The current study explores the potential of the collaborative reflection of the teacher, colleagues, and students in promoting teacher expertise. To this effect, the authors first created a principled set of checklists on six domains of teacher expertise by synthesizing relevant literature. Then they developed protocols for collaborative reflection. These tools were applied to a middle school English teacher’s reflective practice, involving the teacher participating in stimulated recall sessions of her own classes, writing reflection journals, and receiving feedback from her colleagues and students. The results show that collaborative reflection has high potentials for mediating the teacher’s cognitive and affective changes, leading to behavioral ones. This suggests that collaborative reflection, when relevant institutional prerequisites are met, can take an instrumental role in promoting teacher expertise.

This paper investigated the effects of Korean syllable structure on the acquisition of English consonant clusters on the basis of the speech data collected from a total of 8 Korean middle school students (2 females and 6 males). A total of 24 English monosyllabic words that formed 8 different quasi minimal triplets was employed and recorded. Each triplet consisted of mono-consonantal, bi-consonantal, and tri-consonantal words like pin, spin, spring or pin, pink, pinks. The three words at four triplets were differentiated by the number of consonants at the onset position and those at the other four triplets, at the coda position. Using a 5 point-scale scoring method, two native English speakers rated the speech data in terms of (i) intelligibility and (ii) the scoring of bi- and tri-consonantal words with three points being fixed on mono-syllabic words. The main finding was that the tri-consonantal words scored the lowest, bi-consonantal words were in the middle, and mono-consonantal words scored the highest. But, this general tendency held true only at the words dissimilar at the coda position. At the onset position, on the other hand, the mono-consonantal words scored the lowest. The in-depth analysis that followed the rating showed that a comparison of the words in terms of the syllabic intelligibility can be properly made only when each consonant comprising a syllable is intelligibly articulated on its own.

This study investigated the relationship between phonemic awareness ability and performance in English listening comprehension. For the purpose of this research, two tests―a specially designed phonemic awareness test and an English L/C test―were used and a total of 268 high school students (132 males and 136 females) participated in this experiment. The statistical result clearly demonstrated that the ability to identify English phonemes was highly correlated with the English listening ability. It was also shown that there was a significant correlation between the two factors in a group of students showing a high level of L/C ability, whereas no significant correlation for the students with a low level of L/C ability. In addition, no major difference in the correlation was found between the male and female students.

Since the introduction of the 6th National Curriculum, English pronunciation teaching in Korea has geared toward fluency, less focusing on accuracy. Since then the two technical terms, accuracy and fluency, have been widely used in the EFL literature in Korea, but in a rather confusing way. This paper is an endeavor to clarify these two concepts in terms of the viewpoints of Phonetics and English Education. From the phonetic standpoint, I argued that accuracy is more closely related to 'clear speech,' whereas fluency is applicable to either 'clear speech' or 'casual speech'. I also suggested two methods for the evaluation of English speaking fluency: one is the evaluation of weak form pronunciation: the other, sentence stresses. From a viewpoint of English Education, I reviewed some relevant literature and found that (1) accuracy and fluency are related to language usage and language use, respectively; (2) accuracy and fluency have been used as terms applicable to all four language skills in language learning, rather than speaking skill only: (3) a definition of fluency needs to be modified for its flexible use in ESL/EFL classroom setting; (4) a number of recent textbooks on pronunciation teaching include lots of useful fluency enhancing practices. As a conclusion, I summed up afore-mentioned discussions and presented some suggestions for the National Curriculum in the future.

This study aimεd to ìnvestigatε the relationship between phonemic awareness and listening comprehension ability. For this paπIC비ar research purpose thζ English name test and TOEFL LlC tests were employεd and a total of 34 university students participaκd in this εxpεriment. The English name tεst consisting of relativεly unheard 26 English namζs was specially dεsigned and adminisκrεd for the participants to depend on their own phonemic awarenεss ability, not applying their cognitive prior knowlεdge. whεn they transcribε:d the n잉nεs using the phonεtic alphabεts. Thε statistical result showed that thε Pearson's product-moment correlation coεfficient was .550* and its coefficient of determination was .303. This result c1ζarly demonstrated that the phonemic awareness ability was highly correlatεd with the overall Iistening comprεhension ability and implied thε need for implεmεnting the so-called bottom-up method for developing students' phonζrnic awareness ability at primary or secondary school levels.