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The continued push to internationalize Korean higher education means that international and Korean students are enrolling in courses that are undergoing dynamic changes that neither group may be prepared for. This research investigated how the experiences of international students and Korean students who attended the same TESOL graduate school assigned identity positions to each other and their professors during such courses. Using positioning theory allowed this qualitative study to illustrate how participants assigned perceived rights and duties to act, know, or believe in accordance with who they believed they, and other people were, on their program. Violations of these perceived rights and duties resulted in assigning negative identity positions that previously were limited in description to vague "tensions" which impacted international student performance. Findings explain how cultural differences connected to language, participation, hierarchy, and friendships were keenly felt by all participants, and the perceived rights and duties that were violated due to these differences reinforced the marginalized identity position some international students felt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extending previous findings on adult L2 learners' integration of verbal and constructional information, this study investigated how child learners of English as a foreign language produce verbs in target constructions and whether (a) receptive skills and (b) the specific production modality (spoken versus written) modulate the integration process. Written and spoken samples from 76 Korean‑speaking children were analyzed for verb‐construction association strength using three independent measures. A mixed‐effects regression analysis showed that the written data contained fewer strongly associated verb‐construction combinations than did the spoken data, yet verb‐construction association in writing became stronger as the participants' receptive task scores increased. Subsequent cluster analyses revealed that the stronger verb‐construction associations found for increasing receptive skills in writing were due to the lower‐proficiency participants' matching some verbs with inappropriate constructions. The modulating role of production modes, as well as receptive skills, in children's integration of verbs and constructions is consistent with usage‐based approaches to language learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Implicit and explicit knowledge use in second language acquisition has been rigorously researched in areas such as syntax, however our understanding of how these knowledge constructs affect learner pragmatics is not well understood. Through an interlanguage pragmatic perspective we aim to understand how implicit and explicit knowledge intertwines with pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic competence. This is investigated by testing for L1 politeness transfer in Korean learners of French regarding their acquisition of tu and vous, which provides a new perspective as past research focuses on Anglophone learners. By triangulating data from two test types, results show that the learners have difficulty with vous but not tu, attributed to negative language transfer of L1 politeness values. Moreover, learner variation of tu/vous use can be linked to the explicit/implicit status of their pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic knowledge, showing that the implicitization of their sociopragmatic knowledge is a challenging hurdle towards native-like tu/vous use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This comparative study aims to investigate the rhetorical organization of Korean and English argumentative texts. In previous studies, the rhetorical organization of such texts has been categorized as either direct or indirect depending on the placement of the thesis statement (Chien, 2011). The present study attempts to document more specific rhetorical patterns using Swales (1990) concept of moves and steps. Design/methodology/approach: Ten Korean EFL students with similar L1 and L2 literacy backgrounds were selected, and, adopting a within-subject design, the students wrote two argumentative essays, one in Korean and one in English, in response to two different topics. The students' essays were analyzed at both the macro and micro levels. The focus of the macro-level analysis was on the placement of the thesis statement and of topic sentences in each of the body paragraphs. Once the macro-level analysis was done, the essays were analyzed at the micro level using Swales (1990) move analysis. Findings: The findings suggest that both texts were organized in a similar way at the macro level, constituting a typical paper structure (i.e. introduction, body and conclusion). However, a difference appears at the micro level: the students used a variety of steps to create a move when writing in Korean, whereas little variation was found in the English texts. An analysis of the data suggests the possibility that the standardized moves and steps in the English texts may be due not to culture-specific rhetoric, but to a lack of practice with rhetorical thinking in English. Originality/value: In previous studies, the rhetorical organization of texts has been categorized as either direct or indirect depending on the placement of the thesis statement. The present study uses the framework of move analysis to describe more specific organizational patterns of Korean and English writing to determine the extent to which Korean and English writing is similar in the genre of argumentative writing. Another significance of the study lies in the choice of Korean writing as a reference point for comparison with English writing. It has been widely noted that there is a dearth of research of Korean students' writing in contrastive rhetoric. To the best of the author's knowledge, most of the contrastive rhetoric studies were conducted with Chinese or Japanese student writers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to investigate the constraints on implementing task-based language teaching (TBLT) and strategies that make TBLT feasible with novice second language (L2) learners in college. When the researcher (a bilingual teacher) struggled to implement tasks into traditional English courses with almost 210 novice undergraduates throughout three separate semesters, a number of constraints were identified for the task syllabus, and TBLT was modified and adapted to a localized college-level context. The study was conducted over three 16-week-semesters, and its process was recorded in field notes. The findings demonstrated that there were four major constraints on implementing TBLT: 1) irrelevant topics in the coursebooks, 2) novice learners' writing dependence and limited use of the second language, 3) excessive use of the first language, and 4) an irrelevant examination system. As four strategies to adapt TBLT in a local college context, the following were practiced and suggested: 1) a needs analysis is necessary, 2) instead of task-supported language teaching, a new hybrid form of TBLT and presentation-practice-production might work, 3) teaching English in English is necessary but specifying strategies for selective use of first language (L1) is needed, and 4) relevant tests are necessary. It is hoped that these findings will enrich the actual process from adoption to adaptation of localized TBLT for novice L2 learners in Korean colleges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study attempts to provide empirical and qualitative evidence to support the feasibility of rubric-referenced self-assessment to promote learning in a Korean high school EFL context. Over four rubric-referenced self-assessment lessons, with the help of a teacher's instructions, students wrote a first draft and assessed it using a scoring rubric. Drawing on this self-assessment, they wrote a second draft, also followed by a self-assessment as well as a self-assessment diary. As quantitative data, the scores of the first draft of the first class were compared with those of the second draft of the fourth class. Survey questionnaires, interviews, self-assessment diaries, and essay self-assessments served as qualitative data. The findings are, first, rubric-referenced self-assessment showed positive effects on students' writing quality. Second, students came to perceive the effectiveness of rubric-referenced self-assessment. Lastly, rubric-referenced self-assessment positively influenced students' learning strategies and attitudes. These results imply that rubric-referenced self-assessment promotes learning in a Korean high school EFL context, leading students to become self-regulated learners that take responsibility for their own learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While it is well established that non-native speakers differ from native speakers in their perception and/or production of Mandarin lexical tones, empirical studies focusing on non-native learners are still limited. The objective of this study is to add to the current understanding of lexical tone perception by comparing native speakers of standard Korean from the Seoul/Kyunggi area differing in Mandarin experience (NK1, NK2) with native speakers of Mandarin. NK1 (n = 10) had no experience with Mandarin whereas NK2 (n = 10) consisted of highly advanced learners of Mandarin. A group of 10 native Mandarin (NM) speakers was included as controls. Accuracy of perception of six tone pairs (T1–T2, T1–T3, T1–T4, T2–T3, T2–T4, T3–T4) was assessed in a four-alternative forced-choice discrimination test. As expected, the NK2 group with extensive Mandarin learning experience resembled the NM group to a greater extent than did the NK1 group. T2–T3 was the hardest pair for both NK groups, but NK2 had the largest advantage over NK1 for this pair. Apart from T2–T3 which is generally considered difficult, tone pairs involving T1 caused some misperception by the NK groups. This may be related to the difficulty with perceiving a level tone which shows the least fundamental frequency (F0) movement and possibly has limited perceptual salience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine the intelligibility and attitude towards four English varieties to Korean-speaking learners (KSLs) of English, who have been exposed mainly to General American (or Korean-accented English) in their English language learning classrooms throughout the primary and secondary schools. A total of 105 Korean undergraduate students listened to a recording in one of the four accents (General American, British, Australian, and Korean-accented English) and completed an intelligibility test followed by a questionnaire survey on attitudes. Analysis revealed that British English was most intelligible to KSLs among four varieties whereas that of Australian was least intelligible. Attitudes toward an English variety did not exert a strong force that may contribute to the level of intelligibility. The findings also showed at which phonological features identified KSLs were most sensitive to intelligibility differences. We conclude that the more exposed English variety to KSLs, the more favorable attitudes can be formed, but is not necessarily intelligible. What the findings demonstrate is that attitudes are not the best explanation of intelligibility and call for improvement in ways of directing KSLs' attention to some phonological features in a learnability perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The current study investigates the extent to which the phonological features of a first language (L1) influence the perception of prominence among students of a second language (L2). Considering that Spanish has word-level stress and phrase-level prominence while Korean has only phrase-level accent, we examined how these cross-linguistic differences in the native language influence the processing of an L2 (here, English) lexical stress and sentence focus. In this study, 32 Spanish learners of English and 38 Korean learners of English completed a lexical stress and a sentence focus oddity test. The results revealed that having lexical stress and phrasal accent in the L1 facilitates the acquisition of L2 prominence, but that differences in how this information is instantiated in the L1 may have a negative effect in its acquisition. Highlights • L1 phonological features that express different levels of prominence facilitate or hinder the acquisition of L2 prominence. • Having lexical stress in the L1 facilitates acquiring L2 lexical stress for Spanish learners. • Spanish learners showed difficulty in perceiving L2 sentence focus due to the rigidity of the phrasal-prominence in the L1. • Korean learners performed better in perceiving L2 sentence focus due to the F0 marking the phrasal boundaries in the L1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

83-103. The current paper reports on a comparison study conducted between a learner corpus, the KNU English Learner Corpus (KELC), and a native speaker corpus, the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), to investigate in what ways and to what extent the young Korean learners of KELC use English modal verbs. The results reveal that the young Korean learners underused modals could, would, should, may, might and must in general. However, will and can were used frequently with a statistically significant overuse of will occurring after the intermediate level. Furthermore, interlanguage development is observed with nativelike usage frequency of can from the earlier stages while occurrences of should and would emerging at later stages. A closer examination of the observed under and over usages also discloses that the difficulty of combining tense with the modal verbs impedes the learners’ preterit form use of the modal verbs. Additionally, the use of epistemic modality is observed much later than the root modality such as possibility, permission, and ability. These findings coincide with the first language modal acquisition order reported in literature (Coates 1983) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study launched an investigation into the extent to which textual enhancement in captions can promote learner attention to and subsequent development in second language (L2) grammar. Using eye‐tracking, it also intended to extend research on the relationship between attention and L2 learning. A pretest–posttest experimental design was employed, with 3 treatment sessions. Forty‐eight Korean learners of L2 English were randomly assigned into a captions group (n = 24) and an enhanced captions group (n = 24). For the enhanced captions group, the components of pronominal anaphoric reference were boldfaced in the treatment task input. Learner attention to anaphora antecedents and personal pronouns was assessed with eye‐movement indices, and a written and an oral grammaticality judgment test were used to measure learning gains. Textual enhancement succeeded in directing learner attention to the anaphora antecedents, and led to increased gains in receptive knowledge of pronominal anaphoric reference. However, significant links between attention and L2 development were only observed for the unenhanced captions group. The findings, overall, demonstrate that textually enhanced captioning is a useful pedagogical tool to facilitate development in L2 grammatical knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Benefits of the study-abroad (SA) experience have been reported in many studies. However, most prior studies on EFL students’ SA experiences track students in relatively short ESL programs during school vacation months. In addition, EFL learners’ SA experiences in non-English-speaking countries, where English is not the L1, remain underexplored. Applying case study methodology and gathering data from monthly reports during SA, and pre- and post-SA interviews, this study aimed to investigate SA experiences of two South Korean undergraduate students in two different SA environments with respect to the impact of the participants’ choice of SA destination on the SA experience and the participants’ interactions with the SA environment. The SA destination had a significant impact on the student in Finland. Dealing with a third language and failing the language course, the student in Finland had to leave the program earlier than planned. The student in Australia took great advantage of social networks she established through diverse venues, which enriched her SA experience and facilitated her learning. It is particularly meaningful that the present study broadened the scope of SA research, as it extended the context to “other” regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the effects of different Focus-on-Form Instruction (FFI) on improving learners' grammatical knowledge development and observes how the learners apply the knowledge to their output. A total of 112 college students were placed into three groups: 35 input-enhanced group students, who received visually enhanced input reading materials, 41 output-enhanced group students, performing dictogloss tasks, and 46 control group students given traditional grammar instruction. All the participant students took pre/post grammatical tests and completed pre/post writing tasks, which aimed to look into how the target grammatical structures were used in writing. The research findings indicated that both input-enhanced and output-enhanced FFI were effective on learners' language form learning and made contribution to their writing. Based on the findings, this study suggests that the elaborate design of combination of both FFI can maximize learners' language form learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early study abroad (ESA) has been popular among middle/upper class Korean families who use overseas experiences for the accumulation of capital and class mobility. Following up with two graduate student families in Song (2012), this study examines these two families' post-ESA experiences from the mothers' perspectives. It attends particularly to the role of English in their children's educational trajectories and the family's class positioning against economically-privileged Gangnam families. The results demonstrate the two mothers' complex attitudes toward linguistic and class ideologies that deepen the ‘English divide’ in Korean society. While they criticized class-based inequalities surrounding English education, they themselves were content with the linguistic capital accumulated overseas for their children's competitiveness in the Korean educational context and beyond. They also realized that the increasing number of good English speakers with superior economic means deprived them of the privilege associated with the competence in English. That is, the value of competence is synergistic with other social advantages that are highly dependent on one's economic background. The results illuminate how class mediates not only the distribution, but also the return of the capital through a powerful neoliberal social order that drives Koreans to pursue the valuable capital at any cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how a peripheral English‐speaking country is constructed as a legitimate language learning space in the global English language teaching (ELT) industry by investigating South Koreans’ recent engagement in Philippine English education. It focuses on a short‐term English study abroad program, in which the Philippines serves as a transit place prior to students’ moving to a Western English‐speaking country. Drawing data from ethnographic research on South Korean youth studying English abroad, the article analyzes why Korean students seek Philippine English education in spite of their apparent pursuit of authentic English, and how they evaluate their learning experience in the Philippines. This paper finds that the Philippines holds a niche market in the global ELT industry by separating a space for English learning from other public and everyday spaces of English use and offering pedagogically intensive but emotionally supportive environments to English learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the ways contemporary models of personhood associated with female Korean-English bilinguals become linked to historical figures of inauthentic multilingualism. The case of the Korean-English bilingual exemplifies how historically constructed models of personhood reproduce already existing gender politics. By analysing both macro and micro discourses, this paper illustrates how historically locatable models of personhood associated with female Korean-English bilinguals function as a kind of authoritative discourse in contemporary South Korean society to actively marginalise the increasing number of female Korean-English bilinguals. The findings of this paper challenge scholars in the field of applied linguistics and language studies to apply a historical perspective in order to explain second and foreign language learners' gender identity and display. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The early acquisition of language-specific temporal patterns relative to the late development of speech motor control suggests a dissociation between the representation and execution of articulatory timing. The current study tested for such a dissociation in first and second language acquisition. American English-speaking children (5- and 8-year-olds) and Korean-speaking adult learners of English repeatedly produced real English words in a simple carrier sentence. The words were designed to elicit different language-specific vowel length contrasts. Measures of absolute duration and variability in single vowel productions were extracted to evaluate the realization of contrasts (representation) and to index speech motor abilities (execution). Results were mostly consistent with a dissociation. Native English-speaking children produced the same language-specific temporal patterns as native English-speaking adults, but their productions were more variable than the adults’. In contrast, Korean-speaking adult learners of English typically produced different temporal patterns than native English-speaking adults, but their productions were as stable as the native speakers’. Implications of the results are discussed with reference to different models of speech production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we report the results of two self-paced reading experiments that investigated working memory capacity effects on the processing of globally ambiguous relative clauses by advanced Korean second language (L2) learners of English. Consistent with previous monolingual literature on the processing of temporary ambiguity, we found that working memory capacity was a factor that also affected the processing of globally ambiguous relative clauses. High working memory capacity was positively correlated with a processing disadvantage reflected as slower reading times at the region where the ambiguity becomes detectable, and longer response times to decide on a correct disambiguation for the target structure. Furthermore, a similar pattern was also found in the same participants’ processing of L2 ambiguity. We conclude that for highly advanced L2 learners, the processing strategies employed for ambiguous structures are not qualitatively different between the same individual’s first language (L1) and L2, but rather differ across readers of different working memory capacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on student attitudes toward target-language speakers provides varied results. Some researchers have studied target-language speakers, especially in the foreign language learning context and found that they are regarded as an object of envy. Others have found that L2 students are often repulsed by those who have studied abroad and sp eak the target language or their native language with a foreign accent. These studies demonstrate the complexity of student attitudes toward second-language learners. The analyses in this study are designed to gain insight into student perspectives on L2 speakers in the classroom (Academic Possible Selves, or APS) and motivation. Statistical analyses were conducted within a quantitative framework to analyze data from 117 respondents. Analyses identify differences between student perspectives on attitudes and motivation for both English and Japanese. The findings suggest that students assume the long-term overseas experiences of APS result from financial backgrounds of learner's parents. In addition, for Japanese learning, the results reveal that participants not only desire language acquisition but also cultural experience in the target language. This study concludes with a discussion of the roles of APS as learning mentors and facilitators for beginning, intermediate and advanced students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether the mental representation of sentences contains a morphological representation of case marking, using a priming technique. Thirty-six native Korean speakers listened to and repeated spoken prime sentences and described visually presented target pictures. The prime sentences were manipulated for the presence of an accusative case-marker -lul/-ul. To investigate whether the previously reported animacy effects on case drop generalizes to a different task, animacy of the direct object was also manipulated. The results showed that there was a stronger bias to produce the accusative case-marker when the direct object was animate than when the direct object was inanimate, replicating the previously reported animacy effects on accusative case drop (Lee 2006a, 2006b; Chung 2013) in a syntactic priming task. Furthermore, case marking on inanimate direct objects was influenced by whether or not the accusative case marker was produced earlier in the prime, providing evidence for the presence of an abstract representation of case marking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the consistent emphasis on grammar instruction in English classrooms in South Korea, studies regarding grammar instruction have not yet been extensively conducted. The present study aims to discover the gap between learners' grammatical awareness and their perception of major grammatical items. A total of 60 EFL learners from two local universities in South Korea participated in the study and were divided into two groups, a high-level and a low-level group. A set of tests was utilized to examine learners' grammatical awareness and their perception of six major grammatical items--tense, prepositions, articles, voices, morphology, and vocabulary. The results demonstrated that there was a significant difference in the scores of tense, article, and voice for grammatical awareness between the high-level and the low-level group. Also, both groups scored high for the category of voice while they received low scores for vocabulary and morphology. In addition, they showed a significant difference in the scores for the perceived difficulty of articles and voice. The high-level group perceived voice as the most difficult, whereas the low-level group perceived articles as the most difficult. These findings demonstrate a gap between the learners' grammar awareness and perception and highlight a need to design an individualized curriculum for the effectiveness of teaching as well as self-initiated studying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study profiled Intermediate-level learners in terms of their linguistic characteristics and performance on different proficiency tasks. A stratified random sample of 300 Korean learners of English with holistic ratings of Intermediate Low (IL), Intermediate Mid (IM), and Intermediate High (IH) on Oral Proficiency Interviews-computerized (OPIcs)-100 at each level-were analyzed by trained ACTFL raters to determine what was needed for the learners to progress to the next higher sublevel. The findings indicate that while ILs minimally met all the linguistic characteristics required of the Intermediate level, they needed to improve in the quantity and quality of all the linguistic characteristics they employed and improve their mastery of the types and variety of questions they could use when performing Intermediate tasks to move to the IM sublevel. In contrast, IMs demonstrated a pattern of strength when completing Intermediate tasks, but to move to the IH sublevel they needed to improve their ability to perform all Advanced-level tasks, especially in terms of accuracy when using paragraph-length discourse. Similar to the IMs, for the IHs to move to the Advanced Low sublevel, they needed to improve their accuracy with paragraph-length discourse and expand their content mastery to beyond the autobiographical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined subject-object asymmetry and developmental sequence in the second language (L2) acquisition of three types of wh-extraction, i.e., English headed relatives, headless relatives, and embedded wh-questions. Sixty-four L1 Korean learners of English completed an elicited imitation task and a grammaticality judgment task. The learners demonstrated a subject advantage in the headed RCs and headless RCs, but an object advantage in the embedded wh-questions, which suggests that they treat embedded wh-questions differently from headed relatives and headless relatives despite the similarities in surface forms. The learners further demonstrated the order of developing headless RCs followed by embedded wh-questions, and subsequently headed RCs, which supports the primacy of headless relatives as a simple nominal in L2 development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from a corpus of telephone and face-to-face Korean conversational data, this study investigates cases of represented talk (RT) that routinely occur in second position as a response to a prior turn that the speaker finds problematic and in need of repair. The speaker finds problems in the way the recipient interprets or represents certain events, situations, or the interlocutors themselves, and the speaker seeks to rectify these (mis)conceptions and (mis) representations through RT. The speaker reports a former locution, which demonstrates the recipient's understanding to be incorrect or insufficient. At such delicate interactional junctures, the speaker begins a quote as direct reported speech (DRS) and closes the same quote as indirect reported speech (IRS). The unique design of combining DRS and IRS allows Korean speakers to negotiate what to show (DRS) and what to tell (IRS) according to the importance and relevance of the current interaction and current recipients. The study further discusses why this particular design of RT is readily observed in Korean conversation and how it fits within its interactional task of reconstructing matters according to the speaker's perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a research paper by linguistic experts Colin Phillips and Lara Ehren hofer, on several factors of language acquisition. Topics discussed include all aspects of language processing including typological variation, confusion among English-speaking and Korean-speaking children, referential dependency in local subjects and importance of acceptability of indirect object relative clauses in language learning process.

Objectives The purpose of this study was to collect nasalance scores for normal Korean-speaking children and adults and to determine whether age, vowel contexts, and stimulus length influence nasalance scores. Methods Fifty-seven children aged 4–6 years and 17 adults participated in the study. Mean nasalance scores were obtained for eight sentences devoid of nasal consonants divided into the vowel/a/and/i/contexts; the sentences consisted of 4, 8, 16, and 31 syllables. All subjects were asked to repeat the speech stimuli twice after the examiner. The headset of the nasometer was replaced between the first and second recordings. An average value of the nasalance scores from the two recordings for each stimulus was calculated and used in the statistical analysis as a representative measure for each subject. Results Mean and standard deviations of nasalance scores were obtained for each speech stimulus and each age group. The statistical analysis indicated significant effects of age and vowel context and a significant interaction between age and the vowel context on nasalance scores. However, the effect of stimulus length on nasalance scores was not significant. All speakers had higher nasalance scores for the vowel/i/contexts than for the vowel/a/contexts. Adults had higher nasalance scores compared to children in both vowel contexts. Conclusions These normal nasalance values from Korean-speaking children aged 4–6 years will provide important reference information for resonance assessment of children with cleft palate who have been considered for secondary palatal surgery. The results of the study suggest that subjects’ age and the vowel content of speech stimuli should be carefully considered when interpreting the nasalance scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was aimed to evaluate the relative contributions of spectral and temporal information to Korean phoneme recognition and to compare them with those to English phoneme recognition. Eleven normal-hearing Korean-speaking listeners participated in the study. Korean phonemes, including 18 consonants in a /Ca/ format and 17 vowels in a /hVd/ format, were processed through a noise vocoder. The spectral information was controlled by varying the number of channels (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, and 16) whereas the temporal information was controlled by varying the lowpass cutoff frequency of the envelope extractor (1 to 512 Hz in octave steps). A total of 80 vocoder conditions (8 numbers of channels × 10 lowpass cutoff frequencies) were presented to listeners for phoneme recognition. While vowel recognition depended on the spectral cues predominantly, a tradeoff between the spectral and temporal information was evident for consonant recognition. The overall consonant recognition was dramatically lower than that of English consonant recognition under similar vocoder conditions. The complexity of the Korean consonant repertoire, the three-way distinction of stops in particular, hinders recognition of vocoder-processed phonemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to further validate and extend the application of recent knowledge structure (KS) measures to second language settings, this investigation explores how second language (L2, English) situation models are influenced by first language (L1, Korean) translation tasks. Fifty Korean low proficient English language learners were asked to read an L2 story and then complete L2 concept map and summary writing tasks, with or without an intervening L1 production tasks (Translated versus Directed conditions). Posttest comprehension was measured using the TOEFL multiple-choice items associated with the story (both in L2). KS elicited as concept maps and as text summaries were used to represent the situation models before, during, and after writing. For analysis, all of the participants' maps and writing artifacts were converted into Pathfinder Networks ( PFNets) that were analyzed using two distinctly different approaches, correlation of the raw proximity data and also degree centrality of the PFNets, in order to analyze the PFNets statistically and to visually describe KS cognitive state changes over time. The correlation results showed that the Translated Writing participants' L2 KS relative to the Directed Writing condition are more similar to that of an expert and are significantly correlated with comprehension posttest scores. Including L1 tasks substantially improved the qualities of the L2 KS artifacts and underlying mental structures related to reading comprehension. In addition, the average centrality results showed that the KS 'form' of the participants' PFNets who translated were relational network structures relative to the Directed Writing group's (English only) PFNets that had a more linear structure that matched the text surface structure, suggesting a fundamental way that L1 and L2 cognitive processing differs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yongeun Lee. 2014. Quantifying English fluency in Korean speakers' read-aloud and picture-cued storytelling speech. Linguistic Research 31(3), 465-490. Previous studies of quantifying oral proficiency of Korean learners of English have demonstrated that temporal aspects of the learners' speech (e.g., 'rate of speech') are strongly correlated with their perceived fluency evaluated by native English-speaking raters (Choi, 2004; 2005). However, these results have been primarily based on speech elicited from contexts where Korean learners of English were asked to read simple passages or orally complete partial dialogues presented in written forms. The current study investigated whether and to what extent the previously reported findings can be generalized to different speech contexts, i.e., particularly to a more spontaneous speech. To this end, this study elicited picture-cued storytelling utterances produced by Korean learners of English and compared the results from the more spontaneous speech with the comparable results from read speech by the same speakers. The current findings indicate that perceived fluency of Korean speakers' speech can vary as a function of the modalities in which their speech produced. In addition to the types of task that the Korean speakers carried out, the present findings also show that the protocols/instructions by which the speech materials are elicited can also influence perceived fluency. Implications of the findings for objective assessments of oral fluency of Korean learners of English are discussed. (Chung-Ang University) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the language choice of children under a two-way immersion (TWI) program for Korean and English languages. It mentions the case of Korean-English TWI classroom in California wherein native Korean speakers and native English speakers favor the English language over Korean, the perception that English is the language of power and the importance of the social relationships of children to language learning. It also notes the need for language learners to become communicators.

This study aims to investigate the effect of experience abroad and second language proficiency on foreign language classroom anxiety. Particularly, this study is an attempt to fill the gap in the literature about the affective outcomes after experiences abroad through the anxiety profiles of Korean learners of English as a foreign language ( EFL) while taking second language (L2) proficiency into account. Of particular interest was the analysis of an emerging theme in the second language acquisition literature: tolerance of ambiguity (e.g., Dewaele & Wei, 2012). On a computerized online survey, 148 Korean EFL participants answered the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale ( FLCAS; Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986) and completed a background questionnaire to collect information regarding amount of experience abroad and English proficiency. Regression analyses show that experience abroad and L2 proficiency were jointly related to the subfactors of the anxiety scores, which had been previously calculated by a factor analysis. Additionally, the follow-up effect size analyses indicate differentiated practical significance in terms of the relationship between time spent abroad and anxiety scores. This study brings to the forefront crucial issues involving experience abroad, language learning anxiety, and English proficiency, especially with regard to the crucial concept of tolerance of ambiguity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the tendency of overpassivization of unaccusative verbs by Korean learners of English as a foreign language (FL). Sixty Korean native college students participated in the study, along with 17 English-speaking counterparts serving as a comparison group. Consistent with the findings of previous research, this study found Korean students' tendency to incorrectly accept passive-voice with inanimate subjects. The results of this study highlighted the role of lexical animacy, the hierarchy of agentivity, and language-specific effects on FL judgment. The findings of this study suggest a robust language-specific L1 effect on L2 acquisition and a greater involvement of cognition in FL use than language input. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various accounts of overpassivization errors in the L2 acquisition of English unaccusative verbs have been proposed, but different studies have examined different factors (movement, transitivization, discourse, L1 influence) and some findings are in conflict. This study examines the factors of discourse (external causation), semantics (animacy) and L1 morphological influence (verb alternation), which were tested on 99 Chinese and 117 Korean students of English at four proficiency levels. The study shows that the effect of each factor varies depending on the L1s and the proficiency levels of L2 learners. An L1 morphological factor is the most strong and persistent for L2 English learners when their L1 morphology differs from the target language, and the discourse factor is stronger than animacy. Taken together, the findings suggest that a multi-faceted approach to SLA provides a broader perspective on SLA research and leads to a deeper understanding of SLA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effects of teachers' language use-first language Korean (L1) or second language English (L2)-on the vocabulary acquisition and retention of two age groups: elementary school children after only a few years of English study ( n = 443) and adults at university with demonstrably higher levels of proficiency ( n = 286). Its context is the frequent recommendation by policy makers that L2 teachers should maximize the use of the target language and do so from the very beginning of instruction. We focused on the effects of language use on vocabulary learning because vocabulary teaching frequently involves L1 use even in an otherwise L2 communicative classroom. Our findings suggest that both age groups benefit from links being made with the L1, but that young learners benefit more and that differences in L2 proficiency levels, which often accompany age differences of L2 instructed learners, are a possible contributing, though not a deciding, factor in this conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a self-paced reading task, this study examines whether second language (L2) learners are flexible enough to learn L2 parsing strategies that are not useful in their first language (L1). Native Korean-speaking learners of English were compared with native English speakers on resolving a temporary ambiguity about the relationship between a verb and the noun following it (e.g., The student read [that] the article . . .). Consistent with previous studies, native English reading times showed the usual interaction between the optional complementizer that and the particular verb's bias about the structures that can follow it. Lower proficiency L1-Korean learners of L2-English did not show a similar interaction, but higher proficiency learners did. Thus, despite native language word order differences (English: SVO; Korean: SOV) that determine the availability of verbs early enough in sentences to generate predictions about upcoming sentence structure, higher proficiency L1-Korean learners were able to learn to optimally combine verb bias and complementizer cues on-line during sentence comprehension just as native English speakers did, while lower proficiency learners had not yet learned to do so. Optimal interactive cue combination during L2 sentence comprehension can probably be achieved only after sufficient experience with the target language. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: The link between language and false belief (FB) understanding has been the focus of considerable debate regarding which language component (semantics, general language, or complementation) is necessary for FB development. We examined the relative roles of complementation and receptive vocabulary in FB development in Korean-speaking and English-speaking children. FB understanding, memory for complements involving the verbs think, say and want, and receptive vocabulary were measured at three time points in 59 Korean-speaking children and 72 English-speaking children. A multi-level growth model indicated that the development of receptive vocabulary and separately the development of think understanding uniquely predicted the development of FB understanding. Neither say nor want was associated with FB understanding. The same pattern was found for Korean- and English-speaking children. The results provide evidence for the role of general language in FB understanding and against the unique role of sentential complementation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We examined the extent to which word characteristics (i.e., differences in orthographic transparency among words) and child characteristics (i.e., emergent literacy skills) explain variation in children''s spelling, using data from young Korean children (N =168). We compared predicted probabilities of various types of words (e.g., transparent vs. two types of opaque words) in spelling at various levels of child''s latent ability in emergent literacy skills. While approximately 60% of total variance in spelling was attributable to differences due to child characteristics, a substantial amount, approximately 40%, was due to differences among words. In addition, inclusion of language and print-related emergent literacy skills reduced about 35 to 57% of variance that is attributable to differences among children. Inclusion of word types (i.e., transparent vs. opaque words) explained more than 50% of variance attributable due to differences among words. These results suggest that orthographic depth in words is one aspect to take into consideration for spelling acquisition. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This study investigates the impact of language on students’ learning of mathematics. A comparison has been made between English and Korean speaking university students’ discourses on infinity. In Korean, unlike in English, there is a disconnection between colloquial and mathematical discourses on infinity, in that the mathematical word for infinity is not a formalized version of a colloquial word but a novel sound, inspired by a Chinese term for infinity. This difference was expected to be paralleled by certain dissimilarity between the ways the discourses of the two groups developed toward the mathematical discourse on infinity. Data with the help of which we intended to test this hypothesis were collected through surveys and interviews. A total of 132 English speakers and 126 Korean speakers participated in the survey and then twenty paired representatives were selected from each group for follow-up interviews. It was found that in spite of the comparable levels of mathematical performance, there was, indeed, a visible dissimilarity between mathematical discourses on infinity of Korean- and English-speaking students. In general, whereas no group could pride itself on a well-developed mathematical discourse on infinity, the mathematical discourse of the English speakers, just like their colloquial discourse, was predominantly processual, whereas the Korean-speaking students’ talk on infinity was more structural and, in an admittedly superficial way, closer to the formal mathematical discourse. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the acquisition of non-contrastive phonetic details of a second language. Reduced vowels in English are realized as a schwa or barred- i depending on their phonological contexts, but Korean has no reduced vowels. Two groups of Korean learners of English who differed according to the experience of residence in English-speaking countries and a group of English native speakers were asked to produce English reduced vowels in word-initial, word-internal and word-final positions. The mean duration ratios, and the mean values and distribution patterns of F1/F2 of the reduced vowels were compared between the three groups, which revealed that Korean learners without residence experience tended to produce each variant of English reduced vowels as the corresponding full vowels, whereas those with experience displayed similar patterns to the natives. The present results suggest that it is possible for second language (L2) learners to learn the statistical properties in L2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates variation in article use by Korean secondary school students of English. The study shows how two different tasks affect variation with respect to article types (a, the, and zero), proficiency level and the semantic feature, specificity. One task, a wide domain task, focused on grammar in general and the narrow domain task focused on articles. The statistical results showed that the subjects performed significantly better on the narrow domain task than on the wide domain task. The subjects showed significant differences among the three articles in the wide domain task, while they did not in the narrow domain task. The subjects performed significantly better with non-specific DPs (Determiner Phrases) than with specific DPs in the wide domain task, but reversed results were revealed in the narrow domain task. The present study presents some finding that grammatical domain plays a role as a variable for variability and shows that different tasks on the same research topic may produce different findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A continuing challenge for English educators and policy makers in Korea is how to provide the right amount of good English education in an effective and efficient way, to help achieve the needed level of English communication skills. No efforts would turn out successful if the amount and the quality of public English education did not meet people's expectations. In order to plan and implement successful English education policies, it is necessary to figure out what kind of English education and how much of it are needed for Korean people. The current study aims to investigate what levels of English speaking proficiency Korean people perceive they need. The study first reviews some widely-used international English oral proficiency standards, then, compares those with the level descriptions of the Korea's national curriculum of English. To gather information on the current level of English speaking proficiency, and the expected level of English speaking proficiency, 356 teachers (123 elementary school, 114 middle school, 119 high school), 696 students (179 elementary school, 222 middle school, 295 high school), and 650 parents (164 elementary, 212 middle school, 274 high school) from all the 16 district education authorities, were surveyed and interviewed. The results are presented with the discussion of the future directions of English education in Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to investigate characteristics of English summary skills of Korean college freshmen. To achieve this aim, 120 English summary writings were collected from an English diagnostic test for college freshmen. Two texts with different features were used for the test. Text A is a persuasive essay with a problem/solution structure, and Text B is an expository essay with a collective structure. Fifty-three students summarized Text A and the others Text B. For each of the text groups, students were classified into two groups by their summary level. In the analysis of the writings considering the genre of the original text, organization, and adherence to summarization rules, it was found that the learners summarized the persuasive essay better than the expository essay. The high-ability group used various transition words and followed the structure of the original text when they organized their writings. As for summarization rules such as invention, selection, and paraphrasing, Text A group did not show any difference in their creation skill of topic sentence between the high- and low-ability group. On the other hand, the high-ability group that read Text B was better at creating general sentences than the low group. There was not a significant difference between the high- and low-ability groups in their paraphrasing skills, Text A group in general performing better than Text B group. Further suggestions and pedagogical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper was to examine the knowledge of Korean students about English relative clauses in both contextualized and decontextualized situations. To this end, a study was conducted in which fifty college students of EFL participated as subjects, and data were collected by means of three methods: elicited imitation task, composition and conversation. The findings of the study indicated that subjects' performance on comprehension and production tasks was affected by grammatical positions on which relativization occurs in relative clause. It was also shown that their performance was influenced by position of head noun in matrix clause that relative clause modifies. Based on the results of the study, two sets of ordering (i.e., the accuracy order of comprehension and the frequency order of production) in which a variety of types of relative clauses were understood and used in contextualized and decontextualized situations were offered to describe and explain the Korean learners' performance on L2 relative clauses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to evaluate the practicality and reliability of the selection of derivational forms in Korean National Curriculum of English and examines the effect of the derivational regulation on government-authorized English textbooks used in middle and high school. The current National Curriculum issued the guideline for vocabulary use and selection in the textbooks and regulated derived words with Ii affixes not counted as new words (Chang, 2007). For the research, suffixed word list was developed based on high frequency 14,000 word families in BNC (Nation, 2004) and it was loaded onto the RANGE (Heatley & Nation, 2002). By using the developed suffix analysis tool, 28 newly revised textbooks from middle and high school curriculum were analyzed and three corpora including Brown Corpus, Open American National Corpus (OANC), and L2 corpus were investigated to suggest improved regulation of derivational forms. As a result, the guideline for the derivational regulation in the Curriculum is found to require more consistent research. For the purpose, four levels of graded suffixes were suggested for the future English curriculum revision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to provide guiding principles for English language teacher evaluation through the review of recent accounts of research and practice. Teacher effectiveness needs to be contextually defined and measured. It is suggested that education providers need to work with all stakeholders in their systems both to define criteria for effective teaching and the means by which it may be assessed. As teacher evaluation is multifaceted, a range of data needs to be collected encompassing the views of all the stakeholders as well as the reflections of teachers themselves. Teacher evaluation should not be regarded as a summative product, the result of single evaluation measures conducted upon teachers, but should be thought of as a formative process in which teachers are actively engaged. Regarding evaluator training, it should not be assumed that those charged with evaluating teachers are, because of their positions, adequately trained to perform the evaluations. Evaluator training should be carried out before any evaluation is conducted under a new system. In order for the evaluation system to be meaningful and contribute to improvements in the education system as a whole, it should be seen primarily as a means of professional development for teachers as well as for anyone else involved in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effects of time constraints on writing performance of Korean college students by comparing the overall quality of two types of writing samples-the term paper with a 5-week time allowance and the in-class timed essay with 30-minute time constraints. Thirty-nine college students majoring in English language education participated in the study, and their compositions were compared in terms of 5 criteria. To ensure the compatibility of the two different types of tasks, two textbook passages whose topic was similar to each other were presented to the students. The writing task in both conditions was to build a lesson plan in an essay format explicitly detailing the rationale for each activity. The t-test results suggest a meaningful difference in the areas of content, language use, and mechanics; but not in organization and vocabulary. The results indicate that there are limitations on measuring students' writing ability under timed conditions, which was also validated by survey responses collected at the end of the experiment. Implications for writing assessment are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the perceptual learning style, ideal L2 self, and motivated L2 behavior of Chinese, Japanese, South Korean, and Swedish high school students. Guided by Dömyei's (2005, 2009a) L2 motivational self-system, this quantitative study extends Al-Shehri's (2009) and Tae-Young Kim's (2009a) research by reinterpreting the role of perceptual learning styles in the creation of learners' ideal L2 self and the maintenance of their motivated L2 behavior. The statistical analysis found that learners' perceptual learning styles (i.e., visual, auditory, and kinesthetic styles) were significantly correlated with their ideal L2 self and motivated L2 behavior. However, the results of the regression analysis indicate that none of three perceptual learning styles were meaningful predictors of motivated L2 behavior. Instead, only ideal L2 self were found to be meaningful predictors of their motivated L2 behavior. The ANOVA results indicate that although the Chinese students were more likely to show motivated L2 behavior than the other students, they showed a significantly lower level of the ideal L2 self than the Swedish students. By focusing on the relationship between learners' perceptual learning styles and motivated L2 behavior based on the L2 motivational self-system, this study provides evidence that the creation of ideal L2 selves plays a pivotal role in sustaining motivated L2 behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study is to report and share a reflection on using the ETS Criterion online writing evaluation system in a university setting and evaluate if this system can be a suitable teaching/learning tool for English language learners (ELLs) in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context to facilitate their writing ability. Participants were given a writing prompt to write about in class and entered their writing into the Criterion system to receive feedback. Both quantitative and interpretive analyses were conducted for 129 student writing samples and Trait Feedback Analysis reports. The study revealed that the sentence-level feedback appears to be in urgent need for EFL writers, but Criterion did not provide this kind of feedback. Errors in such aspects as basic sentence structures, subject-verb relationship, awkward meaning construction, and formulaic expressions could not be treated by Criterion at all. In addition, the comparison of teacher feedback and Criterion feedback were discussed in details. This study alerts users to contemplate before use what the purpose of using Criterion is, whether for diagnosis of writing proficiency or as a teaching/learning tool for developing students' writing ability. Plus, educators should be aware of on which language aspects and features EFL writers necessitate feedback to facilitate their writing development, different from first language (L1) writers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]