• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.155-176
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• 2007

An attempt to investigate the effect of gender differences on Korean students' EFL learning orientation was made. To explain a Korean EFL learning context, three criteria (cultural distance between the target country and the host country, communicative needs of the TL, the status of the TL in the host country) are adopted. Moreover, as a contrastive FL learning context from the Imposed FL learning context, a FL learning context where there is a substantial cultural distance from the TL community, communication needs of the TL do not exist, and the TL enjoys a special educational and socioeconomic status in the host country, a concept of an Integrative FL learning context is newly brought up in this paper. As the result of a questionnaire conducted in four different high schools, female learners can be claimed to be more internalized about academic and socioeconomic benefits the TL entails for their social advancement and overcoming inequality between men and women in society, albeit insignificant numerical data.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.10 no.1 s.19
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• pp.15-28
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• 2007

From a social constructivists' perspective, knowledge is not transmitted by language but it is constructed by social interactions with others. That is, it is viewed in social constructivism that learning is a process in which knowledge is constructed by communicative interactions with more capable others. In this vein, a class might be analyzed and characterized in terms of interactional patterns of teacher-student and student-student in class. For this, a primary math class was selected and observed and it was analyzed by the Flanders category system to investigate the effects of the math teaching based on verbal interactions on the learning of math. The class was taught in a teacher-centered and direct way but in the class math knowledge was taught through univocal communications in the form of question-answer. The results of this study appeared to suggest that verbal interactional patterns should take place frequently in math teaching in the sequence of a teacher's questions$\to$students' extensive responses $\to$ positive feedback for the students' responses by the teacher $\to$ the acceptance of the students' responses $\to$ the teacher's explanation or students' questions. In other words, math might be taught more effectively through the verbal discourse patterns proposed in this study.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.19
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• pp.411-444
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• 2010

This paper explored the academic socialization of a group of Mongolian college students, learning Korean as their L3 (Third Language), by focusing on their uses of an electronic communication channel. From a perspective of the continua of bi-literacy, this case study investigated how Mongolian students who had limited exposure to a Korean learning community overcame academic challenges through the use of a written communication channel as a tool in the socialization process. Data were collected mainly through three methods: written products, interviews, and questionnaires. The results from this study were as follows. Interactional opportunities for these minority students were seriously constrained during the classroom practices in a Korean-speaking classroom. They also described the lack of communicative competence in Korean and the limited roles played by L2 (English) communication as key barriers to classroom practices. However, students' ways of engaging in electronic interactions differed widely in that they were able to broaden interactional circles by communicating their expertise and difficulties with their Korean peers through the electronic channel. More importantly, the communication pattern of "L2-L2/L3-L3" (on a L2-L3 continuum) emerging from data demonstrated how these students used a written channel as a socialization tool to mediate their learning process in a new community of learning. This study argues that a written communication channel should be taken as an essential part of teaching practices especially for foreign students who cannot speak Korean fluently in multi-cultural classes.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.37
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• pp.233-265
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• 2014

The objective of this article is to emphasize the importance of French grammar and apply effective ways in the course considering the results of investigations conducted by teachers and learners. In the first part, we observed different types of the theory of grammar teaching. The key point in choosing a theory of grammar is to adopt a learning objective defined by the level of learners. To do this, the teacher must find methods that enable learners to achieve a gradual grammatical knowledge. In the second part, we focused on the conscience of the learners et teachers in respect of the grammar's importance. Learners and teachers agreed on the importance of French grammar. However, it is essential to find effective methods that can not only attract the interest of learners but also give students the motivation towards learning French grammar. Regarding the correlation between the learning of linguistic communication and the teaching of grammar, it is very important to familiarize learners with the following facts: - The grammar is not an independent component of the other with regard to the teaching of French. - You can get a satisfactory result on learning grammar provided that it takes place in the course of linguistic communication. What we have proposed in this article is not an absolute solution to improve the course of French, with regard to learning grammar. However, we hope that this study could help to facilitate the teaching of French grammar.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.91-106
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• 2010

This study examines the use of hedges in cross-cultural communication between EFL learners in an e-learning environment. The study analyzes the use of hedges in a corpus of an interactive web with a bulletin board system through which college students of English at Japanese and Korean universities interacted with each other discussing the topics of local and global issues. It compares the use of hedges in the students' corpus to that of a native English speakers' corpus. The result shows that EFL learners tend to use relatively smaller number of hedges than the native speakers in terms of the frequencies of the total tokens. It further reveals that the learners' overuse of a single versatile high-frequency hedging item, I think, results in relative underuse of other hedging devices. This indicates that due to their small repertoire of hedges, EFL learners' overuse of a limited number of hedging items may cause their speech or writing to become less competent. Based on the result and interviews with the learners, the study also argues that hedging should be understood in its social contexts and should not be understood just as a lack of conviction or a mark of low proficiency. Suggestions were made for using computer corpora in understanding EFL learners' language difficulties and helping them develop communicative and pragmatic competence.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.49-57
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• 2016

This paper aims to explore instructional design of a cyber classroom for secondary students' basic English language competence. A paucity of support for low or under achieving students' English learning exists particularly at the secondary level. In order to bridge the gap, there has been demand for online educational resources considered to be an effective tool in improving students' self-directed learning and motivation. This study employs a comprehensive approach to instructional design for the asynchronous cyber classroom with the underlying premise that different learning theories can be applied in a complementary manner to serve different pedagogical purposes best. Gagné's conditions of learning theory, Bruner's constructivist theory, Carroll's minimalist theory, and Vygotsky's social cognitive development theory serve as the basis for designing instruction and selecting appropriate media. The ADDIE model is used to develop online teaching and learning materials. Twenty-five key grammatical features were selected through the analysis of the national curriculum of English, being grouped into five units. Each feature is covered in one cyber asynchronous class. An Integration Class is given at the end of every five classes for synthesis, where students can practice grammatical features in a communicative context. Related theories, pedagogical practices, and practical web-design strategies for cyber Basic English classes are discussed with suggestions for research, practice and policy to support self-directed learning through a cyber class.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.53-82
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• 2014

This study aims to find the method to promote interaction in L2 classrooms. Active interaction between learner-to-learner and learner-to-teacher in L2 classroom plays an important role in language acquisition. In light of this, L2 classroom would benefit with the help of learning tools such as Clickers which helps learners to express their level of understanding during the process of learning itself. This is because the anonymity of Clickers allows learners to express their needs without the social risks associated with speaking up in the class. It allows for an evaluative feedback loop where both learners and teachers understand the level of progress of the learners, better enabling classrooms to adapt to the learners' needs. Eventually this tool promotes participation from learners, This is in turn, believed to be effective in fostering classroom interaction, allowing learning to take place in a more comfortable yet vibrant way. This study is finalized by presenting the result of an experiment conducted to verify the effectiveness of this approach when teaching pragmatic aspect of the Korean expressions with similar semantic functions. As a result of the research, the learning achievement of learners in the experimental group was found higher than the learners' in a control group. Analyzing the data collected from a questionnaire given to the learners, the study presented data suggesting that this approach increased the scope of interactivity in the classroom, thus enhancing more active participation among learners. This active participation in turn led to a marked improvement in their communicative abilities.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.42
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• pp.261-283
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• 2016

The aim of this study is to consider the possibility of learning polite expressions of English using the mobile application Naver Band. To improve communicative competence, students need to develop sociolinguistic competence as well as grammatical and discourse competence. To be accordant to social context, the roles of the participants, and the purpose of the interaction, students have to make an appropriate utterance. When a hearer has a higher social status and is older than a speaker, or have low levels of familiarity, Korean native speaker tends to use polite expressions. Students need to learn polite expressions of English because English has a different honorific system from Korean. To realize the characteristics and function of polite language is one thing, but to learn it in a real classroom is another. This study attempts to apply the use of a mobile application, which is considered a user-friendly tool for students, into learning polite language using the UK historical drama, Downton Abbey. Two tests were administered to an experimental group that used the mobile application and a control group that used group work. The results of the two tests show that the use of the mobile application has a positive effect on learning polite expressions and is effective as an after-school activity. In an open-ended questionnaire, students tend to identify polite expressions as superior or high-level language forms and separate these forms from practical expressions. It should be noted as well that teachers need to consider instructing in modern English when using a historical drama in the teaching and learning of polite expressions.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.7
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• pp.427-439
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• 2021

This study surveyed the recognition on the Korean education for specific purposes targeting student-teachers majoring Korean language education in a Cyber University located in Seoul. 50 among 57 students taking the class participated in this survey. The participants were the students-teachers interested in Korean education for the mission purposes and took the class during the second term in 2020. At the end of the term they participated in this survey. 6 items were objective and 4 items were narrative. Among the narrative ones, one was excluded from analysis. The objective items were investigated by descriptive statics and the narrative items were analyzed with qualitative approach. As a result, most of the participants preferred the combined textbooks with others such as the ones for general and mission purposes rather than the bibles only. They had positive opinions on using the bibles, but proposed that the bibles themselves are not the best choice for improving communicative competence and the text combination is the better choice because of the difficulty of the bibles, the lack of teachers' competence, and the learners' needs. However, while taking this class, they became to be aware of the possibilities of the bibles as textbooks, to possess the concern about the mission areas, to consider the possibilities of application and the educational methods in it, and to reflect the ways for self development. This study suggested several points as follows: the development of diverse textbooks according to situations and learners, two directions of teacher education and the cooperative works, and the necessities of the related departments and classes with mission purposes.