One year has already passed since the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) language proficiency requirements (LPRs) test was implemented in Korea. The purpose of this study was to investigate the military air traffic controllers’ (ATCs) perceptions and their needs on English Proficiency Test for Aviation (EPTA) test. To do that, the results were compared with civilian ATCs’ perceptions which were analyzed by Shin and Kim (2005). A total of 60 active duty Air Force ATCs participated in the survey process. The questionnaire was composed of 27 items including 23 multiple choice and 4 open-ended questions. All results were discussed in the following categories: general perception of the EPTA, specific needs for military ATCs and test preparations. The results showed that gaps still exist among ICAO LPRs, the current EPTA test, and military ATCs’ specific needs. It was suggested that, to make more customized aviation English tests in the Korean ESP field as well as to meet the ICAO LPRs, it is necessary for all relevant governmental organizations, language test groups, and test experts to continuously pay attention to test-takers’ practical and specific needs.

This research introduces an English language program of a research-oriented science and engineering university in Korea. The university had established a PBT TOEFL score of 550 as one of its graduation requirements in 1995, implementing it for fifteen years. The policy, however, created problems such as students’ learning focus on receptive skills of the language and the discrepancy between the English curriculum and the graduation requirement. In addition, students who were unable to graduate on time due to not meeting the graduation requirement had increased. Facing these issues, the institute abolished the TOEFL policy and developed a new English program, which is characterized by a level-based curriculum, the implementation of an in-house placement test, mandating a number of courses to take, focus on productive skills, and teaching both general English and ESP-oriented courses. With the aim to introduce its rationale, placement test and curriculum, this study also reports on the results of questionnaires designed to determine students’ perceptions of the new English program and main issues raised in a panel discussion designed to examine the program. Limits and suggestions for the program are lastly presented.

The present study was designed to investigate Korean EFL college learners' language development across writing proficiency levels in the ir written productions. For the evaluation of their language development, 18 subsets of the syntactic complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) were used. 86 uni vers ity students participated in the study and wrote narrat ive essays about an assigned topic by using the Criterion®. The writing samples were scored by e-rater® and divided into three different proficiency levels to compare language development among groups. Then their essays were analyzed by us ing L2 Sy ntactical Complexity Analyzel: The findings reveal significant differences in 15 out of 18 measures of CAF and language learners' linguistic developmental patterns across their writing proficiency levels. The results indicate that there are di stinctive features regarding CAF among the three groups. With respect to fluency and accuracy, levels I and 2 showed a similar language developmental pattern, and level 3 was much higher than those groups. In terms of syntactic compl exity, levels 2 and 3 presented a similar developmental pattern, and level 1 was much lower than those groups in general. This study shows the predictive potential of CAF across writing proticiency levels of language learners.

Since 2011, proficiency test for the air dilution olfactory method started in Korea for the evaluation of the authorized odor inspection agencies’ analysis skill. For this purpose, sulfur compounds of PTMs (proficiency test materials) were made and investigated for the application to the proficiency test as a complex malodor sample. Time stability and homogeneity between samples were analysed for the PTM which was made with 10 ppm of DMS and 10 ppm of DMDS. As the results, the stability of sample concentration with GC analysis was shown around 6%RSD through the time of 6~48 hr. In addition, dilution number during the same test period appeared almost stable, less than 6%RSD in air dilution olfactory method. The reproducibility results of four laboratories showed very similar results except one lab which was caused by the elder panel characteristics.

The present study was designed to examine the nature of hesitation phenomena in the speech of Korean college EFL learners participating in oral proficiency interviews. Looking beyond the implications of hesitations in language learners' talk as signaling their disfluency and incompetence, this study presents a qualitative analysis to provide insights into the positive aspect of hesitations as a learning opportunity. A detailed qualitative analysis of the learners' talk reveals that hesitation phenomena was abundant in the learners' talk and the underlying mechanisms for the hesitations were more than the learners' incompetence of the target language. Hesitations found in the present study were the places where the learners forestalled, detected, and repaired problems in their target language output. Hesitations were facilitative devices that the learners utilized to make trial and error for further development of their second language. This paper concludes that the hesitation phenomena in learner interactions can be seen as potential opportunities for learning where learners struggle with the target language and learn through those difficulties.

This study investigated the effects of pairing based on English proficiency and gender on high school students’ speaking task performance. A total of 16 high school students - 4 female advanced, 4 female intermediate, 4 male advanced, and 4 male intermediate learners - performed two information gap tasks spotting differences between two pictures, once with a same-level learner and once with a different-level learner. Their performance was analyzed in terms of degree of task completion, amount of utterances and fluency. The results showed (a) advanced level learners performed the task more accurately, more fluently, and in higher length when they were paired with advanced level learners than paired with lower level learners, although the differences were not significant; (b) For intermediate level learners, male students demonstrated a better performance when paired with higher level learners, but female students performed better when paired with the same level learners. The findings are discussed with regard to more feasible and more effective ways of grouping for pair work in high school English classes.

This paper aims to provide guidelines on developing English language proficiency (ELP) tests based on the experience from ELP assessments in the U.S. after the implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). While there might be substantial differences between the content and purpose of ELP tests developed from country to country, there are, however, areas that experts in charge of ELP test development in other countries can benefit from. The NCLB legislation in the U.S. made the assessment of English language learners (ELL) students’ level of proficiency in English mandatory once a year and provided useful guidelines for developing ELP assessments. This mandate, along with its useful guidelines, helped improve the quality of ELP assessment significantly and led to the development of several batteries of ELP assessments either through consortia of states or by test publishers in the U.S. The newly developed assessments were based on states’ ELP standards. They incorporated the concept of academic language which is an essential requirement for ELL students’ performance in the academic content areas, and were tested in extensive pilot and field studies. Some implications were drawn from such improvements for ELL assessment and accountability not only in the U.S. but in other countries including Korea.

A continuing challenge for English educators and policy makers in Korea is how to provide the right amount of good English education in an effective and efficient way, to help achieve the needed level of English communication skills. No efforts would turn out successful if the amount and the quality of public English education did not meet people's expectations. In order to plan and implement successful English education policies, it is necessary to figure out what kind of English education and how much of it are needed for Korean people. The current study aims to investigate what levels of English speaking proficiency Korean people perceive they need. The study first reviews some widely-used international English oral proficiency standards, then, compares those with the level descriptions of the Korea’s national curriculum of English. To gather information on the current level of English speaking proficiency, and the expected level of English speaking proficiency, 356 teachers (123 elementary school, 114 middle school, 119 high school), 696 students (179 elementary school, 222 middle school, 295 high school), and 650 parents (164 elementary, 212 middle school, 274 high school) from all the 16 district education authorities, were surveyed and interviewed. The results are presented with the discussion of the future directions of English education in Korea.

The study investigated whether Korean EFL students' vocabulary used in reading-based writing differed according to writing topic and their reading and writing proficiency. College students enrolled in writing courses (n=95) were asked to write argumentative essays in response to two readings on judging people by appearance (JPA) and disclosing personal information of serious criminals (DPI). These students were divided into high and low proficiency writer groups and into high and low proficiency reader groups according to their writing and reading scores respectively. The students' vocabulary used in writing was then analyzed by VocabProfile, which provided four lexical frequency lists: the first 1000 frequent words (K1) including function words (FW) and content words (CW), the second 1000 frequent words (K2), academic word list (AWL), and off the list words (OLW). The results indicated that the topic JPA produced a higher proportion of K1 and content words, whereas DPI generated more K2 and off the list words. None of the vocabulary profiles, however, significantly differed according to the students’ reading proficiency. In contrast, proficient writers were found to use significantly more K1 and function words than their counterparts. With the topic effect further considered, for JPA, proficient writers used more K1 words and function words whereas less proficient writers used more K2 and off the list words. With regard to DPl, proficient writers were found to use more function words than low proficient writers. Findings are discussed in more detail, along with implications.

This study was an attempt to investigate a Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) theme with the Interdependence Hypothesis in the use of Content-Based Instruction (CBI) approach. In addition, the study examined the threshold notion of language proficiency and how it would play in different groups distinguished by school level. Based on the analyses of data obtained from comprehension quizzes, proficiency tests of speaking and writing, questionnaire, and interview, the study revealed that the undergraduate group showing a higher level of proficiency and the graduate group experiencing longer period of schooling performed on the comprehension quizzes and evaluated their CBI experiences similarly. It suggested that CALP represented by schooling earned in L1 be taken advantage of as a springboard for CBI. It also indicated that reading skills may be more critical to the survival and success in CBI courses at least for the participants of the current study who showed relatively high confidence in listening skills. It suggested that there is a need for further study to examine whether such a tendency is common to the similar groups of Korean English language learners in order to accommodate their preferred way of learning English.

목적 : 본 연구의 목적은 Nintendo Wii Sports 프로그램을 이용한 가상현실공간 훈련이 만성 요통 클라이언트의 균형 능력에 미치는 영향을 알아보고자 하였다. 연구방법 : 추후 연구를 위한 예비 연구로서 개별실험 연구 AB디자인을 사용하였으며, 연구대상자는 2명이었다. 검사자는 연 구대상자의 균형 능력을 기초선 기간 1주 동안 3회, 치료선 4주 동안 1주 3회씩 균형 능력을 측정하였다. 연구대상자가 수행 한 Nintendo Wii Sports의 가상현실공간 훈련은 세 개의 활동으로 구성되었으며 1회기 총 운동 시간은 45분이었다. 결과 : 연구에 참여한 만성 요통 클라이언트의 균형 능력은 치료선에서 기초선과 동일하거나 향상되었다. 결론 : 본 연구를 토대로 지속적인 연구가 이루어진다면 Nintendo Wii Sports가 만성 요통 클라이언트의 균형 능력을 향상시키기 위한 새로운 치료 방법으로 사용될 수 있을 것이다.

◉ 목적 : 본 연구에서는 초등학교 저학년의 시지각 능력이 글쓰기 능력에 미치는 영향을 알아보고자 한다. ◉ 연구방법: 대전지역 초등학교에 재학 중인 저학년(평균연령= 89개월, SD= 7.49) 55명을 대상으로 하였다. 글쓰기 능력은 글쓰기 숙달도 선별 질문지(HPSQ), 시지각 능력은 한국판 시지각 발달 검사(K-DTVP 2)를 사용하여 측정하였다. ◉ 결과: 연구 결과 글쓰기 능력에서 성별에 따른 집단 간 비교에서 명료도는 여학생이 통계적으로 유의미하게 높았고 속도에서는 남학생이 높았다. 시지각 능력에서 성별에 따른 집단 간 비교에서 비운동성 시지각과 시각-운동 통합 시지각에서 여학생이 통계적으로 유의미하게 높았다. 학년에 따른 비교에서는 1학년이 2학년 보다 통계적으로 유의미하게 글쓰기 능력과 비운동성 시지각이 모두 낮은 결과를 보였다. 상관관계를 분석한 결과 명료도는 전반적인 시지각 능력과 정적인 상관관계를 나타냈다. 회귀분석에서는 글쓰기 명료도는 시각운동통합에서 가장 큰 영향을 받았고 수행시간과 속도에 영향을 주는 요인으로는 학년이었다. 하지만 안정감은 유의미한 관계가 나타나지 않았다. ◉ 결론: 초등학교 저학년의 글쓰기 능력 훈련에서 시각운동통합능력을 향상시키는 것이 중요하다.

This study investigates the effects of the types of tasks and feedback on Korean adult EFL learners' fluency, accuracy, and complexity. A qualitative approach was also added to determine the perceptions that learners and teachers have about task-based instruction (TBI) and feedback types with learning journals, interviews, and stimulated recall. Although the experiment had the limitations of a small size of subjects and short length, certain findings are worth noticing. For both levels of group learners (lower intermediate and higher intermediate), fluency was highest in the descriptive tasks receiving implicit feedback. For accuracy, the rate was highest when both groups performed descriptive tasks receiving explicit feedback. For complexity, only higher intermediate level learners showed substantially higher rates in narrative tasks with explicit feedback. Planning time and the freedom to choose the topic (picture to describe) presumably might have affected fluency and accuracy in descriptive tasks. Accuracy was found to have been more affected by explicit feedback that primarily provided corrections on morphosyntactic errors. In addition, the qualitative research on the perceptions that L2 learners and teacher had about their experience with TBI and feedback provides insightful perspectives that are hoped to contribute to designing more effective TBI and interactional corrective feedback. (201)

This study looks at the employment of negotiation about form by a pair of advanced English L2 users engaged in collaborative composition tasks, and compares their negotiation with that of a beginner English L2 pair. Contrary to the increasing interest in negotiation for meaning within the L2 literature, there is little research that investigates how learners interact in negotiation about form contexts, where learners are required to explicitly talk about the form that they encounter. In particular， few studies have been conducted with learners at different proficiency levels in such contexts. Recognising this paucity, the study presents a holistic analysis of learners' negotiation about form generated by learners at different proficiency levels. This means that first, the negotiation about form was quantified in terms of language-related episodes (LREs); second, the same data was examined via an in-depth, descriptive analysis; third, delayed post-tests were conducted on specific linguistic items produced via negotiation about form. The study does not find much difference in LREs between the two proficiency levels of learners or convincing evidence that LREs lead to L2 learning at all. The results also reveal limitations in the relationship between the interactions engaged in and eventual learning. (196 words)