• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.31
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• pp.395-414
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• 2013

EPS-TOPIK is a test of Korean proficiency which is enforced at the level of Korean government for the selection of competent foreign workers. Therefore, it must ensure validity and reliability, and practicability as a language assessment tool. For seeking a way of developing EPS-TOPIK, in this paper, the current state of EPS-TOPIK was investigated based upon the materials published by the Korean government, and the questions of EPS-TOPIK were analysed. Together with this, newspaper articles both in Korea and in foreign countries were also analyzed, and the directors of the EPS center abroad were interviewed. According to the survey results, as expected, the local environment of Korean education is poor in a number of ways to improve the Korean communication skills of foreign workers, as well as to prepare the EPS-TOPIK. To improve the efficiency of the EPS-TOPIK and to enhance the Korean communication skills of foreign workers, the Korean language institutions including the King Sejong Institute, which are in charge of the Korean language education should closely cooperate with the Human Resources Development Service of Korea, which is responsible for all of the influx of foreign workers.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.169-201
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• 2014

The purpose of this research is to analyze the problems of the way of the 32th TOPIK(advanced)'s management for the disabled examinee and to prescribe the management of the TOPIK for them. Since the TOPIK started in 1997, the number of examinee who take it as a qualifying exam for the university entrance have gradually increased. The first disabled examinee who wants to use the result of the TOPIK for entrance into the post graduated university took the 32th TOPIK(advanced level). However, there was no examination regulations and detailed management method for the disabled. The biggest problem was the examinee could not have braille test and answer. The exam supervisor read all that is printed on the test sheet. It caused two big problems. 1) The essay question in writing test became an oral test. 2) The strategies of answering to multiple choice questions could not be used in vocabulary/grammar, writing, listening, and specially reading section. The first problem is occurred because writing and speaking have different cognitive process. The second one can be strongly related to the result in reading section. Above all, these disrupt accurate assessment of the examinee's writing and reading achievement. Therefore, this research insists the TOPIK needs to have the regulation and prescribe the management for the disabled. This research suggests 5 regulations for the blind examinee which covers the test time, supervisor, place and request of the examinee. These refer to the regulation for the disable in the other tests, such as the college scholarship ability test, TOEFL, TEPS, and a civil service exam.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.37
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• pp.335-360
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• 2014

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether high-level(level 6) essay-writing questions in Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) have been presented appropriately so as to enable foreign test-takers to display their Korean writing ability properly, and to provide some suggestions on how those questions need to be changed. To accomplish this purpose, all the essay-writing questions were collected from the 33 TOPIK tests, from the 2nd in 1998 to the 35thin 2014, and analyzed from the perspectives of their topics and formats. The results are that high-level TOPIK essay-writing questions showed a strong tendency to take as their topics Korean sociocultural structures and phenomena, or current issues in Korea, and that they frequently employed guided writing formats by providing preset ideas or/and contexts for test-takers to write in a guided way; such tendencies were analyzed to shed a negative influence on test-takers displaying their writing ability and creativity, because those topics and preset ideas or contexts provided do not allow them to express their own opinions or positions freely. It is suggested that TOPIK essay-writing questions should be changed to deal with objective and general topics which enable test-takers to write freely and logically in Korean based on their experience, because TOPIK is not a test to check whether they have enough background knowledge about the Korean society and culture, but a test to assess their Korean proficiency.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.1-24
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• 2017

This article explores the developmental history of TOPIK over the last 20 years and its recent trends. Over the last two decades, TOPIK underwent two major systematic reforms, achieving both quantitative and qualitative growth over the course of its 52 testing sessions. TOPIK has utilized a six-level evaluation system from its inception to the present. The evaluation system was amended from the earlier six-test set - whereby each level corresponded with a separate test (1997~2005: the $1^{st}{\sim}9^{th}$) - to the three-test set (2006~2014: the $10^{th}{\sim}34^{th}$), and finally to the two-test set (2014~present: the $35^{th}{\sim}42^{nd}$). In the earlier exams, abilities in Vocabulary Grammar, Writing, Listening, and Reading were assessed. However, beginning with the $35^{th}$ TOPIK, abilities in Listening, Reading, and Writing (only in TOPIK II) were assessed and the evaluation of the writing section was changed to a task-based process, improving TOPIK into a more qualified analysis of proficiency. Over the last 20 years, the number of countries TOPIK is administered in has greatly increased from 4 to 73 countries, and the annual number of test-takers has also significantly increased from 2,692 to 250,141. The distribution of proficiency levels of the test-takers has shifted over time - initially "Beginner>Intermediate>Advanced" in the earlier exams, to "Intermediate>Advanced>Beginner" after the mid 2000s - as the number of those studying the Korean language for specific purposes and continuing education increased. Test-takers have indicated a shift in their purpose for taking the exam, initially citing "to assess proficiency" and more recently selecting "to study abroad," and this could also correlate with changes in the proportion of test-takers' proficiency level. In general, 85~95% of beginner, 50~65% of intermediate, and 45~60% of advanced test applicants passed the respective proficiency level. To date, no practices have yet been implemented to standardize the difficulty level longitudinally across test sets.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.173-196
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• 2017

Writing is a subjective and performative activity. Writing ability has multi-facets and compoundness. To understand the examinees's writing ability accurately and provide effective writing scores, raters first ought to have the competency regarding assessment. Therefore, this study is significant as a fundamental research about rater's characteristics on the TOPIK writing assessment. 150 scripts of the 47th TOPIK examinees were selected randomly, and were further rated independently by 20 raters. The many-facet Rasch model was used to generate individualized feedback reports on each rater's relative severity and consistency with respect to particular categories of the rating scale. This study was analyzed using the FACETS ver 3.71.4 program. Overfit and misfit raters showed many difficulties for noticing the difference between assessment factors and interpreting the criteria. Writing raters appear to have much confusion when interpreting the assessment criteria, and especially, overfit and misfit teachers interpret the criteria arbitrarily. The main reason of overfit and misfit is the confusion about assessment factors and criteria in finding basis for scoring. Therefore, there needs to be more training and research is needed for raters based on this type of writing assessment characteristics. This study is recognized significantly in that it collectively examined writing assessment characteristics of writing raters, and visually confirmed the assessment error aspects of writing assessment.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.30
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• pp.187-222
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• 2013

In this study, From 1,560 entry-level of TOPIK standard vocabularies are 702 Sino-Korean words selected which account for 45% of the whole vocabularies in TOPIK. In addition, the same form and morpheme words in Sino-Korean are sorted out by comparing them with 5,000 words of the NEW HSK vocabularies in Sino-Korean morpheme, array position of morpheme, meaning, and usage. Those are categorized into three parts : type of completely the same form-morpheme and same meaning, use, class(189 pairs), type of completely the same form-morpheme and partly same meaning, use, class(28 pairs), and type of completely the same form-morpheme and different meaning, use, class(10 pairs). The first type of words that account for 83.26% of them are used in exactly the same way in both Chinese and Korean. Through an accurate understanding of these vocabularies could either Chinese-speaking Korean learners or Korean-speaking Chinese learners apply those words in their mother tongue to the acquisition of the target language and get more effective means of learning methods for language proficiency test.

• Asia-pacific Journal of Multimedia Services Convergent with Art, Humanities, and Sociology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.241-250
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• 2019

The study aims to investigate how international students with over the TOPIK level 3 recognize Korean proverbs. Among the 53 students, 45 students had the qualification of the TOPIK levels. Research results are as follows: 80.0 percentages of those students have studied Korean languages in the language institutes in Korea or their homelands. Only 57.8 percentages of them have learned Korean proverbs. Despite the high interest of foreign students on Korean proverbs, education on their expectations has not been achieved. And they had difficulty recognizing the circumstantial expression of the Korean proverb. Their degree of understanding of Korean proverbs is lower, compared to their TOPIK levels. The absence of systemic education on Korean proverbs makes international students difficult to understand the figurative expression of Korean proverbs. Since many international students want to become Korean language teachers after their studying, the education of proverbs needs to be conducted systematically rather than individually.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.123-159
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• 2012

This study investigates relationships between TOPIK ratings and measures of grammaticality judgement competence in the acquisition of Korean as a second language. Data were collected on the linguistic abilities of learners' at 3 to 6 on the TOPIK scale, focusing on perception in grammar-mostly morphology and syntax, some lexis, and a few of collocation. The results show that (i) proficiency and grammaticality judgement competence show high correlation, (ii) individual accuracy scores correlate strongly with levels on the TOPIK proficiency scale on most linguistic features in the test, and (iii) Japanese speakers outperform Chinese speakers at the same levels of proficiency on most linguistic features. The findings indicate that global proficiency scales like the TOPIK can be deconstructed using grammaticality judgement test that provides detailed measures of learners' control of linguistic features.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.187-200
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• 2019

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of motivation of the employment in Korea with gender, nationality, motivation of studying in Korea, major satisfaction and Korean proficiency level of foreign students who are studying in Korea. The second purpose is to analyze the current factors, to leverage educational management and to make and support some policy of Minister of Education for international students in order to promote utilization of employment of the students in Korea during 4 years of studying. This paper is used by IBM SPSS Statistics 24 Version for data analysis. As a result of the analysis, the average of students in Southeast Asia, Central Asia and South and North America Africa was higher than Japan and China in terms of motivation of employment in Korea. First, the external motivation to study in Korea has affected TOPIK with positive influence. Second, in the relationship between motivation to study in Korea and the majors satisfaction, the higher the internal motivation of study, the higher the majors' satisfaction level. Third, in the relationship between motivation to study in Korea and motivation of the employment in Korea, internal motivation to study has a positive effect on motivation of the employment. As internal motivation increases, grade of the motivation of the employment increases. Fourth, the relationship between major satisfaction and employment showed positive (+) effect. In other words, the higher the major satisfaction, the higher the motivation of the employment. Fifth, TOPIK has a negative effect on motivation of the employment. It means that external motivation was the main factor that positively influenced TOPIK and internal motivation was also main factors that positively influenced both major satisfaction and motivation of the employment in Korea. Sixth, when the internal motivation has an effect on motivation of Korea employment, the higher the major satisfaction as the parameter, the higher the motivation of Korea employment. Therefore, it will be helpful to understand the meaning of studying motivation and major satisfaction of international students, and to be used as basic data on education policies of universities and governments supporting the career and employment for international students.

• Koreanishche Zeitschrift fur Deutsche Sprachwissenschaft
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• v.7
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• pp.43-60
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• 2003

오늘날 기계번역 Maschinelle Ubersetzung은 가속적인 발전선상에 놓여있다. 지난 10년 간 컴퓨터로 영어를 타국어로 번역하는 수준은 괄목할 만하다. 본 논문은 기계번역에 있어서 주제어 Topik 및 초점어 Fokus를 중심으로 발생하는 언어학적인 문제점, 특히 의미론적인 문제점을 다루었다 이를 위해 먼저 주제어와 초점어에 대한 언어학적인 개념을 다루어 보았다. 주제어란 한 문장에서 이미 알려진 사항, 즉 이미 주어진 단어이고, 초점어는 한 문장에서 새로운 사항, 즉 지금 전달하고자 하는 내용을 뜻한다 제 3장에서는 주제어와 초점어를 번역하기 위해 생성된 규칙들에 근거한 담화모델 Diskursmodell을 살펴보았다. 제 4장에서는 문장을 번역하는데 있어서 의미론상 발생하는 문제점들을 다루었다 그 문제점들은 다음과 같은 3가지로 요약될 수 있다: 첫째, 문장에서 부정형이 어디에 위치하느냐에 따라 문장의 의미가 달라진다. 둘째, 양화사 Quantor의 형태에 따라 문장의 의미가 달라진다. 셋째, 의문문과 화답문 Antwortsatz에 있어서 어느 내용을 강조하느냐에 따라 문장의 의미가 달라진다. 예를 들어 독일어는 단순히 단어의 위치만 변화시킬 수 있지만 다른 유럽어나 영어는 다른 방법들이 필요한 셈이다. 본 논문에서 제시되고 있는 기계번역의 규칙들은 주제어와 초점어에 관계되는 한 영어와 독일어에 한정되어 제시되었지만, 향후 한국어와 독일어의 기계번역을 위해 밑거름이 되리라 생각한다.