• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제9권2호
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• pp.69-76
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• 2017

The current study investigated whether Korean learners' English-learning environments, especially target English accent (General American English (GAE) vs. Southern British English (SBE)) and English-language experience affected their production of English vowels. Thirty six EFL learners, 27 ESL-US learners, and 33 ESL-UK learners produced 8 English vowels with a bVt frame (beat, bit, bet, bat, bought, bot, boat, boot). The learners' productions were acoustically analyzed in terms of F1 and F2 frequencies. The overall results revealed that the learners' target accent had an effect on their production of some English vowels. The EFL and ESL-US learners' (especially, female learners') production of bought, bot, boat, and boot, which show characteristic differences between the GAE and SBE accents, was closer to that of the native American English (AE) speakers than the native British English (BE) speakers. In contrast, the ESL-UK learners' production of bought and bot demonstrated the opposite pattern. Thus, the impact of target accent was not demonstrated across the board. The effect of the learners' different English-language experience was also rather limited. This was because the EFL learners' production was not much different from the ESL-US learners' production, in spite of the ESL-US learners' residence in the US for more than 9 years. Furthermore, the Korean learners, irrespective of their different English-language experience, tended to produce bit and bat with lower F1 than the native AE and BE speakers, thus resulting in bit and bat to be produced similarly to beat and bet, respectively. This demonstrates the learners' persistent L1 effects on their English vowel production despite the learners' residence in the English speaking countries or their high English proficiency.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제15권3호
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• pp.37-44
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• 2023

This study investigates perceptual confusions of English fricatives among 121 Korean elementary school English as a foreign language (EFL) learners with shorter periods of learning English. The objective is to examine how they perceive English fricative consonants and to provide educational guidelines. Two sets of English fricative identification tasks-voiceless fricatives and voiced fricatives-were administered to participants in a High Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT) setting. Their phonemic awareness of the fricatives was visualized in perceptual confusion maps via multidimensional scaling analysis. The findings are explored in terms of the impacts of Korean EFL learners' L1 linguistic aspects and a comparison with L1 learners. Learners' phonemic awareness patterns are then compared with their relative importance in speech intelligibility based on a functional load hierarchy. The results indicated that Korean elementary EFL learners recognized English fricatives in a manner largely akin to L1 learners, suggesting their ongoing acquisition progress. Additionally, the findings demonstrated that the young EFL learners possess sufficient phonemic awareness for most high functional load segments but encounter some difficulties with one high and one low functional pair. The findings of this study offer suggestions for diagnosing language learners' phonemic awareness abilities, thereby aiding in the development of practical guidelines for language instructional design and helping educators make informed decisions regarding teaching priority in L2 classes.

• 한국어교육
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• 제23권1호
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• pp.1-23
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• 2012

The development of corpus in recent years has attracted increased research on spoken Korean. Nevertheless, these research outcomes are yet to be meaningfully and adequately reflected in Korean language textbooks. The reported speech marker '-dae' is one of these areas that need more attention. This study investigates whether or not in textbooks '-dae' is clearly explained to English-speaking learners to prevent confusion and misuse. Based on a contrastive analysis of Korean and English, this study argues three points: Firstly, '-dae' should be introduced to Korean learners as an independent sentence ender rather than a contracted form of '-dago hae'. Secondly, it is necessary to teach English-speaking learners that '-dae' is not equivalent to the English report speech form. It functions more or less as a third person marker in Korean. Learners should be informed that '-dae' is used for statements in English, if those statements were hearsay but the source of information does not need to be specified. This is a very distinctive difference between Korean and English and should be emphasized in class when 'dae' is taught. Thirdly, '-dae' should be introduced before indirect speech constructions, because it is mainly used in simple statements and the frequency of '-dae' is very high in spoken Korean.

• 영어어문교육
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• 제11권3호
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• pp.113-137
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• 2005

The purpose of this research is to introduce a new pedagogy for developing English education in the university. It is based on the favorable results of the application of Network English, which is a method that has been used in three classes at Y University for a period of one semester. Network English is a kind of integrated teaching method of offline and online education, and can be a learner-oriented educational method. The online aspect gives learners easier access to the text, regardless of time and place. And in addition to the characteristic of online itself, the various contents in conformity with the learning ability of learners are provided in the text, in order that the learners can get and maintain a desire for study without losing their interest in English. Although the offline part is not much different from traditional classes, the offline education can complement the deficiency of the online and also offer the learners the opportunity for questions and answers. From the results of application of Network English in three classes, the students were satisfied with the method and have more interest in English, which resulted in better grades.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• 제8권2호
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• pp.109-115
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• 2020

We aimed to understand how English textbooks in Korea reflect English education policies for improving the English language learners' cultural ability. In order to achieve the purpose of this study, we used the method of analyzing English textbooks because English textbooks are an important tool that most specifically reflects the English policy of a country. This study analyzed middle school English textbooks currently used in Korea. We analyzed nouns/pronouns related to cultures presented in the reading section included in each unit, and compared cultural diversity and cultural identity included in English textbooks in Korea. As a result, it was found that Korea tried to introduce the diverse cultures from the world and promote Korean traditional cultures into the world. So the cultural policy of English education in Korea can be evaluated to be appropriate for cultivating Korea young learners with the cultural capabilities which are essential to be successful leaders in the globalized world.

• 한국어교육
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• 제29권1호
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• pp.1-23
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• 2018

This paper investigates how adult Mandarin- and English- speaking learners of Korean perceive Korean vowels, with focus on the effect of the first language (L1) and the second language (L2) acoustic relationship, as well as the influence of Korean language experience. For this study, native Mandarin and Canadian English speakers who have learned Korean as a foreign language, as well as a control group of native Korean speakers, participated in two experiments. Experiment 1 was designed to examine acoustic similarities between Korean and English vowels, as well as Korean and Mandarin vowels to predict which Korean vowels are relatively easy, or difficult for L2 learners to perceive. The linear discriminant analysis (Klecka, 1980) based on their L1-L2 acoustic similarity predicted that L2 Mandarin learners would have perceptual difficulty rankings for Korean vowels as follows: (the easiest) /i, a, e/ >> /ɨ, ʌ, o, u/ (most difficult), whereas L2 English learners would have perceptual difficulty rankings for Korean vowels as follows: (the easiest) /i, a, e, ɨ, ʌ/ >> /o, u/ (most difficult). The goal of Experiment 2 was to test how accurately L2 Mandarin and English learners perceive Korean vowels /ɨ, ʌ, o, u/ which are considered to be difficult for L2 learners. The results of a mixed-effects logistic model revealed that English listeners showed higher identification accuracy for Korean vowels than Mandarin listeners, indicating that having a larger L1 vowel inventory than the L2 facilitates L2 vowel perception. However, both groups have the same ranking of Korean vowel perceptual difficulty: ɨ > ʌ > u > o. This finding indicates that adult learners of Korean can perceive the new vowel /ɨ/, which does not exist in their L1, more accurately than the vowel /o/, which is acoustically similar to vowels in their L1, suggesting that L2 learners are more likely to establish additional phonetic categories for new vowels. In terms of the influence of experience with L2, it was found that identification accuracy increases as Korean language experience rises. In other words, the more experienced English and Mandarin learners of Korean are, the more likely they are to have better identification accuracy in Korean vowels than less experienced learners of Korean. Moreover, there is no interaction between L1 background and L2 experience, showing that identification accuracy of Korean vowels is higher as Korean language experience increases regardless of their L1 background. Overall, these findings of the two experiments demonstrated that acoustic similarity between L1 and L2 sounds using the LDA model can partially predict perceptual difficulty in L2 acquisition, indicating that other factors such as perceptual similarity between L1 and L2, the merge of Korean /o/ and /u/ may also influence their Korean vowel perception.

• 영어어문교육
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• 제5호
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• pp.103-122
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• 1999

In this paper, I will argue that in teaching L2, it is important to take a holistic teaching method considering various learning styles of the learners and the nature of L2 learning. Under the situation that most of the school education is centered on the left brain activity, learners with the right brain preference tend to get only to the lower proficiency than they really can. To prove this, I conducted a experiment on two classes of high school students. I decided the hemispheric preference of each students using HMI (hemispheric mode indicator) Then I compared the hemispheric preferences of students with their scores in English tests. The students with right hemispheric preference show significantly lower scores than the ones with left preference. It is implied that the current English education should adapted to address various learning and cognitive styles and whole-brain L2 teaching method should replace the left-centered instruction in the learning environment.

• 영어어문교육
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• 제6호
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• pp.219-239
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• 2000

There has been a growing enthusiasm in Korea for the early education of English as a foreign language (EFL). The present study examined the validity of the Critical Period Hypothesis in terms of the Universal Grammar (UG), in three different types of learning contexts - first language (L1), second language (SL), and foreign language (FL) learning contexts. While previous research findings in L1 and SL learning contexts suggest that UG principles and parameters are accessible to language learners only for the early years of lifetime, this article argues that their results - and even the methods - cannot be applied to EFL settings and that independent studies on the EFL context are, required. It also proposes the recent UG notion of functional categories as the most appropriate subject in the discussion of Korean EFL learners' access to UG. Findings on foreign language contexts, including the author's own, strongly indicate that UG is not sensitive to learners' starting ages in FL settings. If young children in FL contexts cannot develop their interlanguage grammar based on UG, the existing teaching methods for young children should be revised.

• 영어어문교육
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• 제15권3호
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• pp.283-300
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• 2009

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a model for an English learning web-site using Korean folktales to stimulate the interest of beginners learning English, (elementary and early middle school ages) and suggest an integrated way of teaching 4 skills. The study first reviews the theoretical and historical backgrounds of storytelling using Korean folk tale, WBI (Web Based Learning), and learner-centered learning. Storytelling using Korean folk tale is an interactive way of teaching English through the use of words and actions from Korean traditional culture. The students can take pride in their own culture while learning a foreign language since they are familiar with the stories and the culture. Nowadays multicultural education is one of the big features of global education. Therefore there are benefits of studying English through Korean folktales. The websites can help students learn English ubiquitously with a learner-centered focus. For the study, we analyzed several digital English storytelling websites. The paper concludes that digital English story books need to improve their interactive ways of teaching for more effective learning. The authors created an integrated English learning website model using Korean folktales for beginners. We hope to introduce this type of learning through the website for higher level students in middle school. Further study should be conducted in order to make the websites more meaningful and useful for Korean students learning English.

• 영어어문교육
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• 제12권1호
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• pp.1-27
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• 2006

This study investigated how EFL readers critically read texts which are written in English. Although critical reading has been discussed in advanced EFL and ESL contexts there has not been much research on the critical reading of beginning EFL learners. Many educators are recommending that a critical perspective be adopted so that L2 learners can become empowered rather than indoctrinated. In this study, the researcher has examined the critical reading practices of five beginning level EFL readers in Korea and five first language readers of English in the United States as they read a news editorial article. The significant findings were discussed related to critical reading practice of L2 readers. The findings of the study can help the educators in English education in improving the curriculum, the teaching methodology and the learning theory for EFL reading for critical reading.