This study compares AI PengTalk’s assessments of Korean children’s pronunciation with the assessments of Korean teachers. Sixty Korean sixth-graders participated as assessees, and four Korean elementary teachers participated as assessors. Both PengTalk and the teachers rated the children’s production of 10 English sentences on a five-point scale. They focused on segmentals, stress-rhythm, intonation, and speech rate. The findings were as follows: Firstly, PengTalk evaluated the children’s pronunciation in the four elements significantly lower than the teachers across all English proficiency levels. Secondly, teachers’ ratings of the students aligned more closely with their pre-evaluated English proficiency levels than the AI PengTalk’s assessments. The teachers rated students at the upper level significantly higher than those at the intermediate level, who were, in turn, assessed significantly higher than those at the lower level in all four elements. Furthermore, AI PengTalk and the teachers differed in the mean order of the four elements, particularly in segmentals. Based on the results of this study, suggestions were made for the development and implementation of AI-based English programs.

이 서평의 대상은 조선시대 한국 한자음을 다룬 난정 남광우 선생의 󰡔조선(이 조) 한자음 연구󰡕이다. 이 책은 총 6장으로 구성되어 있으며, 다양한 방법론을 활용하여 한국 한자음을 다루었다. 이 책의 가장 큰 특징은 현재 일반화된 성운학의 분석 틀에 의 지하지 않았다는 점에 있다. 이로 인해 책의 구성이나 설명 방법 등이 다른 한자음 연구 와는 차별화된 모습을 보인다. 한국 한자음 연구의 초창기에 나온 이 책은 한자음 연구사 에 있어서 중요한 의미를 가진다.

This study examined effects of pronunciation training using automatic speech recognition technology on common pronunciation errors of Korean English learners. Participants were divided into two groups. One group was given instruction and training about the use of automatic speech recognition for pronunciation practice. The other group was not given such instruction or training as a control group. A pre- and post-test experimental design was used. The treatment period was four weeks. Participants who were taught about using automatic speech recognition for pronunciation practice showed small but significant improvements in pronunciation accuracy than those who did not. In addition, automatic speech recognition was found to assist in the diagnostic evaluation of common pronunciation errors, although it did not produce statistically significant improvements. Participants responded positively to the use of automatic speech recognition for pronunciation practice and testing, although there remain some concerns over technical aspects of the test.

Este estudio aborda el aprendizaje de la pronunciación en español como una tercera lengua por parte de los hablantes nativos de coreano en los EEUU. Específicamente, profundiza en las características de sus pronunciaciones, las perspectivas desde las que se pueden entender las pronunciaciones y los puntos que los investigadores de L3 deben tener en cuenta para examinar sus pronunciaciones. Para ello, primero este estudio presenta modelos sobre la percepción y producción de L2, así como modelos sobre la morfosintaxis de L3. Luego, aplica los principios principales de los modelos a las situaciones y características del aprendizaje que muestran los estudiantes coreanos de español en los EEUU. Por último, con base en los fundamentos teóricos y sus características del aprendizaje, hace sugerencias para estudios empíricos que examinen la pronunciación de español como L3. Este estudio puede ser útil para los estudiantes coreanos de español como L3 y sus padres, profesores de español e investigadores de L3. Además, algunas sugerencias de este estudio se pueden aplicar a los estudiantes coreanos de español como L3 que viven en Corea y países angloparlantes que no sean los EEUU.

Despite the validated EIL status, native English accents are commonly regarded as the most appropriate pronunciation-teaching norms, while nonnative accents are still considered inappropriate. This study attempts to explore Korean-speaking elementary teachers’ perceptions of native and nonnative English accents and find out the extent to which the teachers’ ratings of the accents show variance and correlations as regards likeability, familiarity, intelligibility, comprehensibility, and instructional model suitability. For these, 53 in-service Korean-speaking elementary teachers were asked to evaluate two native (American and British) and two nonnative (Filipino and Korean) English accents by the five variables. The results were as follows: 1) The AmE accent was rated most positively, while the FiE accent was least favorable in all the variables; 2) The KoE accent was evaluated to be more familiar, intelligible, and comprehensible than the BrE accent at a significant level. In contrast, the two accents exhibited an insignificant difference in likeability and suitability; 3) Significant correlations were obtained among the variables except for comparisons of likeability-intelligibility, likeability-comprehensibility, and familiarity-comprehensibility; 4) The instructional model suitability had a significant correlation with the four remaining variables. Based on these results, pedagogical implications and implications for teacher education were suggested, followed by this study’s limitations.

The purpose of this study is to examine phonetically if the spelling errors produced by foreign Korean learners are related to learners’ pronunciation by analyzing the pronunciation of plain, tense, and aspiration sounds of foreign Korean learners using a Praat. A statistical analysis was performed on the listening, reading, and writing data produced by 18 foreign university students at the beginner level. The results are summarized as follows. First, foreign Korean learners accounted for the majority of errors in plain and aspiration sound among initial obstruent words. This can be interpreted as an extremely strong or very weak pronunciation of the word, because learners do not properly recognize the intensity of range in plain sounds. Second, the more accurate the learner’s perception was, the more accurate production can be made. Statistically, it was found that the production rate increased by 0.178 each time the perception rate increased by 1. Therefore, the correlation between perception and production is established. Third, the relationship between pronunciation and spelling is a relationship that increases by 0.652 each time the pronunciation increases by 1. It can be explained that there is a possibility that the learner may often write words as they pronounce them.

In recent years, the phonetic study of foreign dialects is wide and deep, but the study on the history of researches on phonetic aspects of foreign dialects is rare. Even rarer is that on the Chinese characters in Korean. With the help of China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), this paper attempts an exhaustive analysis of the content, method and condition of research on the basis of academic researches on phonetic aspects of Chinese characters in Korean. Thus, this work is expected to make clear the researches and problems in this field in China so as to facilitate quick references for other scholars.

The goal of this study is to better understand the attitudes of students towards pronunciation in order to better evaluate the current university curriculum, as well as to make recommendations on how to improve the quality of education for students of English in South Korea. A total of fifty-five students were given both a questionnaire and a short interview which were utilized for the present study. The results demonstrate that the students agree pronunciation is important in English, and they wish to sound like a native speaker. It was also found that students are slightly worried about their own English accent, however they have not had much instruction on pronunciation. In addition, the participants of the study appeared to be more concerned with their accents, rather than comprehensibility or intelligibility. The most widely preferred accent by the participants was American accent followed by British accent. Although the participants acknowledged the importance of pronunciation or accent in English, they were reluctant to receive a class focusing on pronunciation. Based on the findings we suggest that there should be more collaboration between native and non-native speakers of English in Korea. Furthermore, we recommend that Korean students be exposed to more varieties of World Englishes through the integration of students from other countries into the classroom as well as conducted a class on World Englishes.

This study examined whether learning context and language aptitude affected the use of pronunciation learning strategies and pronunciation proficiency. One hundred thirty-eight Chinese learners (88 KFL Ss & 50 KSL Ss) learners were investigated for the correlation between learning context(KSL, KFL), language aptitude (high/low), pronunciation learning strategy and pronunciation proficiency. Participants' sound discrimination ability was measured by PLAB and then they were divided into high group (upper 30%) and low group (lower 30%) by scores. SPLS and personal information survey were also conducted. The results showed that (i) a significant difference was found in pronunciation proficiency pursuant to learning context and language aptitude, (ii) use of pronunciation learning strategy differed significantly pursuant to learning context and language aptitude, and (ⅲ) use of pronunciation learning strategy could predict pronunciation proficiency. The findings suggest that effective pronunciation learning strategy should be investigated and taught in L2 Korean classroom.

With the increased use of online learning in language education, the importance of videoconferencing lessons has recently received much attention in improving English speaking skills in Korea. This study examines the aspects of videoconferencing lesson that were helpful for improving students’ pronunciation. Six middle school students in Korea were assigned to two videoconferencing sessions with pre- and post-tests, and they had opportunities for interviews and selfreports after the two sessions. During the pre- and post-test, students pronounced words from a screen, distinguishing specifically between /r/ versus /l/ and /b/ versus /v/. In the interviews and self-reports, they described the factors in the videoconferencing lesson that were most helpful for their English learning. This study examined the appropriateness of videoconferencing tools and found that students’ self-assessment, more teacher feedback, and the flexibility of the technology were most helpful for improving Korean students’ English pronunciation.

This paper accommodates EIL(English as an international language) together with EFL in English pronunciation teaching and learning. In recognizing EIL, I suggest three strategic levels for phonological norms in assessing leaners’ pronunciation: the level P(phonemic) as a mandatory level to achieve, the level NLA(native language accent) as a cautious level to suppress the native accent, and the level TLA(target language accent) as a desirable level to accomplish a "native-like" accent. After probing the significance of each level, the paper addresses the issue of learning patterns depending on different proficiency levels, together with the effect of formal instruction. The sounds under investigation are English /l/, /r/, and /si/ for the level P, Korean Nasalization and Lateralization for the level NLA, and English /p, t, k/ for the level TLA. Two groups of local college sophomores served as experimental subjects, one as an intermediate group and the other as beginners group. The correctness rate for each level turned out to be the level TLA the lowest(14.21%～ 22.22%), the level NLA the next (49.37%～57.95%), and the level P the highest(66.47%～74.08%). The level TLA achieved the highest effect of formal instruction(13.30%), and the other two levels achieved less effect(5.69%～5.79%). In the level NLA, three factors that affect native interference are suggested: familiarity, syntactic distance, and the length of previous vowels. It is argued that the lowest correctness rate of the level TLA is less alarmimg than the low number indicates, while the level P is more demanding to overcome regardless of the highest correctness rate in regard to effective communication in English.

This paper discusses what the basic principle of Korean consonantal assimilation and tensification is and how to teach the two processes to learners. Since some of the Korean phonological changes including these two processes are complicated and cannot easily be seen in other languages, students may face difficulty in learning such processes. It has been claimed that these processes are due to the "principle of economy" in pronunciation. That is, certain consonant clusters or consonantal sequences that are difficult to produce undergo changes in a way to make them easy to pronounce. In this paper I argue against such a claim by adopting the principle of English, which has two different types of consonant clusters, namely "word-initial and word-final clusters". The phonotactic constraints of the word-final clusters in this language, which are opposite to the case of word-initial clusters, have the ascending structure in the consonantal strength between the two consonants. We see that the two consonants in sequence in Korean have almost the same structure. Unlike English, these constraints must be obeyed whether words are simple or complex in Korean. The two consonants that are not kept up to these constraints by the morphological process undergo phonological process. This is the principle of consonantal assimilation and tensification in Korean, and thus, teachers (and also possibly learners) of Korean should recognize the principle to understand the processes correctly.

The present study investigates the effect of pronunciation training on Korean adult learners’ perception and production of English vowels, /i/, /I/, /u/, and /Ω/. The study examines 1) the effect of pronunciation training on perception and production and 2) the maintenance of the effect over a one-month period. The subjects were 10 Korean graduate students who took a 4-week long English pronunciation training course. They were tested before and after pronunciation training and tested again one month after the training. In each test, both perception and production of the vowels were tested to see if the subjects were able to distinguish tense and lax vowels. In the perception part, subjects listened for words and checked the vowel (either tense or lax) sound they heard. For the production part, subjects read the selected words which contained the target vowels. The results show that pronunciation training has an effect, which supports the teachability of phonology in adulthood; however, the maintenance of the effect demonstrated a difference between perception and production, in which the effect was maintained in production but not in perception. Based on the results of the study, implications are discussed.