The purpose of present study was to explore the reading fluency of elemenatary school students in Korea. To achieve the purpose of this study, 150 sixth grade students were selected from two schools of Gyeonggi province and their reading fluency was evaluated. Assessment of reading fluency was administered as follows: students were asked to read orally a reading text for one minute, which was developed for this study and the teacher checked their reading performance according to assessment criteria developed by Zutell and Rasinski (1991). Reading fluency dealt with four subcategories: decoding accuracy, reading rate per a minute (WCPM), expression, and comprehension. Mean score at each subcategory and its aspect were analyzed, expression element were compared between the lower and higher group, and finally co-relation between reading fluency and comprehension were examined. The results showed that while most students gained higher score in decoding accuracy or reading rate, their expression was lower. Among four sub-categories of expression, i.e. expression and volume, phrasing, smoothness, and reading rate, score of expression and volume was the lowest. Most students read text with little expression or enthusiasm in their voice. On the basis of the result, some ideas for teaching fluency were suggested.

The purpose of this study was two-fold: to evaluate the effectiveness of an English program under a practical curriculum for English majors in college and to investigate the relationships among students' perceptions of the program, language learning styles and strategies, perceived and actual improvement in English, and their satisfaction with the program. To this end, the study followed the changes in college students' perceptions of the program and their learning of English for four semesters from their freshman to sophomore years. Questionnaires were administered four times to measure and trace the students' perceived utility of the program, affective attitude, use of language learning styles and strategies, perceived and actual improvement in English, and satisfaction with the program. The results showed a statistically significant increase every semester in actual improvement in the students' TOEIC scores. Compared to their high expectations for improvement, the students' perceived improvement was shown to be the lowest at the end of the first semester, after which it got slowly higher each semester during the 2-year period. However, their overall satisfaction with the program got lower each semester. Native speaker instructors and interactive activities in class were found to positively affect the students' perceptions of program utility and affective attitude, which, in turn, significantly affect the students' use of language learning styles and strategies.

Since the notion of World Englishes attracted growing attention, the dichotomy between native speakers (NS) and nonnative speakers (NNS) has been challenged. Nonetheless, the belief that NS teachers are superior to NNS teachers still persists. Against this background, this study investigated how Korean college students perceived NNS English instructors and whether students' experiences with NNS teachers and English proficiency level influenced their perception. Data were collected from 472 students enrolled in communication-oriented English courses through questionnaires. Data analysis revealed that Korean college students generally had favorable perceptions of NNS instructors. Moreover, findings revealed that students perceived grammar teaching to be NNS instructors' greatest strength while culture teaching to be their biggest weakness. The study also found that the students who had learned from NNS instructors, had more positive views of NNS than the students who had not had any relevant NNS teaching-learning experiences. Similarly, lower level learners' perception was found to be more positive than higher level learners' perception.

This study investigates how EFL learner error patterns and frequencies differ in writing depending on students' language proficiency levels. A total of 152 Korean EFL students' essays were examined. The writing samples were first scored holistically on an impressionistic basis; then, based on the scores, the samples were grouped into low- and high-proficiency groups. The study identified 13 errors based on prevalence and significance. The study calculated the frequency of each error type committed by each group and compared the results using t-tests. A survey of English teachers was also conducted (N=32) to rate the gravity of each error and to compare the error gravity produced by each group. The result showed that low-proficiency group produced errors much more frequently, and the errors were more serious ones with high error gravity. The errors committed by the high-proficiency group were usually complex ones and occurred in more complicated contexts. The study also found that the errors with less gravity occurred more frequently in both groups and that they tended to be more persistent. The study indicated that although the students were aware of significance of errors, correcting the errors was beyond their current English capability.

In this article, we have examined the studies on the reading competence in the context of French as a foreign language. The goal of this study originated from the observation that the pedagogy in Korea focuses on the linguistic and socio-cultural competences of learners. However, this teaching method would not adequately enable learners to read efficiently, nor to become autonomous readers in French. In order to better understand the reading competence, we have proposed to consider the text in which reading activities take place as a semiotic and linguistic object and as a discourse. We have adopted the "l'ordre du scriptural" and the "l'aire scripturale" according to the theory of J. Peytard. From this perspective, we have examined a text used in the reading comprehension part of DELF, level B1. Our study indicates that reading activity is the communication between the writer and the reader, and requires the reading competence, which the communicative competence of which all components also involved. Thus, we have proposed that it is necessary to teach reading in terms of characteristics of the text which concerns the "l'ordre du scriptural" according to M. Dabène.

In general the pronunciation of French is not easy to learn, especially for beginners. The students of secondary education have much difficulty pronouncing French words which often creates fear, deters students and even makes them give up to practice French language. Our purpose is to present a phonetic system for the French novice not only to encourage communication in language but also which helps to learn easily and with interest. So we examined what is the norm for the pronunciation of French and analyzed the text books used in schools and the teaching materials for “FLE” in France. As a result, we found that seven oral and three nasal vowels are considered sufficient for communication. For the consonants there are almost no variations according to the standard or standardized French pronunciation.

This paper investigates different types of functions and characteristics subtitle communications to the audience. This research is based on the analysis of a reality show which aired and drew much attention a few months ago. The title of this TV program was 'Grandpa over Flowers', a reality show featuring four renowned elderly actors traveling around Europe together. First of all, the function of subtitle is to serve as the constructor of Narrativity in reality shows. In this sense, Narrativity is explained in three aspects: the narrative structure of incidents and episodes, the fictive embodiment of figures and the creation of narrator. Second, the function of subtitle promotes laugh and this attribute supports the so-called 'Redekonstellation' of the audience. Although the audience is watching the program alone, subtitles present a pseudo-dialogue situation in which there are other partners participating simultaneously in the dialog. In addition to these functions, subtitle serves a variety of other interesting communication functions, which this paper proposes further research.

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird versucht, die Lehr-und Lernstrategie der deutschen Grammatik vor allem in Bezug auf die Neigung der Lernenden zu untersuchen. Dafür analysieren wir zum Ersten die verschiedenen Lehrwerken wie die Lehrwerke der Grammatik-Übersetzungsmethode, die Lehrwerke der audiolingualen Methode und die Lehrwerke des Kommunikativen Ansatzes. Nach der Analyse zeigen wir, wie grammatische Regeln in drei verschiedenen Methoden bisher bearbeitet werden. Damit kann man auch beobachten, welche Elemente aus verschiedenen Methoden die Lernenden am effektivsten beeinflusst. Zum Zweiten wird die Gehirnfunktion und die Neigung der Lernenden in Bezug auf eine effective Lernstrategie behandelt. Im Gehirn gibt es zwei Teile. Beide Hemisphären haben unterschiedlichen Aufgaben bei der Verarbeitung von Informationen. Linke Hemisphäre ist logisch, denkt linear, analysiert, erklärt, ordnet und speichert Regeln. Diese Charaktere sind für den Erwerb der Grammatiksregeln geeignet. Aber rechte Hemisphäre registriert ganze Bilder und größe Einheiten, denkt in Bildern, speichert visuelle Klangbilder und erinnrt sich an komplexe Bilder. Wenn die beiden Hemisphären bei der Verarbeitung von Informationen zusammenarbeiten, wird eine Information länger behalten und schneller erinnert. Eine visualisierte Reizung reagiert rechte Hemisphäre. Die abstrakte Grammatikstruktur werden besser erinnert, wenn man sie mit konkreten Bildern oder anschaulichen Symbolen kombiniert. Daher brauchen wir die Strategie zur Visualisierung von Grammatik zu überlegen.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate Korean learners' request strategies. To this end, 30 Korean French learners participated in this study. For data collecting method, the Discourse Completion Test (DCT) was used and twelve DCT situations on request were provided for the learners. They were asked to read the description and write down the answers in each situation. Modified CCSARP(Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Patterns) coding scheme was used for the written responses of request sequences. This study analyzed the use of request head act, supportive moves, downgraders, alerters and perspectives of speaker. Learners dominated in 'query preparatory', 'mood derivable' and 'want statement' for head act. The frequency of the rate, however, is quite different in head acts. They used downgraders far less frequently and this made their request formulas more direct and less polite than ones used by native speakers. As for supportive moves, learners dominated in 'justification' and 'recognition of load'. In types of alerter, most of learners are heavily skewed to the 'attention getter' and 'term of honor' as main strategies, which may lead learners to lack of pragmatic competence. In these three perspectives, hearer-oriented is much stronger than other two perspectives. These results imply that teachers and textbook developers should consider various pragmatic factors in teaching French language

L'hypermédia offre aux enseignants une formidable opportunité pour augmenter les stratégies pédagogiques existantes ainsi que pour en développer de nouvelles. Les apprenants peuvent consulter une base de données en tant que novice ou expert. Les enseignants doivent faire de l'environnement hypermédia qui permettra aux apprenants de structurer le savoir afin de mieux refléter leurs propres idées, leurs intérêts et leurs besoins. Les enseignants peuvent avoir à consacrer du temps en classe pour gérer les problèmes découlant du système hypermédia plutôt que le contenu lui-même. L'utilisation de l'hypermédia dans la salle de classe peut conduire à des discussions en classe uniques comme à leur apprendre à explorer les chemins insolites à travers une base de données. Le système hypermédia représente un environnement d'apprentissage potentiellement riche, à la fois pour l'individu en tant qu'apprenant et pour les utilisateurs travaillant sous un accord de collaboration. Il semble être trop tôt pour dire ce que va devenir l'importance de ce nouvel environnement d'apprentissage du français.

Il est devenu presque banal de parler aujourd’hui d’exploiter Internet en classe de français. Mais j’espère tout de même réussir à pointer ici quelques paramètres qui me semblent cruciaux, paramètres que j’illustrerai de plusieurs exemples liés à ma pratique de formation d’enseignants de français ou tirés d’articles d’autres didacticiens. Mon propos sera articulé en trois parties, qui correspondent à trois approches différentes d'Internet – approches nullement exclusives les unes des autres -, la conception de cybertâches, l’introduction des apprenants dans les discours qui se développent sur le réseau, enfin les projets de télécollaboration permettant de mettre en contact des apprenants de pays différents.

This paper investigates whether there is a correlation between the development of agreement and the unlearning of null subjects and also how the null subjects of Korean EFL learners’ interlanguage are represented in topic-bound positions. The results of this study show that the unlearning of null subjects does not necessarily help the development of the third person singular morpheme like previously put forth by pro-drop analysis, which disconfirms the long-lived belief, MUH (Morphological Uniformity Hypothesis). On the contrary, the results also show that the positions of null arguments actually conform to the positions of topic-bound positions, which leads to the suggestion of the topic-drop analysis of null subjects.

This paper explores who needs what aspects of L2 English to what levels of proficiency, focusing on college English curriculum development in Korea. A survey was conducted of 532 college students in Seoul. Grounded that career is one of the most important motives for EFL learning, the participants were divided into seven groups based on their desired careers. The results show that the types of desired careers of the participants are highly correlative with the strength and weakness of their need for learning English, the kinds of English skills they want to learn, and the levels of English proficiency they hope to achieve.

The purposes of this study are to understand the influence of L1 on learning Korean negation and a developmental sequence of Korean negation forms through examining English and Japanese learners of Korean. In particular, we aim to investigate whether linguistic distance between L1 and L2 affects learning Korean negation. Forty English and twenty Japanese students who were learning Korean in colleges participated in the written production test. As a control group, forty Korean native speakers took the written test. We observed that the English and the Japanese groups produced less number of long form negation sentences than the Korean adult group did. The English group showed a developmental pattern to advance from short to long forms, while the Japanese group demonstrated the opposite tendency. These results suggested that an influence of L1 negation structure on L2 learning coexisted with that of a general developmental sequence. The pedagogical implications of the findings are two-fold:1) the findings would provide practical suggestions for instructing Korean negation forms in multilingual classrooms and 2) the findings would help researchers and language teachers understand the learning patterns of Korean by L2 learners.

This study aims to analyze the process of how Chinese students practice collaborative writing and to figure out whether collaborative writing is useful to Korean language learners for academic purposes. In total, 15 Chinese students of Korean language for academic purposes participated in the research and they were divided into Groups A and B, respectively. Five participants of Group A were individually assigned with writing tasks while ten participants of Group B conducted collaborative writing tasks in pairs. Groups A and B conducted both tasks of a data commentary and an argumentative essay. The result was that fluency and complexity were not significantly different between Groups A and B. However, accuracy was higher in Group B. Accordingly, for students of Korean language in an advanced level, collaborative writing activities did not result in longer texts or more complex linguistic practices but led to more accurate texts. Whether this accuracy will strengthen grammatical knowledge of language students in an advanced level in the long-term is unknown, so follow-up studies are needed.

This study explores how smartphone applications can be used for Russian education. The progresses made in the ICT field, such as smartphones and the wireless Internet, have changed the environment of language education. The rapid development and implementation of smart technology in every aspect of society have led to the generation of the new learning environment called ‘smart learning’, applying those technologies in education. The definition of smart learning, however, is still evolving, while some attempts have been made slightly more in technology-oriented rather than pedagogy-oriented direction. But the importance of smart learning is that it can make it possible for learners to do self-directed learning utilizing ICT. Recently, in particular, smartphones have captured tremendous attention of foreign language teachers and learners as an ideal tool for satisfying new needs of the mobile learning era. Especially, the launch of iphone service has brought in a massive amount of educational applications to the market. Research has shown that many applications for Russian language education have been made in various categories. Despite some problems, using applications in learning the Russian language has bright prospects.

This paper analyzed dialogues in high school Japanese textbooks published according to the 2007 revised national curriculum, based on sociolinguistic variables and dialogue structure rules. The findings are as follows: first, the analysis of the construction of the textbooks shows that dialogues take place most frequently in the areas of speaking and listening while dialogues appear in the area of writing at the lowest rate of 10 percent. Secondly, the analysis of the dialogues based on sociolinguistic variables shows that in most textbooks dialogues take place in various places such as houses, stores, schools, streets and restaurants, but places in some dialogues are not identified. As for the topics of the dialogues, leisure and hobbies, traveling, food, and giving directions are the most common topics. There are many dialogues which do not have any specific topics but include basic expressions for communication. Moreover, most dialogues do not identify clear relation among participants, which needs to be improved. Lastly, the analysis of the dialogue structure rules finds that as for the length of the dialogue, one or two rounds of exchanging of talks are the most common and in the most cases the format of taking turns of speaking is the set of A-B-A-B, which indicates that the dialogues are very simply structured. The cases of adjacent pairs are mainly focused on question and answer sets. From the analyses, it is found that if we figure out the characteristics and problems of dialogues appearing in current Japanese textbooks and include the sociolinguistic variables and diverse dialogue structure rules into the dialogues to construct more authentic dialogues, the dialogues provided in the high school Japanese textbooks will be a lot more helpful to improve the learners’ communicative ability.

The present study aims to seek ways of activating teaching consulting by investigating how primary and secondary English teachers perceive consulting. A survey was conducted to investigate the current state of English teaching consulting at schools and to identify needs to be met for effective consulting. 157 primary and 107 secondary English teachers took part in the survey using a questionnaire. The major findings from the data analysis are summarized as follows: (1) teaching consulting is not widely accepted as significant in professional development yet, and teaching consulting is not likely to be done voluntarily; (2) there is lack of professional consultants; (3) the administration process involved in consulting needs to be truncated and made simple; (4) the evaluation of consulting needs to be fed back in improving teaching and professional learning; and (5) teachers’ voluntary involvement in consulting and cooperative professional development are considered to be important to activate and sustain consulting. Some measures are suggested to vitalize consulting in English teaching at schools and directions for future research are discussed.

The primary purpose of this study was to examine prominent features of frequency in the new vocabulary of the middle school English textbooks based on the 2007 revised national curriculum and thereby to provide meaningful data to be compared with those on the 2009 revised national curriculum. This study used an online software (Vocabprofile) to divide words into four categories by frequency: K1 (1-1,000), K2 (1,001-2,000), AWL (Academic Words List), and Off-List Words (the remainder). Salient features discovered from the frequency-based categorization of words in textbooks by grades or publishers were further examined for pedagogical implications regarding textbook writing and curriculum revisions in the future. The analysis has revealed the following results. K1 words accounted for the most among the words presented in English textbooks, reflecting the significance of the high-frequency words in L2 learning. The number of other words showed a steady increase as the grade gets higher. Finally, most textbooks presented multi-words as new vocabulary, which indicates the importance of idioms or collocations. The vocabulary analysis by frequency could be of use to textbook evaluation, considering the growing importance of frequency-based vocabulary teaching.

The present study is triggered by the implementation of the achievement assessment system and the 2009 revised national curriculum, and the consequential need to help teachers to understand the new version of the curriculum when carrying out the achievement standard-based evaluation at school. The present study focuses on the newly introduced advanced courses of the 2009 revised national curriculum of English and provides an analysis of the hierarchical and interconnected relationship among these courses and the organization of their achievement standards. The study also provides guidelines for teachers on refining and customizing the curriculum-based achievement standards of the advanced English courses, for their own evaluation activities at school. Based on the analysis, the study attempts to suggest directions for the successful implementation of the new assessment system.