• Journal for History of Mathematics
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.83-102
• /
• 2007

A math class in Korean university was taught in English for one semester and the students' improvement was measured in math content and English proficiency. Pre and post test in 9 week intervals showed that math content loaming in the immersion class was superior to the non-immersed class. Especially, the immersion class showed remarkable improvement in difficult problems among math content test problems. The immersion class improved in math-related English, but not in general English. It is discussed that the particular English expressions for math are hardly separable from the math content knowledge in English because understanding and using those expressions correctly means the students' understanding of math concept in English and thus the math concept itself.

• Korean Security Journal
• /
• no.15
• /
• pp.51-72
• /
• 2008

This study is aimed at looking into the security English ability status and progress plan of security related department students. The status was captured through a questionnaire survey to English proficiency and simple tests on security knowledge. Current status to general English and security English ability was indicated very low and unsatisfactory as a whole, through which individuals and students perceived their need of positive effort. The security personnel for domestic figures and VIPs need to have English communication ability as an international ability, and the security related department students have to improve English communication ability during their college course for smooth post-graduation employment and career preparation. General English ability should be bettered through the diversity of cultural English programs, and systematic learning and effort needed for equipment of ability on specialized security ability, for this, compilation of security English curricula encouraged by each college. It is expected that significance and perception of security English would be conscious and progressive in Korean security related departments, by which more security personnel with international qualifications and abilities would be produced.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.549-553
• /
• 2014

This study is a report of an intensive ESP(English for Specific Purposes) program conducted for the College of Economic students in Korean University. This is planned for the students to enhance their English achievement in comprehending the subject contents which they would learn in the near future. In order to determine whether the course helped the students enhance their English achievement or not, a pre and post test were taken, one at the beginning of the semester and the other at the end of semester. The result of the test shows that this program benefits relevant students, especially lower level students. In accordance with a general accepted view, the English for Specific Purposes(ESP) program is generally targeted for students who expect to learn the basic knowledge of English through mediated courses. Since students already have specific purpose of studying for their major courses, their motivation and interest in the course are higher than the students who don't have any specific purpose. Therefore, this study shows that the students who took English for Specific Purposes(ESP) had higher motivation and interest to study English related to their major courses as the test results were higher than before they had taken the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) program.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.141-152
• /
• 2005

This paper shows the tonal patterns of English conjunctive utterances produced by Korean speakers of English, presenting that Korean speakers realize either the H - phrase tone or the H% boundary tone at the phrase-final part of the conjunctive utterances. Based on Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg's (1990) claim that either H- or H% tone indicates that a phrase is related to the following one, Korean speakers seem to produce the satisfactory patterns of edge tones in conjunctive sentences. In the experiment, we made up conjunctive sentences including both coordinate conjunctions such as and, but, or, and so and subordinate conjunctions like if, when and though. We varied the stimuli according to the existence of a comma and the lengths of connecting words and phrases. We also divided the subjects into two levels of English proficiency based on their English written test scores to see if Korean speakers' performance ability of edge tones is related with their general competence of English. Results show that Korean speakers produced 84% of the H- phrase tone in intermediate phrases and H-L% and L-H% boundary tones in intonational phrases. Also, coordinate and subordinate conjunctions show little difference in their tonal contours, and the existence of a comma or the lengths of connecting words and phrases do not affect Korean speakers' production of the H- phrasal tone and the H% boundary tone. This may suggest that pitch accents, rather than edge tones, should be put more focus on in teaching English intonation in Korea as much work has already shown that Korean speakers have serious problem with producing pitch accents in speaking English.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.69-76
• /
• 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.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.16 no.8
• /
• pp.19-26
• /
• 2018

In an effort to investigate the effects of chatbots on English listening and reading skills, 46 college students participated in the current study. Participants consisted of first-year students who enrolled in an English class at a university in South Korea. They were randomly divided into two groups: one experimental group (n=24) and one control group (n=22). During 16 weeks, the experimental group engaged in chats with a chatbot, named Elbot, while the control group did not. There were pre- and post-tests to confirm the effects of the chatbot usage. Major findings are as follows: First, participants in both groups significantly improved listening and reading skills. On the post-listening test, however, the experimental group showed more improvements. Their listening proficiency level improved from intermediate to advanced level after engaging in chat with the chatbot. Limitations and implications for theory and practice are discussed at the end.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.193-203
• /
• 2022

The present study aims to investigate how general education EFL instructors who teach in a higher education institution in Korea perceive mixed-ability classes and the teaching strategies that they utilized to teach learners who have varying English proficiency levels and may have different instructional needs. Twenty instructors at a higher education institution in Korea who teach general education EFL courses participated in a questionnaire and three of the twenty instructors participated in follow-up interviews. The findings from the questionnaire and interviews showed that instructors' experiences teaching mixed-ability classes were positive. They offered clear guidelines for participation to help motivate learners and found that higher level students helped lower level students through group work. The instructors also felt that ESP could be a possibility in mixed-ability classes to meet the learners educational needs.

• Journal of Korean language education
• /
• v.28 no.2
• /
• pp.1-36
• /
• 2017

This study investigated the correlation between learners' psychological and social factors and their syntactic complexity of speaking. The study collected samples of Korean spoken production of 61 learners with English, Chinese, Japanese and other L1 backgrounds and applied mini-TOPIK, mini-AMTB, and SASIQ for 70 minutes. The study found that: (i) integrative motivation showed positive correlation with a number of simple complex clauses, but instrumental motivation correlated negatively with a number of adverbial clauses, indicating that high motivation hindered producing highly complex clauses although it triggered producing simple complex clauses, (ii) social contact with L2 native speakers showed positive correlation with general L2 development and a number of simple complex clauses, but revealed negative correlation with double or triple complex clauses, (iii) hours of L2 listening showed very strong positive correlation with producing triple complex clauses and general proficiency, but indicated negative correlation with a number of simple complex clauses. The study reported that high motivation toward Korean learning and active social activities with Korean native speakers helped produce simple complex clauses while hours of listening to Korean helped produce triple complex clauses.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.285-290
• /
• 2020

This study focus on improving the text language proficiency regarding users' written text. In order to tone up accuracy improvement in writing, Computer Assisted Language Learning(CALL) can be primarily used as one of the most efficient tools. This study proposes a English Grammar Checking Application that can improve the accuracy over the current applications. The proposed system is capable of defining the difference between a Noun and a Noun Phrase which is critical in improving grammar accuracy for those who use Englilsh as a foreign language in English writing.

• 재활복지
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.65-84
• /
• 2017

This study identified predictors of intention to work among people with disabilities who maintain economic inactivity for two successive years by analyzing a total of 2,255 Participants in the 2014 data of the Panel Survey of Employment for the Disabled (PSED) with through $X^2$, t test, logistic regression. To explore factors affecting intention to work among people with disabilities who maintain economic inactivity, this study hypothesized the effectiveness of variables of demographic, disability, human resources, psycho-social factors based on previous studies. The analysis showed that male, spouse-being, low income status out of demographic variables were related to high probability of having intention to work among people with disabilities who maintain economic inactivity. In case of disability variables, experiencing disability-related discrimination significantly predicted the probability of having intention to work. However, the relationship between disability-related discrimination experiences and high intention to work needs to be viewed as correlated rather than cause-and-effect.In addition, literacy related to computer use/English proficiency/interpersonal and adaptation skills(human resources), experiences of vocational rehabilitation services (human resources), self-esteem (psycho-social) significantly predicted the probability of having intention to work among people with disabilities who maintained economic inactivity. Based on these results, support services for females with disabilities, effective rehabilitation programs of improving literacy related to computer use/English proficiency/interpersonal and adaptation skills and self-esteem, general expansion of vocational rehabilitation services for people with disabilities are suggested.