This study investigated speaking anxiety among advanced Korean language learners in Korean Language Institution classrooms, and the strategies they used to overcome it. The study employed qualitative methodology using online interviews for data collection. The sampling technique involved purposive sampling by selecting 13 Korean learners who had completed an advanced Korean course at TOPIK Levels 5 or 6, with Level 6 being the highest. The interview questions addressed various aspects, including comparisons of speaking skills, anxiety in Korean classrooms, fear of making mistakes, concerns about classmates’ reactions, and anxiety induced by teachers. Thematic analysis was performed by generating initial codes, grouping related codes to uncover potential themes, and highlighting recurring patterns in the participants’ responses. The results revealed three factors that contribute to speaking anxiety: personal reasons, teachers’ classroom approaches, and teaching methods. Advanced learners manage anxiety through three coping strategies: preparation, positive thinking, and seeking support from peers. The study concludes with discussions on the pedagogical implications, limitations, and recommendations for future research in advanced Korean language learning classrooms.

The present study aims to investigate the patterns and characteristics of impoliteness strategies and impoliteness formulas in Korean learners’ interlanguage complaints, focusing primarily on advanced Chinese learners. Discourse Completion Test(DCT) was utilized to investigate interlanguage complaints, with each scenario providing the research participants with information on publicness, familiarities between the interlocutors, and their social status levels. Impoliteness, as well as politeness, were examined. In the meantime, the effect of those three factors above on the selecting impoliteness strategies or politeness strategies were also investigated. According to the results of the patterns of impoliteness strategies, learners were more inclined to use impoliteness strategies in private scenarios compared to those public scenarios, to hearers with equal or lower social status compared to those with higher social status, and to familiar hearers compared to those unfamiliar. In terms of the characteristics of impoliteness formulas, learners showed a high proportion of bald-on impoliteness strategies in all the 12 scenarios. Secondly, some of the learners failed to use honorifics in certain scenarios, damaging decencies of their hearers and even in being regarded as interlocutors with improper manners. Lastly, most of the learners neglected negative politeness, which is by no means less important that its positive counterpart.

Yang, Myung-hee & Kim, Bo-hyeon. 2017. “A Study on Korean Language Anxiety in the Classrooms of Advanced-level Korean Language Learners for Academic purposes: With Chinese Students in Graduate School in Korea”. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 25(1). 119~141. The aim of this study is to examine the level of and the factors for Korean language anxiety in the classrooms of advanced-level Korean language learners for academic purposes. To this end, 60 Chinese students attending graduate school participated in the survey with the questionnaires: i.e., PRCA and FLCAS. The results suggest as follows. First, the Korean language anxiety level in the classrooms of the Chinese students is likely to be high. Also, it is not because of the participants’ traits, but because of the classroom environment. Second, there are 5 factors for Korean language anxiety in the classrooms; communication anxiety with native speakers, communication anxiety, fears of negative evaluation and failing in class, Korean proficiency anxiety, and negative attitudes toward class. Especially, the forth factor suggests that Korean learners needs an educational intervention of Korean, even after they enter undergraduate or graduate institutions. Third, there is a negative correlation between Korean language anxiety in the classroom and a residence period in Korea. That is, it is necessary to give them as many opportunities as possible for being exposed to Korean by a Korean educational intervention.