• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.15-22
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• 2011

The purposes of this study are (1) to investigate the correlation between English word-final stop and the duration of vowels before word-final stop and (2) to suggest a way to detect pronunciation errors and teach the pronunciation of English word-final stops. For these purposes, 18 Korean speakers' production was recorded and analysed using Speech Analyzer and their production was compared with that of native English speakers. In addition, two native English speakers evaluated the subjects' pronunciation. The major findings are the voicing dependent effect of the English vowels produced by native Korean speakers is lower than that of native English speakers; Korean speakers release English word-final stops less than native English speakers; and the pronunciation of English word-final stops and the duration of adjacent vowels are closely related in that the pronunciation score of final stops and the ratio of vowels between the vowels before voiced stops and voiceless stops are correlated. In addition, this study concludes with pedagogical suggestions that may be useful for English pronunciation teaching.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.129-134
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• 2010

Jenkins (2000, 2007) suggested lingua franca core (LFC) of English as an international language (EIL) context. According to her, intelligibility of English pronunciation of L2 English speakers and English learners is more important than pronunciation accuracy in English communication. Her suggestion has been widely accepted in Korean classroom situations, so the systematic teaching of English pronunciation has been rarely emphasized. In this paper it is argued that the LFC of English is widely misinterpreted in Korea while some of her suggestions themselves are also misleading. This paper tries to redefine Jenkins' LFC and provide suggestions for teaching LFC in Korea.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.157-175
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to compare learners' view on Korean and native teachers of English with regard to competence of teaching skills. A total of 166 high school students attending the same high school in Korea participated in a questionnaire survey. The students were asked a series of questions about their five Korean teachers of English and three natives. The analysis of the results indicates that the learners believed Korean English teachers would be better in teaching vocabulary, grammar and reading than native English teachers. The learners answered native English teachers would be better in teaching speaking, listening, and writing. In the areas of the accuracy of classroom language, the level of teacher-centeredness, and the amount of cultural information given in a classroom, there were no significant differences in the learners' responses between Korea and native teacher of English. By recognizing the differences of the learners' views on two different types of ELT teachers, we suggest that it would be beneficial for learners if we would utilize their views in designing and administrating a team-teaching program.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.223-236
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• 2003

The purpose of this experimental study is to investigate characteristics of English pitch accents uttered by Korean speakers. Six English sentences were uttered five times by fifteen male undergraduate and graduate students from three groups, Seoul, Yongnam and Honam dialect speakers. We compared the subjects' data with the data of a native speaker of English as model pronunciation of English pitch accents. Acoustic features(Fo, duration, amplitude) were measured from sound spectrograms made by the PC Works. Results showed that (1) acoustic features of English pitch accents are Fo and duration for the native speaker and Korean speakers altogether, (2) Seoul dialect speakers uttered English pitch accents more similarly to the English native speaker than the other dialect speakers and (3) Korean speakers generally have difficulties in pronouncing L* accents. It appears that Korean speakers have more problems in pronouncing L* accents than H* accents.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.2
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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.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.91-115
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• 2006

English immersion has emerged in Korea only recently as an innovative approach to learning and teaching English. Lack of real life experience of using English has been one of the biggest obstacles for Korean learners of English and has resulted in an increasing number of children being sent to English-speaking countries and a huge amount of dollar outflow. This recent innovation is expected to be the magic wand to resolve all these problems. However, setting up an immersion program in a typical EFL context like Korea has brought in another set of issues and challenges. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of a short-term immersion English program in Korea and provide some empirical data to develop programs that can better cater to the needs of EFL learners. A two-week English immersion program was developed and implemented with 57 Korean and Japanese students whose grade level ranged from 4 to 12. The study results show that the program was successful in terms of changing the participants' attitude toward learning English, improving their English skills, enhancing intercultural understanding and competence, and motivating them for further studies of English and other foreign languages and cultures.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.38-51
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to criticize (through available documents) the lecture in English at colleges. It is necessary that a study of English is emphasized in the era of internationalization. But, the indiscreet extension of lecture in English without consideration of the purpose, principle, and philosophy of college's education needs reflective thinking. This study criticized four dimensions, in other words the effectiveness of lecture in English, criteria of internationalization and college's competition of lecture in English, social inequality of lecture in English, and the harmfulness in the value of Korean language of lecture in English. First, most researches expressed the indiscreet extension of lecture in English was not effective in both students and professors. Second, many scholars and agencies on the internationalization and college's competition excluded the lecture in English as criteria. Third, the indiscreet extension of lecture in English had the possibility of social inequality. And fourth, the indiscreet extension of lecture in English had harmfulness in the value of Korean language and Korean's thought. College's education is an ivory tower in society. So, colleges should discard the thought that extension of lecture in English is the best way. Colleges should keep the purpose, principle, and philosophy of college's education.

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

• Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.43-54
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to examine temporal structures of English words beginning with an /s/ plus stop sequence through production experiments with native speakers of Korean learning English and native speakers of English. According to the results of our production experiment, both a beginner and an advanced group of Korean English learners produced /s/ shorter than a following stop, while the opposite pattern was observed in English native speakers' production. An advanced group of Korean English learners were good at producing a stop after /s/ as unaspirated, but their production of a stop following /s/ was different from English native speakers' production in that the closure duration of the stop was much longer.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.14 no.10
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• pp.127-136
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• 2016

Purpose - This study investigated the effects of lectures in the English medium (EML) on understanding and learning outcomes. Sixty percent of EML lectures in Korea also use Korean for further support. Thus, this situation needs to clearly distinguish the specific impacts of the EML classes on learning outcomes. Here, we use the same English materials, including PowerPoint slides and video content, given in the Korean and English lectures. The difference between the lectures becomes only whether the lecture is delivered in Korean or English. Thus, we can clearly identify whether the language difference makes any difference in learning outcomes. Research design, data, and methodology - Our sample consisted of 91 students taking an international business course the spring of 2015. All course materials, including textbooks, PowerPoint slides, exams, video, and support content, were presented in English. Survey data and exam results were used. Students filled out their student identification number and name, so we could match the surveys against the exam results. Results - First, results show that whether the lecture was delivered in English or Korean was an important factor when students chose the class. Second, English proficiency related to international business and general English levels were higher in the English class than in the Korean class. However, the understanding of key concepts and reading abilities of international business newspapers were the same for students in both classes. Third, teaching materials and lectures were the most important material for the understanding of key concepts in the business major. Fourth, the exam results showed no difference in performance of the students in the English versus the Korean class. This shows that EML classes were not necessarily detrimental to the understanding of major concepts of the lecture. Thus, it is important that researchers carefully design empirical settings to study the effectiveness of EML. Conclusions - The English lecture can be as helpful for enhancing knowledge in the business major as the Korean lecture. For further research, various English lecture forms can be considered to distinguish the effects of the English lecture.