning, suggesting that EFL teachers should integrate chatbot technology in their classrooms.