• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.497-506
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• 2004

This study examines the influence of early English education on children's bilingual language development to see whether the early exposure to English education affects children's competencies of both English and Korean. Based on this purpose, it attempts to examine whether it supports additive or subtractive bilingualism. The competencies of both English and Korean of the children with early English education were, therefore, compared with those of the children without it, and the relation between the two competencies was also studied. For this research, two different groups of children - one with 48 children who attend English kindergarten and the other with 60 children who attend only Korean kindergarten - took PPVT-R in Korean and in English each. The result shows that children with early English education have more English competency than those without it. No significant differences, however, are found in Korean competency between the two groups. The relation between the two competencies proves positive in children with early English education. It can thus be concluded that the effect of early English education is partially positive on children's language development, which may support the additive bilingualism that children's second language can improve without losing their native language competency. In addition, this result will be able to provide for us the direction and the guideline to the policy of foreign language education and early education.

• 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.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.1083-1095
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• 2007

This study had been done to investigate that early childhood teacher's recognition and demand on children's language education and 20 early childhood teachers were interviewed individually who work at state-owned/ public-owned/ private-owned kindergardens residing G, I, and K cities in Jeollabuk-do. First, the purpose of language education was recognized on the formations of essence, concept, expertise, technique and attitude toward language. Second, the contents of language education must be selected by children's experience that they encounter in ordinary life based on oral language and written language. Besides, early childhood teachers strongly felt the necessity of new contents of language education, although they thought of insufficiency of their knowledge on the issue. Third, the method of language education was mainly accomplished by teaching material and objects. Besides, they were aware of looking for new organized teaching methods and also concerned of the importances of teacher's attitude and group formation method. Fourth, the evaluation of language education must be acquired by desirable evaluation method that was based on the recognition of children's unrealistic language capabilities, even though they had recognized the difficulty to do because of knowledge insufficiency. They also showed the tendency of negligence on the evaluation of language education. Fifth, the required facts for early childhood teachers on language education were development and supply of teaching materials, demand on teacher's education and appropriate evaluation method, and cognitive changes on language education by public toward the written language.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.205-216
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• 2005

This study investigated aspects of caregiver's input relating to the early development of nouns and verbs. Subjects were 34 Korean-Chinese children in Yanji, China. At 1 year of age each child's spontaneous speech during interaction with his/her caregiver was videotaped for about 30 minutes. The children's spontaneous utterances were transcribed and coded on the lexical level(nouns and verbs) and the pragmatic level. Children's speech was recorded, transcribed and coded again at 2 years of age. Results showed that children used more verbs when they were older; there were no differences between the two ages in mother's pragmatic utterances but when they were two-years-old children used more actionoriented utterances and object-described utterances. Mother's input was related to children's pragmatic utterances.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.673-684
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to compare the complexity of language level between verbally-precocious and typically-developing children from 2 to 3 years-old. Participants were 15 children classified as verbally-precocious were scored at the mean 56.85(expressive language) and 88.82(receptive language), and another 15 children classified as typically developing did at the mean 33.51(expressive language) and 58.01(receptive language) on MCDI-K. Each child's spontaneous utterances in interaction with her caregiver were collected at three different times with 6 months interval. All of the utterances were transcribed and analyzed for the use of MLU and lexical diversity by using KCLA. Summarizing the overall results, verbally-precocious children had significantly higher language abilities than typically-developing children at each time, and there were significant differences between two groups in syntactic and semantic language development, showing that verbally-precocious children indicated distinctive MLU and lexical diversity. These results suggest a high degree of stability in precocious verbal status, with variations in language complexity during conversations contributing to later differences in their language ability.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.163-178
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• 2004

The hypothesis was tested that children whose families differ in socioeconomic status(SES) and educational level differ in their rates of productive language development because they have different language-learning experiences. Naturalistic interaction between mothers and their children was video taped. Transcripts of these interactions provided the basis for estimating the growth in children's productive vocabularies and properties of maternal speech. The sixty children from age 1 to 3 were selected in Yanji, China. The results show that the high educated mothers' children grew more than the low educated mothers' children in their mean length of utterances. Properties of maternal speech that differed as a function of mother's educational level fully accounted for this difference. Implications of these findings for mechanisms of environmental influence on child development are discussed.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.875-888
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• 2012

This study seeks to determine children's poem composition through an activity-based nature experiencing program and how it affects their language expression and peer interaction. This research also seeks to provide preliminary data for producing more effective lecturing and learning plans. The forty participants in the study included twenty 5-year-old children from E kindergarten and 20 5-year-old children from G kindergarten in N city. The results of the study demonstrated that children in the experimental group who experienced the poem composing activity with the nature experiencing program demonstrated a positive effect in terms of the quality of language expression as well as peer interaction. These results indicate that children's poem composing activity done with nature experiencing program could be used as a new lecture and learning method for the development of language expression and peer interaction in early childhood education.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.43 no.5 s.207
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• pp.131-147
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to provide a better understanding of foreign-born Korean children's early school adjustment in the U.S. The interaction between the foreign-born Korean children in the U.S. and several of the children's microsystems, including family, school, and peer was assessed to meet this purpose. The study subjects were 43 foreign-bom Korean children who were sampled from Korean Sunday Language schools and who attended local schools in the Boston area, MA, USA. Quantitative analysis was conducted to identify which variables of interest predicted the early adjustment of this group of children. Furthermore, in-depth interviews were conducted with mothers of the children from the top and bottom groups 1) the most successful (in the top quartile) and 2) the least successful adjustment groups (in the bottom quartile) sorted by scores on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R). The interview results were analyzed to elicit maternal perceptions/beliefs on education, in general, and those of home-school relationships, in specific. Several conclusions can be drawn from both the quantitative and qualitative analyses. The results of multiple regression and path analysis showed that the children's language development predicted their adjustment, but the effects of the other two variables, peer relationships and school experiences, on the adjustment of children, were mediated through the children's language. Moreover, common themes and patterns in the responses to a series of open-ended questions emerged from the interviews with the two groups of mothers. The two mothers of the least successful group were concerned about their children's future and school success, but thev did not show anv responsive attitudes toward achieving this goal. By contrast, the mothers from the most successful group were self-determined with regard to their children's education and had strong beliefs and values on how to raise their children in the new culture. The implications were discussed.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.3-14
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between conversational function and question type in mothers' utterances and their infant's language development. The subjects were 20 infants from 1;07 to 1;11 years of age in Yanji, China. Each child's spontaneous natural speech during interaction with his/her mother was videotaped for about 30 minutes. The children and their mother's spontaneous utterances were transcribed and coded for the number of type and token of word, grammatical morpheme conversational function and type of question in mother's language input to her child. The result showed that mothers used questions as the most frequent conversational function with their infants. The number of questions in conversational function in mothers' utterances positively correlated with the type of word, type of morpheme and grammatical morpheme in infants' utterance. However, there was no correlation between mothers' language input and infant early language development.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.95-106
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• 2011

This study was conducted to better understand the effect of the classroom literacy environment on the young children's vocabulary abilities, and the concepts of print matter. The subjects consisted of 276 children aged 3 to 5 enrolled in 93 classrooms in child-care centers and kindergartens. The Early Language & Literacy Classroom Observation Pre-K (Smith, Brady, & Anastasopoulos, 2008), the Picture Vocabulary Test (Kim, Jang, Yim, & Bae, 1995) and the Concepts About Print (Kim & Kim, 2004) were used for the purposes of this study. The data collected were analyzed by means of ANOVA, and regression analysis. The results indicated that the vocabulary abilities and print-concepts of children aged 3-5 were more likely to increase when a rich classroom environment was provided for the children's literacy development. In particular, it was found to be important for children's language and Literacy development to provide them with an enriched 'language environment' within the classroom, the quality of 'books and book reading', and the active utilization of 'print and early writing' all being important elements of this.