L1 and L2 summaries written by Korean university students in an EFL writing class were studied to determine the causes of instances of “plagiarism.” Summaries in both L1 and L2 were evaluated holistically along with seven essays in L2. It was found that more proficient writers in L1 and L2 tend to demonstrate less Reliance on the Source Text1); and a good amount of Reliance was also present in L1 as well as L2, suggesting that L2 interference is not the only cause of Reliance. These findings indicate a relation between Reliance on the Source text and writing ability both in L1 and L2. Moreover, a closer look at instances of Reliance often revealed efforts by the writers to integrate source text material into their own texts, though these attempts often seemed like “plagiarism” to writing teachers. However, Reliance in these cases may not be plagiarism per se from students’ point of view. The results are expected to help teachers understand the causes and nature of students’Reliance on the Source text in the writing instruction.
The present research combines two important factors, cultural influence on SLA and wait-time. The research investigates how multi-ethnic students react differently to extended wait-time as an instructional strategy in the ESL classroom. Some research has been conducted on production as influenced by manipulated wait-time. However, no research has attempted to investigate the comparison of production after manipulated wait-time by ethnicity of students in the ESL classroom. It was hypothesized that when given extended wait-time, all students would increase students’ oral production. Especially, Asian students would increase the number of words to a higher degree than Non-Asians do. A multi-ethnic ESL classes were observed for quantitative findings, and their students and teachers were interviewed for qualitative one. It was found that oral production increased when the wait-time was increased. Unexpectedly, however, non-Asians produced more words to a higher degree than Asians did, as wait-time increased. It was interesting to find from the interview that there was a difference in students’ attitude towards wait-time. Some thought wait-time could cause more anxiety rather than comfort. This research will be significant in that the result could contribute to the improvement of teaching English in multi-ethnic classrooms.
This paper aims to make some suggestions for the direction and objectives of teaching English as a global language (EGL). To this end, the examination reveals that the number of people who use English as a second or foreign language is much more than that of people who use English as the primary language. Moreover, in many parts of the world the status of English is shifting, being used within the country as well as for international communication. Thus, it will be more likely for the learners to communicate in English with other people than English natives. Communication across cultures demands mutual intelligibility and speaker’s identities. The objective of EGL is to provide intercultural learners with intercultural communicative competence, which is a knowledge of one or more cultures and social identities, and which is also a capacity to discover and relate to new people from other contexts for which they have not been prepared directly. Teaching English as a global language will be effective and prosperous under due consideration of local situations around learners. Several ideas are suggested for the new direction for EGL education.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate and analyze errors of business English letters composed by Korean secretaries. A total of eighteen business English letters of positive style were used for error evaluation conducted by eleven native English speakers in business. In the error analysis, major error types were identified as the following; the noun phrase errors, i.e., articles, misuse of possessives, the verb phrase errors, i.e., prepositions, auxiliary, and the adjective and adverb errors. Another types of critical errors were related to the inappropriate expressions and minor errors of mechanics. The error patterns of business English letters of Korean secretaries were identified by eleven English business specialists. This research also suggests the important guidelines for Korean secretaries to write concise and accurate English business letters for efficient business communication. It is recommended to choose appropriate and precise terms and expressions for business letter writing.
The present study aimed to investigate some differences in journal article abstracts written in English by Korean researchers and international scholars and to provide Korean researchers with guidelines for writing accurate, self-contained, informative and coherent abstracts. To this end, intra- and inter-lingual analyses of English abstracts were carried out in terms of rhetorical structures, linguistic features, and disciplinary areas. The results reveal that (1) international and Korean researchers show some differences of rhetorical and discourse features in their English abstracts and (2) some types of errors in terms of grammatical-syntactic and lexico-semantic aspects are frequently committed by Korean researchers. The results of this investigation suggest that Korean researchers should be aware of common rhetorical structures and linguistic features of English abstracts and graduate students should be provided with EAP courses to practice writing English abstracts relevant to their major areas.
The purpose of this study was to develop a statistical model of predicting item difficulty of the English reading test of College Scholastic Ability Test(CSAT). At the initial phase, the study investigated variables that were significantly correlated to item difficulty of English reading test. Using the correlated variables an instrument was designed to gather the data on item difficulty of each item of the English reading tests of 2002 and 2003 CSAT. Correlation analysis was done to get models which could predict item difficulty of the tests. To validate the results of the analysis, the models were applied to the September Tests of 2003 and 2004 CSAT. It was found that the 2003 linear regression equation model showed the acceptable level of stability and predictability. The study also revealed that statistically significant predictors were grammar, inference and options. It was also found that the proportion of variance accounted by the predictors was different. Some implications for CSAT design and further research were drawn from the findings.
Research has shown that using multimedia teaching materials such as movie videos and CD-ROMs in foreign language classrooms has been effective. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effects of using a movie CD-ROM in English classrooms as a way of improving English language skills and enhancing students’ positive perception of learning English. Sixty 10th-grade students in a commercial high school participated in the study which lasted 10 weeks. One group used the movie Big, while the other group used the conventional method of listening to a tape that accompanied a textbook. The data, which were analyzed statistically using the SPSS, showed the following results: 1) Even though the experimental group’s level of interest and confidence increased by using the movie CD-ROM, the increase was not statistically significant. The same can be said for the control group. 2) The experimental group showed a statistically significant improvement in vocabulary building, while the control group did not. 3) Neither group showed significant improvement in terms of listening ability.
This paper is on the design of foundations for English curriculum on the basis of discipline centered curriculum to give academic and pedagogic platforms for curriculum development. For these purposes, this study finds theoretical and pedagogic elements, and inquiries into their natures and relationships. Theoretical foundations should reflect both general education theories and the features of the subject such as English. These foundations can include linguistics, psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics, which interact in both academic and pedagogic contexts. Specifically, linguistics (the nature of language) has some features such as expressiveness, productiveness, semantics, commonness and regularity. The theories of psycholinguistics can be grouped into behaviorism, cognitivism and humanism. Sociolinguistics focuses on key elements such as the language user as a social being, variations of language, social context and social use of language. The pedagogic elements such as content system, learning elements and social context which directly come from the theoretical elements also interact each other indirectly.
This study investigated the relations among Korean phonological processing skills, English vocabulary knowledge, and the learning of new English words in 6th grade children. The children were tested in phonological awareness, phonological short-term memory, and naming speed tasks, as well as English vocabulary and paired-associate learning of Korean-English word pairs. Most tasks were significantly correlated with English vocabulary and paired-associate learning. In regression analyses, phonological awareness, short-term memory, and naming speed significantly predicted English vocabulary; and English vocabulary and naming speed predicted paired-associate learning. These results suggest that Korean phonological awareness, naming speed, and short-term memory are associated with English vocabulary knowledge and learning. These findings support the transfer of phonological processing skills across second languages.
This study is aimed to identify how college freshman English achievement correlates to two factors of high school English achievement: high school academic records of English and CSAT English scores. The subjects were 160 freshmen who enrolled in ‘English Conversation 1’ in their first semester and ‘English Conversation 2’ in their second. Of 160 students, 143 students, the regular admission group, were admitted to the university based on their high school academic records and CSAT scores, while the remaining 17 students, the early admission group, were admitted based only on their high school academic records. The subjects’college English achievements were divided into two categories: one was class preparation (including participation, attendance, and assignments), and the other was exams including the midterm, basically a listening test, and the final, composed of writing and grammar tests. Results showed that the regular admission group’s college English achievement correlated closely with the group’s CSAT English scores and high school academic records of English while there was a lack of correlation between the early admission group’s college English achievement and its high school academic records of English.
This study analyzed English words that are used in the middle school English text books of the 6th and the 7th National Curriculum in Korea. For this analysis, an English corpus of a total of 1,230,023 nodes was built out of 63 English textbooks of the 6th and the 7th National Curriculum. The study specifically investigated the following items for analysis: 1) tokens and types of words used in the middle school textbooks, 2) frequency of the words, and the numbers of new words introduced in each school-year, 3) high-frequency words in the textbooks with reference to those in large-scale general English corpora, 4) parts of speech of the words and their frequencies, and 5) the comparison of the words used in reading parts and listening parts. Analysis of the corpus revealed the following results. Regarding the average number of tokens and types, the textbooks based on the 7th Curriculum contain more than those based on the 6th Curriculum. As for the frequency of the repetition of words, the 6th curriculum textbooks are more than the 7th curriculum textbooks. Comparison of vocabularies used in the text corpus and in general large-scale English corpus shows that there are more similarities than differences.
This article has an aim to describe a variety of inflections in Korean in accordance with verbs in Chinese, used as predicates in verb predicative sentences and, as the result, to help Korean / Chinese learners as a second Language acquire each other language. Among 205 chosen Chinese sentences, 12 verbs appeared about more than three times repeatedly. Their equivalent expressions in Korean show 2-7 inflections, which are divided into largely ending forms or not-ending forms. The former conforms to “extremely honoring forms(Hapsyo-che)” or “honoring forms(Haeyo-che),” in proportion to listeners’ age; on the other hand, the latter has “connective inflections” and “modifier forms.”In Chinese, a word can be used as various word classes according to word order, although its form is identical. On the other hand, Korean features various case markers and inflections. This typological difference between Chinese and Korean makes slightly difficult for Korean-Chinese learners or Chinese-Korean learners to acquire each other language. Therefore, it is necessary to give them an opportunity to be acquainted with this typological difference, when they learn each other language.
This study aims to propose a new instruction method about the Spanish rhythm structure. The Korean students of Spanish are very inexperienced in realizing the proper rhythm structure of the language, because in Korean there is not a similar accentual system. To develop a most interesting and effective method for the linguistic rhythm practice, it is necessary that the teachers pay attention firstly to the Spanish suprasegmental phonetic system and secondly to the correlation between the linguistic system and the music system. The fundamental concepts of musical structure involve such factors as rhythmic and pitch organization, dynamic and timbre differentiation, etc. Among the three major elements of the music ― melody, rhythm and harmony ― we have to pay a special attention to the first two, because the two elements are very closely related with the accent position of the words of song, and hereby we describe in detail about the organization of metrical and structural accents as well as their application to the instructional method.