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.

In the early stages of reading, word decoding skills are prerequisite to reading. Word decoding involves word discrimination, phonemic decoding, and understanding of meaning. In this process, phonemic awareness enables students to examine language independently to manipulate its component sounds, and to use letter-sound correspondences to read and spell words. The 7th national curriculum of English and the primary school English textbooks fail to provide systematic language structure focus to facilitate efficiently student acquisition of the English phonemic system. Therefore, many students suffer from lack of word decoding development as well as encoding development, particularly in the 5th and 6th grades. This study explores the English phonemic awareness of Korean primary school students. To achieve the purpose of this study, a test for phonemic awareness was developed and Korean students' phonemic awareness was examined. The test deals with six areas: phonemic segmentation, phonemic manipulation, syllable splitting, blending, oddity, and invented spelling. The results are as follows: Firstly, many students showed successful results in phonemic segmentation and oddity. However, they have difficulties with syllable splitting and invented spelling. While students have strengths in the awareness of consonants except for r-l, f-p, and b-v, they suffer from lack of awareness of vowels. Secondly, errors of invented spelling and blending showed that students have differing development stages of phonemic awareness, e.g., some students master the phonemic system perfectly whereas others perceive only the alphabetic sounds. Finally, this research suggests that a balanced approach to reading is necessary in the early reading in the Korean context.