• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.261-282
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• 2007

The purpose of this study is to investigate American traditional values and American culture in English education. The understanding of American culture in English education requires the analysis of world changes in the global age. The history of American English, the formation of American society, and the background of natural environment are described in relation to the traditional American values of the earliest settlers, such as multi-culture, individual freedom, frontier heritage in the West, equality of opportunity and wealth and material abundance. Hence the case studies of students' project presentations on the American culture in English education exemplify the reflection of American traditional values in the current American life and society. It is concluded that project-based method with regard to cultural studies in English education reveals very positive learning effects by driving students' interests and active participation through the student-centered, creative, and cooperative project presentations.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.207-221
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• 2012

This study examines the importance of learning language and cultural integration in general English class focused on TOEIC reading comprehension. The understanding of cultural learning and learners' cultural awareness has long been a subject of debate. This study was not only to analyze the improvement of students' interest and reading comprehension ability of TOEIC through cultural learning, but also to ensure students who learn American culture overcome cross-cultural miscommunication and improve their English reading comprehension skills. Pre-post surveys and the pre-post TOEIC tests were used to measure language proficiency and American cultural knowledge to two groups: the experimental and control group. The results from the study were as follows: First, students had better TOEIC scores with improved motivation after understanding American culture relevant to the lessons. Second, reading comprehension skills with regards to TOEIC also improved, compared with the students who were not exposed to American culture due to lack of opportunity.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.24
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• pp.62-83
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• 2011

The totality of language learning comprises three integrated components: linguistic, cultural, and attitudinal (Wilkes, 1983).Positively sensitizing students to cultural phenomena is urgent and crucial. A positive attitude toward L2 culture is a factor in language learning that leads to cross cultural understanding. This research examined, through a survey analysis, how three groups of students (one high school group and two university student groups) viewed the role of their foreign culture (i.e., American and British cultures) in achieving cultural understanding. The focus was upon how EFL learners approach the target language culture as well as their own culture.

• Child Studies in Asia-Pacific Contexts
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.105-122
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• 2013

The relationship between an adolescent and his/her parents is one of the most important relationships that can have a significant effect on adolescents' well-being and functioning. While there has been an increase in research on Asian American families in recent years, still much less is known about adolescent-parent relationships in these families. Asian American adolescents face some of the challenges that mainstream European American adolescents face, but their experiences are complicated by the cultural and immigration-related factors that have unique contribution to their relationships with their parents. As such, there is urgent need for research that identifies and provides a comprehensive understanding of factors that contribute to the experiences of Asian American immigrant families. The current paper provides a systematic look at adolescent-parent relationships in Asian American immigrant families using the Bronfenbrenner's ecological model. More specifically, this paper provides a succinct review of the literature on developmental issues, immigration, and culture-related factors that affect Asian American adolescent-parent relationships, and guided by Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory, an ecological framework of Asian American adolescent-parent relationships is proposed.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.71-90
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to analyze the improvement of students' interest and general proficiency of English through cultural understanding. To achieve this purpose, two classes of the 2nd grade in the informational high school were divided into the experimental class and the control class. The Grammar-Translation Method was used for the control class and a cultural learning - compare and contrast Korean culture and American culture - was taken for the experimental. After various cultural differences were studied, surveys of students' attitude and reading and listening test were taken. The results from this study were as follows: Firstly, students' interest in English was improved through learning the American culture that was related to the content of each lesson. Secondly, English reading and communicative skills were improved by learning about cultural aspects. Therefore, it can be said that teaching culture stimulates students' interest and motivation for learning English and helps students retain such affective attitudes. And English communicative skills were improved as well.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.1631-1643
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• 2016

Depressive symptoms are one of the biggest mental health issues among Korean American adolescents. Previous studies have found that parental warmth and intergenerational family conflict have a major impact on depressive symptoms among Korean American adolescents. This cross-sectional study examines the mediation effects of intergenerational family conflict between perceived parental warmth and depressive symptoms among 97 Korean American adolescents aged 14 to 18 years old in the Pacific Northwest region. The results revealed that 60% of participants experienced depressive symptoms. In addition, mother-adolescent conflict significantly mediated between perceived parental warmth and depressive symptoms while father-adolescent conflict did not significantly mediate. The finding suggests the need to develop intervention programs for Korean American adolescents and their parents that focus on creating an understanding of the difference between Korean culture and American culture, identifying early signs of depressive symptoms, and decreasing intergenerational family conflict by teaching parents to express parental warmth effectively.

• English & American cultural studies
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.65-92
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• 2018

According to Wenying Xu, Asian American literature abounds in culinary metaphors and references (8); subsequently, a growing number of critics have begun to recognize that food "feeds into the literary rendering of Asian American subjectivity [and] provides a language through which to imagine Asian alterity in the American imagination" (Mannur 13). Ann Mah's Kitchen Chinese: A Novel about Food, Family, and Finding Yourself (2010) is yet another text within which to investigate how food "operates as one of the key cultural signs that structure people's identities" (Xu 2). Even as Kitchen Chinese insists on underscoring that Chinese food, as much as the voyage to her "motherland" China, is critical to protagonist Isabelle's quest to gain a better understanding of herself, we are able to observe how Isabelle exploits Chinese culture and its foodways as "food pornography" in order to align herself with mainstream America. Needless to say, the novels' relegation of Chinese food as "food porn" is problematic in that it encourages readers to participate in the exoticization of Asia and its culture, and the reduction of its people as the other. Ultimately, this essay aims to consider how the consumption and rejection of food becomes a critical means by which the Asian American subject fashions her identity.

• Journal of The Korean Association of Information Education
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.45-52
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• 2010

This paper is a research to know how to influence english lessons in a elementary school, when the class uses both video UCC and PPT to understand for an american culture and english lessons. We study 68 students in the 5th grader for 5 months. The results of the experiment research are as follows. Students of an experiment group show the advanced increase than a control group in understanding. We measure the degree of interesting about English lesson. The motive and interest in english lessons of an experiment group show the developed result. We put a question the experiment group on their opinion in video UCC utility. The experimental group answer the ratio of very positive opinion in usefulness and interest.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.61 no.6
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• pp.113-130
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• 2011

Post-Modern Multiculturalism is spreading in many ways and other cultural interest has led to the Latin American culture, which has steadily appeared as the main fashion concept of the international collection. Frida Kahlo(1907-1954), a representative of Latin American culture and a Mexican female surrealistic painter, who gives us some inspiration for contemporary fashion design. The purpose of this study is to have a correct understanding of and research on Latin American culture and to expand the expression of fashion design. In the process, this article examines the costume of Mexico belong to the Indio culture which had been regarded as the Other for a long time and understands Frida Kahlo's fashion style: Tehuanas costume and her masculine style. The Tehuanas costume is a traditional style of the city, Tehuantepec, located in the southeast of Mexico, which is characterized by colorful floral patterns and a long skirt. Three fashion concepts were derived from her fashion style: tradition & modern, love & farewell, and masculine & feminine. The scope of this study investigates the Haute Couture and the Pret-a-porter women's wear collections and photos from 1998 to 2010 in Europe, USA and South America. From classifying the collected photos into each concept, three styles such as ethnic, romantic and androgynous style were derived. These fashion styles were analyzed through the formative elements of dress, color, silhouette, pattern, material and clothing construction in order to figure out how costumes of other cultures influenced on contemporary fashion. As a design inspiration, Frida Kahlo extends her influence into innerwear, accessories and hairstyles, as well as women's wear. These inspirations emerge steadily from the past and far into the future as an expression of a fashion design concept.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.23
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• pp.295-319
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• 2011

This study examines how Latinidad can be reclaimed as a site for exploring affinities of Latinos in Latin music industry, especially from the 90s. By looking at sites where Latinidad is constituted, such as the case of Jennifer $L{\acute{o}}pez$ becoming Selena, it intends to suggest that the concept can be deployed as a political bridge to connect latinos. And by examining Cuban-American artists' self identification in Latin Grammy Awards, it reveals that the latin music business definitions of Latinidad is coded differently for them as 'Caribbean' to erase a natural resonance of Cuba. In addition, by dealing with Shakira's somewhat contradictory representation of Colombianidad, the study argues that Latinidad serves as a social construct and newly emerges as a convenient interstitial place between the Latin American and the US Latino. Shakira's case serves to show how the transnational trends of latin music contribute to create a simultaneous sense of Latinidad and Colombianidad. Focusing on the commercial significance of understanding of what latino is or should be, this paper aims to interrogate current understandings of Latinidad in the realm of latin music and popular culture.