• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
• /
• v.23 no.3
• /
• pp.305-321
• /
• 2019

Rapid demographic changes such as international marriages and immigration have led to the transition of Korea to a multicultural society, thereby causing the need for education for multicultural students. In particular, there is a growing need to support Korean Language Learners (KLLs) who learn in Korean in their classrooms and whose native language is a foreign language. This study aims to adapt some teaching strategies of the SIOP model developed in the U.S. for English Language Learners(ELLs) to fit classroom situations in Korea and apply them to the Korean language learners to analyze the features of mathematical communication and to examine the possibility of a change in mathematical errors. Specifically, three KLLs in 5th grade participated in seven geometry lessons adapting some characteristics of SIOP model and then, their mathematical communication and mathematical errors were analyzed. The results of this study are expected to provide didactical implications for identifying characteristics of KLLs and for setting direction for teaching them mathematics.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.47-54
• /
• 2023

This study attempted to test the hypothesis that Korean evaluators can score L2 speech appropriately, even when speech rate features are unavailable. Two perception experiments-preliminary and main-were conducted sequentially. The purpose of the preliminary experiment was to categorize English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) speakers into two groups-advanced learners and lower-level learners-based on the proficiency scores given by five human raters. In the main experiment, a set of stimuli was prepared such that the speech rate of all data tokens was modified to have a uniform speech rate. Ten human evaluators were asked to score the stimulus tokens on a 5-point scale. These scores were statistically analyzed to determine whether there was a significant difference in utterance production between the two groups. The results of the preliminary experiment confirm that higher-proficiency learners speak faster than lower-proficiency learners. The results of the main experiment indicate that under controlled speech-rate conditions, human raters can appropriately assess learner proficiency, probably thanks to the linguistic features that the raters considered during the evaluation process.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.121-150
• /
• 2009

This paper deals with contrastive analysis and interlanguage with respect to adjective ordering. It aimed to investigate how similar and different the orders of descriptive adjectives are in English and Korean, and how Korean EFL learners perceive the sequences of English descriptive adjectives. Data were collected from native English speakers and native Korean speakers and Korean EFL learners. The contrastive analysis showed that the order of English adjectives was size, opinion, condition, age, color, shape, material, and origin, whereas the Korean order was condition, age, opinion, color, size, shape, material, and origin. The relative order of the interlanguage was shown to be age, size, opinion, shape, condition, color, origin, and material, with the exceptions of the order of condition preceding age and that of size being the same position as condition. The interlanguage data manifested different aspects of ordering when compared with English and Korean: Some adjective combinations were similar to both English and Korean; Some were different from English or Korean; Some were different from both English and Korean. These ordering patterns are discussed in terms of such principles as the nouniness principle, the subjectivity/objectivity principle, the iconic principle, etc. On the basis of these results, some helpful suggestions are made.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
• /
• v.3 no.10
• /
• pp.457-464
• /
• 2014

Foreign language learners want to remember newly learned vocabularies for as long as possible. As demand for learning English as a second language grows, effective ways of memorizing English vocabularies also attract much interest so that various methods and apparatus are developed in order to support effective memorization. In this research, we introduce a new way of memorizing English vocabularies and evaluate the performance compared to an existing qualified method. Our study result shows that learners who memorize English words using our suggested method maintained a higher retention rate than those who studied using the existing method. From this research, we expect to gain new insights of effective way in learning English vocabularies.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.133-156
• /
• 2007

Although the understanding of English tense system is a crucial factor for communicative English learning and teaching for EFL students, it has been neglected over the years. As with other areas of the grammar, difficulties may arise from the nature of the system itself or from differences between time, tense and aspect. Consequently, many learners face a considerable difficulty with the English tense system as they are more often unable to grasp the basic conceptual differences of present/present continuous, past/present perfect, will/be going to along with many others. More concerning fact is that lots of instructors or so-called native English teachers seem not to be aware of the importance of teaching English tense system. The purpose of this study is to review and examine various theories and practical usages of tense in order to establish and/or present better methods for teaching tenses. This paper is focused on comparatively exact distinction of time, physical notion from tense, grammatical category as well as sequences of tenses in view of school grammar and communicative function. At the end or middle of each chapter, efficient teaching and learning techniques or strategies on tenses are suggested to help instructors or learners who relentlessly face confusions in understanding tense and its usage for communicative English learning and teaching. This study attempts to influence learners' ability to recognize and write tense in authentic contexts not to mention spoken English.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.1-21
• /
• 2003

Learner-centered approach has been a recent research focus in the second language acquisition, but few studies have dealt with how to develop learner autonomy, particularly in a computer-assisted language learning environment. The paper first illustrates the importance of promoting learner autonomy in the EFL context and elaborates the three main factors contributing to its development. Then it focuses on how the CALL research project promotes autonomous learning through a small-scale study in Gyeongju University. Both quantitative and qualitative methods have been employed to examine whether in the CALL project learners exercise control over their own learning and evaluate the outcome. The results indicate that due to a flexible syllabus, highly motivating research topics and the network-assisted environment, learners do take responsibility for most aspects of learning and thus the CALL project proves to be a promising approach for autonomous learning.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
• /
• v.5 no.1
• /
• pp.1-21
• /
• 2024

This study aimed to identify target lexical bundles (e.g., on the other hand, at the same time) for argumentative essay writing and rank them in order of teaching priority for Japanese learners. Despite significant functional roles of lexical bundles in academic writing, the inclusion of lexical bundles in argumentative writing had been underexplored. Since argumentative writing skills help undergraduate students prepare for their academic careers (e.g., writing papers), the lexical bundles under this genre deserve more attention. This study first extracted 78 target bundles from L1 argumentative essay corpora (International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English: ICNALE and Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays: LOCNESS). The study then classified the bundles according to their discourse functions and semantic transparency to estimate the learnability for Japanese learners in L2 compatible corpora with the ICNALE. The results showed that learners had difficulty using the bundles with referential functions (e.g., in the form of) and semantic opaqueness (e.g., when it comes to), suggesting that the bundles in these two categories should be prioritized among the 78 bundles.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.169-184
• /
• 2009

The purpose of this study is to identify the most important factor(s) that contribute(s) to the overall oral proficiency and to examine whether the factor(s) play(s) a different role depending on the proficiency level of learners. Learners were divided into novice group and advanced group and were asked to produce an oral recording of a story based on a comic strip. The recordings were transcribed and graded by three raters. According to the results, the raters attained high inter-rater reliability when assessing advanced learners. However, the reliability level became considerably lower in the assessment of novice learners. The best predictor of oral proficiency among novice learners was sociolinguistic competence and fluency, while grammatical competence and fluency were the strongest predictors for advanced learners. The results suggest the need for a separate assessment tool for different proficiency levels and the need for a different focus in the classroom depending on the learners' proficiency level.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.17 no.1
• /
• pp.191-208
• /
• 2011

The quantitative study investigated perceptions of evaluative criteria in L2 writing between two groups - learners (N=212) and instructors (N=52) in Korea. Specifically, the purpose of the study is (1) to examine learners' and instructors' perceptions on evaluative criteria in L2 writing and to provide empirical evidence concerning how they respond to a list of them and (2) to ultimately devise appropriate rating criteria applicable to an EFL context like Korea. Analyses of evaluative criteria were conducted using factor analysis and yielded the following results: learner and instructor groups perceived the evaluative criteria differently and weighted them in a different way. For the learner group, the combined elements of grammar and language in use were identified as Factor 1 and mechanics as Factor 2. The results may infer that learners' response patterns are primarily linked to their instructors' writing practice in class, which may largely focus on grammatical knowledge based on lexical use and mechanical accuracy. Similarly, the instructor group acknowledged grammatical knowledge as Factor 1 and lexical use as Factor 2. The first two factors found in both learner and instructor groups indicate that in an EFL context like Korea, the form-then-content way of teaching and learning is still being considered more effective in L2 writing than any other method. Taking into consideration these perceptive similarities and differences between learners and instructors, the categories of evaluative criteria in writing include content and organization, grammar, mechanics, language in use, and flow of the essay, respectively.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.223-248
• /
• 2009

Previous research on the impact of pretask planning on subsequent second language (L2) production has mainly focused on the linguistic quality of planned production, while learners' thought processes and perceptions about planning have been relatively less explored. In addition, few previous planning studies have examined whether the learners did in fact follow the pretask instructions, thus leaving the role of pretask instructions in the planning process unexplored. Therefore, the present study investigated whether pretask instructions affect attentional allocation as well as what cognitive operations planners engage in and what their perceptions about planning are. Forty-three Korean EFL classroom learners were divided into two groups: before having time to plan for an oral story retelling task, one group received general instructions, while the other group received specific instructions. The findings, based on both quantitative and qualitative data analysis, indicated no large effects of pretask instructions on the planners' attentional focus. Rather, the qualitative analysis identified a number of other factors that influenced learners' decision making as well as their general processes and approaches to planning and their perceptions about planning and thinking aloud while planning. Implications for L2 teaching as well as limitations of the study are discussed.