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.

This article reports on an experimental study that investigated the effects of different conditions of listener backchannels on the fluency of L2 speakers. The participants were 15 advanced Chinese learners of Korean who performed oral tasks in three different backchannel conditions: (1) verbal + nonverbal (V+NV), (2) nonverbal-only (NV), and (3) no backchannels (NB). The verbal backchannels included “[ŋ~] (Non lexical verbal form)”, “[ne]”, “[ɑ]”, “[ɨm]” while the nonverbal backchannels involved head nodding. Fluency was assessed via three temporal measures: Rate A, Rate B and MLR. The data was statistically analyzed using SPSS 25 package. The results showed that 15 Chinese participants in the NV condition were more fluent than in the V+NV or NB conditions. However, no significant differences were found between the V+NV and NB conditions. These results suggest that nonverbal backchannels may facilitate the fluency of advanced Chinese learners of Korean during oral tasks depending on the nature of backchannel use in their L1 and sociocultural environments. The present research theoretically broadens the scope of both fluency and backchannel studies and provides valuable data and methods for empirical studies on backchannels to Korean.

The current study examined the potential contribution of advanced Korean EFL learners’ writing abilities to their reading comprehension abilities. A total of 191 college students participated in this study and were tested on writing and reading comprehension abilities as well as other literacy-related measures including listening comprehension, textreading fluency, and knowledge of vocabulary to control for their effects. In order to account for different aspects of writing and reading comprehension abilities, multiple measures of reading and writing abilities were adopted. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analyses demonstrated that the advanced Korean EFL learners’ English writing abilities had a significant effect on their reading comprehension abilities when other relevant literacy skills were controlled for. Furthermore, their writing abilities mediated the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension abilities. These results highlight the important pedagogical implications on the critical role of writing abilities in enhancing the reading comprehension abilities of L2 learners.

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.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the impact of two task-processing conditions (10 minutes of pre-task planning time and content familiarity of the task) on spoken performance in terms of the fluency, complexity, and accuracy in a narrative task. The subjects were 20 Korean undergraduate students with a high language proficiency. The results of the two-way interaction effect between the planning and familiarity of the MANOVA were significant in terms of pause length. The univariate test of familiarity in an unfamiliar condition for subordinate clauses in the MANOVA test was significant. The study also found a trade-off effect between complexity and accuracy in terms of the effects of planning time in planned and unfamiliar conditions. These results suggest that the performance of learners could be varied depending on the different combinations of task-processing conditions even in a single narrative task.

이 연구는 Skype를 활용하여 일본인 고급 학습자의 구어 오류 양상을 분석하고 교육적 의의를 제시하는 것을 목적으로 한다. 학습자 발 화 2,947어절을 대상으로 오류 양상을 분석하였다. 그 결과 문법 오류가 34건으로 가장 많았으며 어휘(26건), 발음(22건), 담화(4건) 오류 순으로 나타났다. 이로써 알 수 있는 것은 첫째, 고급 학습자임에도 불구하고 모국 어 간섭의 영향을 여전히 받고 있다는 점. 둘째, 어휘 오류에서는 학습 어휘량이 많아지면서 유사 어휘에 의한 오류가 많이 나타난 점. 셋째, 두 언어의 문법 체계가 비슷하다고는 하지만 그럼에도 문법 오류가 가장 많이 발생했다는 점이다. 향후 일본인 학습자를 대상으로 교수를 할 때 이런한 점을 고려하여 이루어져야할 것이다.

【벼리】프랑스에서 한국 문화와 한국어에 대한 관심이 늘고 있으며 학습자 또한 증가하고 있지만, 이러한 증가에 비해 프랑스 내에서의 한국어 교육에 대한 유용한 연구는 미비한 실정이다. 본고에서는 파리 7대학교의 교육과정을 살펴보고, 실제 진행했던 시 사강독의 수업을 바탕으로 프랑스 고급 학습자들의 읽기-쓰기 수업에 대해 살펴보고자 한다. 제한된 교과 수업을 벗어나 한국의 실제성을 보여주는 신문자료를 활용함으로써 나타나는 현황을 살펴보고 앞으로 신문을 활용한 한국어 교육 방안을 연구해 보고자 한다.