• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.365-389
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to present the task model that is the most effective in English language methodology based on the investigation of task-based performance in Korean EFL classroom practice. The subjects were 538 high school students and 126 high school teachers, each of whom had common experiences using the materials of task-based activities for more than one year. To analyze the data, the program SPSS WIN 11.0 including frequency distribution and chi-square analysis was used. The results of the questionnaire analysis showed that both teachers and students had a comparatively high level of satisfaction in task rationale, but that they had some mixed responses in the fields of input data, settings, and activity types. To conclude, a few suggestions are made to provide some meaningful considerations for the EFL teachers and material developers: a) task goals and rationale that encourage the learner's positive motivation; b) authenticity of input data based on the real-world context; c) collaborative learning environment that enhances communicative interaction; d) proportional representation of the creative problem-solving activities related to discussions and decision-making processes; e) systematic introduction of integrated language skills. It also suggests that the multi-lateral task model, which has some positive assets compared to previous task models, be newly introduced and applied to the second language learning classrooms.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.253-276
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to compare and analyze the aspects of task-based materials in high school English textbooks for first year students in Korea. Based on the theoretical backgrounds for designing communicative tasks and the basic contents of the 7th national curriculum for English, a total of six different qualitative evaluation categories of task-based materials are constructed. The six categories include input data, settings, activity types, language skills, activity themes, and communicative functions. The results of the data analysis showed that the regulations of the 7th national English curriculum, which were aimed at improving the students' communicative abilities, were properly reflected in the materials of task-based activities of all textbooks. On the other hand, a few problems were found in some textbooks: too many individual tasks; being out of proportion in presenting task types and themes; non-systematic introduction of language skills, etc. To conclude, a few suggestions are made to provide some meaningful considerations for the text material developers in order to produce better textbooks in the future: task goals and rationale that encourage the learner's positive motivation; authenticity of input data based on the real-world context; a collaborative learning environment that enhances communicative interaction; a proportional representation of the various activity types including creative problem-solving procedures; systematic introduction of integrated language skills, etc.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.123-145
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to propose an efficient vocabulary assessment model in task-based language learning and to verify the viability of this assessment model. Bachman and Palmer (1996) pointed out the fact that many language tests focus on just one of the areas of language knowledge. However, researchers suggested that it is necessary to acknowledge the needs of several analytic scales, which can provide separate ratings for different components of the language ability to be tested. Although there were many studies which tried to evaluate the various aspects of vocabulary ability, most of them measured only one or two factors. Based on previous research, this study proposed an assessment model of general construct of vocabulary ability and tried to measure vocabulary ability in four separate areas. The subjects were two classes of university level Korean EFL students. They participated in small group discussion via synchronous CMC. One class used a lexically focused task, which was proposed by Kim and Jeong (2006) and the other class used a non-lexically focused task. The results showed that the students with a lexically focused task significantly outperformed those with a non-lexically focused task in overall vocabulary ability as well as four subdivisions of vocabulary ability. In conclusion, the assessment model of separate ratings is a viable measure of vocabulary ability and this can provide elaborate interpretation of vocabulary ability.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.93-104
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• 2023

Coreference resolution is a task in discourse analysis that links several headwords used in any document object. We suggest pointer networks-based coreference resolution for Korean using multi-task learning (MTL) with an attention mechanism for a hierarchical structure. As Korean is a head-final language, the head can easily be found. Our model learns the distribution by referring to the same entity position and utilizes a pointer network to conduct coreference resolution depending on the input headword. As the input is a document, the input sequence is very long. Thus, the core idea is to learn the word- and sentence-level distributions in parallel with MTL, while using a shared representation to address the long sequence problem. The suggested technique is used to generate word representations for Korean based on contextual information using pre-trained language models for Korean. In the same experimental conditions, our model performed roughly 1.8% better on CoNLL F1 than previous research without hierarchical structure.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.73-100
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to investigate learner-learner dialogue during speaking tasks. In the Korean language classroom, conversation between learners is an important activity as speaking practice. However, learner dialogue is also a tool to enable learners to collaboratively conduct various cognitive activities in the classroom. In previous research, it was unfolded that through learner-learner dialogue, learners can solve second-language related problems and set a goal to carry out tasks. Therefore, this study analyzed learner-learner dialogue to investigate what kinds of cognitive activities are activated during the role-play task. As a result, the learners collaboratively generated and monitored language and content for role play. Also, in order to accomplish tasks more successfully, learners shared the same understanding about the goal of the task, and tried to manage the task procedure. Through learner-learner dialogue, learners can participate in cognitive activities such as content, language construction, and task management voluntarily without the help from teachers. This means that learner-learner dialogue can be an activity to support language learning tasks. Also, it can make learners actively involved in learning and by sharing resources with each other. It is also important that learners can experience language use that participates in real-world communication activities, such as learning in the classroom and collaborating with peer learners. This study is an exploratory study for a basic understanding of learner's conversation as a cognitive activity, and the scope of the study is limited to clarifying contents of learner-learner dialogue as a cognitive activity in speaking tasks. Based on the findings of this study, future research should be conducted on the function of learner-learner dialogue as a cognitive activity in Korean language learning and its role in the classroom of Korean language education.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.82-95
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• 2024

As automated essay scoring (AES) has progressed from handcrafted techniques to deep learning, holistic scoring capabilities have merged. However, specific trait assessment remains a challenge because of the limited depth of earlier methods in modeling dual assessments for holistic and multi-trait tasks. To overcome this challenge, we explore providing comprehensive feedback while modeling the interconnections between holistic and trait representations. We introduce the DualBERT-Trans-CNN model, which combines transformer-based representations with a novel dual-scale bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT) encoding approach at the document-level. By explicitly leveraging multi-trait representations in a multi-task learning (MTL) framework, our DualBERT-Trans-CNN emphasizes the interrelation between holistic and trait-based score predictions, aiming for improved accuracy. For validation, we conducted extensive tests on the ASAP++ and TOEFL11 datasets. Against models of the same MTL setting, ours showed a 2.0% increase in its holistic score. Additionally, compared with single-task learning (STL) models, ours demonstrated a 3.6% enhancement in average multi-trait performance on the ASAP++ dataset.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.239-265
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• 2010

This study investigates the effects of corpus-based vocabulary tasks on the acquisition of English vocabulary in an attempt to explore the influence of corpus use on EFL pedagogy. For this to be realized, a total of 40 Korean high school students participated in the study over a 4-week period. An experimental group used a set of corpus-based tasks for vocabulary learning, whereas a control group carried out a traditional task (i.e., the L1-L2 translation) for vocabulary learning. To assess learning gains, the students were asked to complete the pre- and post-treatment tests measuring the word form, meaning, and use aspects of target lexical items. Results of the study indicate that in the experimental group the corpus-based vocabulary tasks were beneficial for the learning of word forms and use. In particular, corpus-based benefits were greatest in the low-proficiency EFL learners' collocational aspects of vocabulary use. On the other hand, in the control group, the traditional vocabulary tasks benefited the meaning aspects of target vocabulary items the most. In addition, survey results revealed that most students were positive about the corpus-based learning experience although some expressed reservations about the heavy cognitive load and the time-consuming nature of the analysis of corpus data primarily due to learners' lack of language proficiency.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.321-346
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• 2010

This study was performed to develop a task-based English lesson plan. The study reviewed the background theories needed to accomplish the study purpose; types of learning, current trends in English teaching, and the task-based teaching. A frame for the task-based English lesson was developed as the result of this study. An actual task-based lesson plan was made after the frame for the task-based English lesson. The author presented task-based English lesson plans at English education conferences, and applied them to pre-teacher training and in-service trainings for English teachers. It is concluded that the task-based English lesson plan was very effective in enhancing English communicative competence and that the pre-teachers and teachers were satisfied with the lesson plans. It is hoped that more teaching material will be developed based on this task-based English lesson plan.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.335-363
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• 2005

One of the most important features in the 7th National Curriculum of English is the introduction of the middle school multi-purpose English classes. Despite the importance of the classes, there doesn't seem to be enough studies of developing learning materials for them. The purpose of the current study is, therefore, to develop English learning materials for the multi-purpose English classes based on the Task-Based Learning framework. To do so, various tasks were collected and adapted for the classes, and different teaching techniques suitable for the tasks were designed. It is hoped that this research will help teachers prepare for teaching materials for the classes, and students recognize their interests in English and to improve their English abilities.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.103-106
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• 2005

In this paper, we propose a language modeling approach to improve the performance of a large vocabulary continuous speech recognition system. The proposed approach is based on the active learning framework that helps to select a text corpus from a plenty amount of text data required for language modeling. The perplexity is used as a measure for the corpus selection in the active learning. From the recognition experiments on the task of continuous Korean speech, the speech recognition system employing the language model by the proposed language modeling approach reduces the word error rate by about 6.6 % with less computational complexity than that using a language model constructed with randomly selected texts.