The research is a correlational study to look for causes and factors relating to the design of written documents (professional reading materials) and identify those relationships that are useful for communication designers. The research specifically targeted the relationships between perception and reader’s past experiences and appearance of the written documents. A preliminary survey, such as interviews, discussions, questionnaires and brainstorming sessions are conducted to establish the observable attributes related to perception which are reader’s interests, importance of information and written documents complexity. Finally, the research used Structural Equation Model (SEM) to identify significant differences and analyze strong and weak correlations between these attributes. In general, the results of the study shows that the attribute appearances of a written documents with excellent visualizations for information display shows a strong correlation with interests while the attributes importance is weakly correlated with the complexity of the documents.

The purpose of this study was to investigate to what extent Korean college students can acquire vocabulary from reading course materials. The participants were 32 college students who enrolled in a TEFL methodology course. A vocabulary test was administered at the beginning and the end of the course, and the results showed that the participants were able to recognize meanings of an average of 3.6 new words, suggesting that small but significant amounts of incidental vocabulary learning can occur as a result of reading course materials. The findings also showed that there was a statistically significant relationship between the number of times each word occurred and its relative learning gain. The results of this study suggests that incidental vocabulary learning is possible from reading even though the amount of such learning is not large. Implications for vocabulary learning and teaching are discussed.

This study explores the effects of reading material types in sustained silent reading on Korean EFL learners, focusing on their reading speed and comprehension. Reading materials are divided into four types: longer texts with Korean vocabulary glosses, longer texts without the glosses, short texts, and a mixture of the three text types. For this research, an seven-month-long sustained silent reading program was developed for high school students. The participants were divided into four groups according to the types of reading texts they were to read. The reading rates and reading comprehension were measured before and after the program was implemented. The results were as follows: First, the gain in reading rates was most noticeable in the group reading longer texts with the vocabulary glosses. Second, there was a statistically significant difference in reading comprehension before and after the program was implemented. The group which read a mixture of the three reading text types showed the most remarkable gain in comprehension. The findings of this study suggest the need for further research on the relationship between reading comprehension and reading rates, and how to incorporate sustained silent reading into the reading curriculum.

외국어 학습에서 읽기는 언어와 정보 획득 외에도 문화를 수용하는 과정에서 가장 큰 비중을 차지한다. 학문적 목적 한국어의 읽기 교육에서 특히 중급 단계 이후 학습자들은 과거 읽기 교육의 목적이었던 정확한 읽기 능력을 기르는 것과 함께 텍스트를 빠른 속도로 읽어내야만 한다. 이를 위해서는 전문 교육 과정 안에서 학습자에게 제공되는 텍스트의 역할이 무엇보다 중요하다. 현재 읽기 교육에서 텍스트는 학습자들에게 읽기 과정과 이해에 미치는 요인들에 대한 고려가 제대로 이루어지지 않고 주어진 텍스트를 읽고 텍스트 내용을 이해, 점검하는 과정으로만 대부분 그 역할을 다해왔다. 따라서 본 연구는 읽기 수업에서 학습 단계나 수준에 맞지 않는 텍스트에 대해 단순화 및 상세화를 거친 텍스트의 재구성이 필요함을 인식하고, 한국어 학습자들에게 제공되는 읽기 텍스트에 대한 이해와 읽기 능력 향상을 위해 중급 단계 학습자를 대상으로한 자료 구성 방안을 찾는 데 그 목적이 있다. 이를 위해 텍스트에 대한 요구 조사를 시행한 뒤, 현행 읽기 교재의 텍스트에서 단순화와 상세화가 어떻게 나타나는지 살펴본 뒤 직접 텍스트 재구성을 해보고자 한다.