• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.109-126
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• 2007

English article has been considered as one of the most difficult areas to learn among ESL/EFL students. The current paper reviews English learners' article error patterns as well as pedagogy in order to teach English articles and to minimize learning difficulties on English articles. Different pedagogy for English articles on the basis of learners' proficiency levels are suggested as each proficiency level student shows a different error tendency; beginning level language learners used the zero article with the most facility while intermediate level language learners used the definite article the most accurately. However, studies about high advanced level learners' error patterns present that these high accuracy rates among beginning level students might be a result of students' plain guessing. Considering these error patterns, pedagogy for advanced level is also suggested.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.211-234
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• 2006

The purpose of the present study was to investigate how two types of cooperative groupworks will affect learners' academic self-efficacy and English achievement in the first graders of Middle school. Experimental class A was done by similar-level groupwork, experimental class B by differential-level groupwork, and controlled class C by whole classwork. In order to accomplish the goals of the study, questionnaires on learners' academic self-efficacy were examined before and after the experiment. Also English achievement tests were done during the experiment. The analytic results of the questionnaires and English achievement tests were like the following conclusions: First, two types of cooperative groupworks were more effective on improving learners' academic self-efficacy than the whole classwork. Second, two types of cooperative groupworks were more effective on improving two levels' (higher and medium) academic self-efficacy. Third, among three types of classworks, differential-level groupwork was the most effective on improving learners' English achievement. Fourth, in case of medium-level learners, differential-level groupwork was more effective on improving their English achievement than similar-level groupwork.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.67-77
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• 2014

This study investigated (1) whether Korean learners of English use discourse-level prosody in L2 production as native speakers of English do, and (2) whether discourse-level prosody is also found in the Korean language, as is evident in the prosody of native speakers of English. The study compared the production of the same 15 sentences in two types of reading materials, sentence-level and discourse-level. This study analyzed the onset pitch, sentence mean pitch and pause length to examine the paratone (intonational paragraph) realization in discourse-level speech. The results showed that in L2 discourse-level prosody, the Korean speakers were limited in displaying paratone and did not made significant difference between sentence-level and discourse-level prosody. On the other hand, in L1 discourse-level text, both English and Korean participants demonstrated paratone using pitch. However, there were differences in using prosodic cues between two groups. In using pauses, the ES group paused longer before both the orthographically marked and not marked topic sentences. The KS group paused longer only before the orthographically marked topic sentence in both L1 and L2 text reading. In the comparison of sentence-level and discourse-level prosody, the topic sentences were marked by different prosodic cues. English participants used higher sentence mean pitch, and the Korean participants used higher onset pitch.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.101-117
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• 2010

This study examines whether English users at a U.S. university apply avoidance strategy in using English articles. All participants had learned English for at least 10 years and had used English for at least 15 years at the time of the data collection, so they made an ideal sample to examine the differences between native speakers of English and non-native speakers of English, in terms of avoidance strategy usage of English articles. To examine whether non-native speakers avoid using a certain feature when unsure of the correct usage, the mean differences of each article usage between NS and NNS groups were calculated and compared. On the basis of results showing that there are no statistically significant differences in terms of article usage between the groups, it is concluded that the highly advanced level participants did not use avoidance strategy in English articles, and that the type of English article and the task type did not affect learners' avoidance strategy usage. This research is expected to provide teachers and researchers with information about highly advanced level L2 language speakers' usage patterns with regards to avoidance strategy.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.699-710
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• 2007

The study purposes to explore the effects of individual characteristics and home environments of children on their bilingual language aquisition, that is, to examine whether their English language competency is different from their Korean language competency depending on those variables. Thus English or Korean language competency of children who had had early exposure in English learning were studied in terms of child's individual characteristics such as age, gender, exposure period to English, intelligence, and experiences of visiting English-speaking countries, and home environments such as parental age, educational level, income level, their perceived English competency, their perceived significance of English and Korean language, and the frequency of using English at home. 72 children who went to English kindergarten were tested with Peabody Pictures Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) in Korean version and in English version respectively. The results show that child's intelligence and experiences of visiting English-speaking countries influence their Korean language competency. Also child's age, exposure period to English and experiences of visiting English-speaking countries influence their English language competency. Moreover their mother's educational background, father's English fluency, mothers' English fluency, and the frequency of using English at home influence child's English language competency, whereas any variables did not influence child's Korean language competency. Accordingly, child's English and Korean language competencies are related to each other.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.317-337
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• 2010

The present study has a dual purpose to investigate the current state of school English library and needs required for its effective use, and to propose a reading program at the school library. The literature on school library was reviewed. A questionnaire survey was done to find out the current situation of English library at the secondary school. The analysis of 26 secondary English teachers' responses reveals that there was the absence of librarians or reading specialists at the school English library. It was also found that the uses of the English library were limited due to the absence of the specialists, no guidelines, and no link between the curriculum and the library use. A case study on a 2-week special reading program at the school English library was conducted and 15 middle school students took part in the project. The participants took pre- and post-tests to identify their reading level using a software and did a variety of reading activities using the books selected according to their level. The comparison of the tests shows that most of the students' reading level improved after the reading program. The analysis of their views on the program and its effects reveals that they gained confidence in reading and their vocabulary understanding was improved. Some suggestions are made for the effective management of the school English library.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.19-28
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• 2020

Vehicle license plate recognition system is not generalized in Malaysia due to the loose character layout rule and the varying number of characters as well as the mixed capital English characters and italic English words. Because the italic English word is hard to segmentation, a separate method is required to recognize in Malaysian license plate. In this paper, we propose a mixed character level and word level English license plate recognition algorithm using deep learning neural networks. The difference of Gaussian method is used to segment character and word by generating a black and white image with emphasized character strokes and separated touching characters. The proposed deep learning neural networks are implemented on the LPR system at the gate of a building in Kuala-Lumpur for the collection of database and the evaluation of algorithm performance. The evaluation results show that the proposed Malaysian English LPR can be used in commercial market with 98.01% accuracy.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.139-160
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• 2011

This study examines correlations between affective variables and English learners' achievement in native teachers' classes. Specifically, it aims to study the relationships among Korean college students' English learning motivation, anxiety, WTC (willingness to communicate) and their English achievement scores. For the purpose, the questionnaire surveys were conducted, and the students' English scores were analyzed and compared. The participants were 216 university students taking the general English courses as a requirement for graduation. The results indicated that although the students had high level motivation to learn English, especially for social reasons, their WTC in and outside the classroom was low. Also, unlike the previous studies on foreign language anxiety, their anxiety level was not significant. Anxiety and motivation were negatively correlated; WTC and motivation were positively correlated. However, according to the regression analysis, the explanatory power of the three affective variables was not significant for the students' achievement scores. Several possible reasons and some pedagogical implications are provided in the conclusion.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.115-121
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• 2011

This paper examines how L2 speech production varies according to learner's L2 proficiency level. L2 speech production variations are analyzed by quantitative measures at word and phone levels using Korean learners' English corpus. Word-level variations are analyzed using correctness to explain how speech realizations are different from the canonical forms, while accuracy is used for analysis at phone level to reflect phone insertions and deletions together with substitutions. The results show that speech production of learners with different L2 proficiency levels are considerably different in terms of performance and individual realizations at word and phone levels. These results confirm that speech production of non-native speakers varies according to their L2 proficiency levels, even though they share the same L1 background. Furthermore, they will contribute to improve non-native speech recognition performance of ASR-based English language educational system for Korean learners of English.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.193-211
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• 2003

This study aims to illustrate students' and teachers' perceptions towards certification of English proficiency and proficiency- based curriculum, and to investigate their needs for developing college English program. A total of 597 students and 28 teachers participated in the survey. The findings showed that both groups acknowledged the usefulness of the certification of English proficiency and proficiency-based curriculum. However, both groups showed a negative response to 'waive test' (testing for the replacement of English required class). They also expressed high level of needs in increasing the number of courses and credit hours, reducing the class size, and improving facilities. Both groups perceived speaking and listening as more important skills, while students showed various preferences for effective language practice activities. The findings of this study suggest t hat the introduction of certification of English proficiency should he supplemented with follow-ups both in pedagogical aspect and on administrative level.