• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.137-156
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• 2009

This case study examines language learners' oral interactive practices and what they learn along with these practices. Language learners who study abroad take on the challenge of living in a foreign place and undergo difficulties in communicating and interacting with people in their new country. These difficulties, caused by cultural differences, are experienced most particularly in their daily interactions. Language learners' trials and efforts to learn English while dealing with a different culture and the difficulties are mainly observed for this paper. The process of learning a second culture is closely related to the process of learning a second language. Oral interactive practices can give the study abroad language learners opportunities to learn their target culture. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to discuss how participating in interactive practices assists the learners in understanding their target culture while they deal with their difficulties inherent in studying abroad. This study adds weight to the notion that culture is an essential and major factor in learning a language, and that only active participation in interactions can be effective in learning both a language and its culture.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.69-85
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• 2000

Recently, Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) received widely held attention from diverse audiences. However, to the author's knowledge, relatively little attention was paid to the educational implications of voice recognition (VR) softwares in language teaching in general, and teaching and learning pronunciation in particular. This study explores, and extends the applicability of VR softwares toward second language research areas addressing how VR softwares might facilitate interview data entering processes. To aid the readers' understanding in this field, the background of classroom interaction research, and the rationale of why interview data, therefore the role of VR softwares, becomes critical in this realm of inquiry will be discussed. VR softwares' development and a brief report on the features of up-to-date VR softwares will be sketched. Finally, suggestions for future studies investigating the impact of VR softwares on second language learning, teaching, and research will be offered.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.373-401
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• 2002

It is often observed that Korean migrant students overseas experience various kinds of anxieties learning English as a second language although they are in an English-speaking country like New Zealand. The context of learning English as a second language is explored by examining language anxieties experienced by recent Korean migrant students in New Zealand. 177 students were surveyed using questionnaires asking their anxieties over various contexts of English learning processes. The three stages of language anxiety of Input, Processing, and Output showed that there were some degrees of anxiety among the students at each stage depending on their ages, age at migration, and duration of residence, in particular. Students tended to experience more language anxiety in school than outside the school. It was also clear that students were experiencing more anxieties with English than with Korean in the four language skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing. Writing was commonly found in English and Korean to be the most frequent source of anxiety among the four language skills. Some implications from the results are suggested for parents, teachers, and students.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• no.1
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• pp.129-157
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• 1995

I made a careful study of affective variables in foreign language learning Affective variables have not been adequately investigated in the study of second language acquisition. Egoism and inhibition are two egocentric factors which play important roles in foreign language learning. Three sociocultural variables. cultural factors, introversion / extroversion, and aggression may be keys to understanding the social nature of second language learning. And the emerging of cognition and affect in "cognitive styles", which vary within and among individuals, might account for varying degree of success in learning a second language. In the process of learning English. the students new to foreign language come to face the language barrier. though they express the deep interest and feel excited at the beginning stage. Of course, the several reasons can explain this fact. but more specially they can be explained in terms of such personal affective factors as age, aptitude, personality, and first of all, motivation. Also the socicultural factors between language and culture can be considered to the learner's aptitude toward the language. Affective factors of students are involved in personality. and personality and affective factors affect English learning. Affective variables of students affect the will to take part in English learning, and the rate of participation in English learning affect the fluency. If students feel inconvenience in English class, it is rarely that they run a risk. Students who do not run a risk in English class are short of spontaneous participation Consequently, it may have negative influence on the accuracy and the fluency of English. Therefore, teachers must be more influential in motivating students and specially attentive so that the students may not make the negative and inhibitive language learning attitude.

• CELLMED
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• v.13 no.10
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• pp.9.1-9.6
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• 2023

This study aims to explore the potential of Korean language learning as a means of psychological healing and improving the quality of life for Japanese middle-aged and older learners. Results showed that Korean language learning could help alleviate various psychological issues experienced by middle-aged learners and contribute to enhancing their quality of life. Learning a foreign language is not just about acquiring information but also about meeting people who use the language and understanding and experiencing their culture. In particular, for Japanese middle-aged learners, Korean language learning can be advantageous as it can lead to the discovery or development of new hobbies or interests. Results also showed that Korean language learning increased learners' opportunities for interaction with others and enjoyment of learning new cultural customs. These positive outcomes suggest the need for discussion of teaching strategies that focus on psychological healing in foreign language education. Further clinical trials with participants who learn foreign languages for healing purposes may provide more conclusive evidence on the diverse effects of language learning on stress, anxiety, depression, self-development, social connections, and cognitive ability.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.527-539
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• 2017

This case study examines the experiences of an African American student's successful second language acquisition in Korea. There is an increasing number of multicultural families in Korea; but few research on African American students' second language learning. In the past, some American researchers have analyzed African American students as academic underachievers for learning and there is a scarcity of research on African American students' successfully acquiring a second language. With this qualitative research design, the researchers interviewed, and observed an African American girl named Mary. The researchers also interviewed Mary's mother, teacher, and peers about Mary's Korean language development. The results of this study revealed Mary's determined efforts to become a fluent Korean speaker with support from family, community and friends. Mary underwent unique social and systematic supports for her language development. This paper concludes with the educational implication for multicultural language learners in Korea and the possibility to diminish the common stereotypes of African Americans as underachievers.

• CELLMED
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• v.13 no.10
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• pp.10.1-10.5
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• 2023

Objective: A report investigating the positive effects of Korean language learning on the psychological healing of local students studying Korean during the period of disobedience in Myanmar. Methods: 37 students studying Korean at local foreign language universities in Myanmar and unable to attend school anymore due to their opposition to the military regime are experiencing psychological symptoms of distress and anger. Results: In this survey, Most Myanmar students responded that they receive psychological healing through self-study of the Korean language. Conclusion: It can be inferred that Korean language learning has psychological healing effects.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.71-87
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• 2005

The role of interaction in second language (L2) classrooms has been examined from different angles, ranging from early studies of foreigner talk to the studies of the teacher- and task-based talk. However, most of the research on L2 classroom interaction has been based on a traditional psycholinguistic view of language and learning, failing to reconceptualize a broad and holistic understanding of L2 learning. Currently, many researchers have attempted to explore and describe classroom interaction in L2 classrooms from a sociocultural perspective. The purpose of this paper is to discuss Vygotsky's theoretical framework in terms of L2 classroom interaction and research from a sociocultural perspective, by describing three key concepts (zone of proximal development, private speech, and activity theory) in Vygotsky's theoretical framework and relating them to L2 classroom interaction. The results demonstrated the importance of social interaction for second language acquisition with the review of the related research study. It was also suggested that the dynamic and interactive processes of second language learning in the classroom should be valued by L2 researchers as well as L2 teachers. Finally, implications for the concepts for L2 classroom research and pedagogy are presented in the conclusion.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.281-308
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• 2003

The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of CMC-based English learning. In this study, CMC components were found to provide circumstances of facilitating interactions between student-student and student-student-teacher, which enabled students to accomplish language learning tasks. Findings of this study are as follows: First, CMC based language learning experience helps students have positive attitudes toward their English language learning. Second, student-student-instructor interaction group outperformed other groups in academic achievement and class activity participation. Third, cooperative learning groups more actively participated in the class activity than the individual learning group resulting in better academic performances. These findings supported the fact that cooperative learning with CMC components are useful in bringing more class participation and positive attitude that were believed to foster language learning than other groups in traditional language learning environments. This study suggests that the instructor needs to use instructional design strategies helpful to facilitate active interactions between instructors and students in order to achieve better effectiveness of English learning in a CMC based learning environment.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.549-557
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• 2001

Morphological analysis and POS tagging require a dictionary for the language at hand . In this fashion though it is impossible to analyze a language a dictionary. We also have difficulty if significant portion of the vocabulary is new or unknown . This paper explores the possibility of learning morphology of an agglutinative language. in particular Korean language, without any prior lexical knowledge of the language. We use unsupervised learning in that there is no instructor to guide the outcome of the learner, nor any tagged corpus. Here are the main characteristics of the approach: First. we use only raw corpus without any tags attached or any dictionary. Second, unlike many heuristics that are theoretically ungrounded, this method is based on statistical methods , which are widely accepted. The method is currently applied only to Korean language but since it is essentially language-neutral it can easily be adapted to other agglutinative languages.