Among various factors which determine speaking ability of Korean language learners, this study focuses on the ‘topic’. Higher interest on a topic drives stronger motives and this determines a success in studying. Therefore, Korean language learner...
Among various factors which determine speaking ability of Korean language learners, this study focuses on the ‘topic’. Higher interest on a topic drives stronger motives and this determines a success in studying. Therefore, Korean language learners’interest on topic will affect their Korean speaking ability and it will be a key factor which makes variability in learner language. Expecting that Korean speaking proficiency will affect on Korean speaking ability, this study will compare and analyze the general speaking ability while considering accuracy and fluency of speaking and aims to attribute to the Korean speaking teaching in the future.
This study consists of five chapters. The Chapter I is about the necessity and the purpose of this study. Study on the speaking topic is imperative because studies on topics in the field of Korean speaking are deficient and moreover, studies in the past mostly focused on the task-induced variation. Also, it is emphasized that the purpose of this study is to find out the relationship between learners’ interests on the topic and their speaking ability. In this regard, precedent cases in the field of Korean language teaching and English language teaching are examined thoroughly.
In the Chapter II, variation of interlanguage during second language acquisition is studied as a theoretical basis of this study. Among concepts and classifications of variation by Tarone(1988) and Ellis(1994), variation depending on topics is mainly focused and is related to this study. Moreover, as measuring speaking ability is imperative to prove this study’s hypothesis, theoretical studies are examined to discuss about the conceptand definition of speaking ability and a definition of accuracy and fluency in this study is suggested. In addition to this, standard of examining speaking ability is also mentioned.
In the Chapter III, participants, procedure of experiment, method of experiment and analysis are described. Thirty people, who are higher than intermediate level and able to communicate freely, participate in the experiment. To examine variation of fluency, examination of fluency was done and according to the result, thirty people were divided into two groups. Learners choose their interesting topics by survey and locutionary data were collected by interviews. Also, standard of speaking was suggested which is based on theoretical studies and accuracy and fluency were decided according to frequency.
In the Chapter IV, the result of experiment is statistically analyzed to prove the hypothesis of this study. The diverse variation of learner’s language is also analyzed in this study. It is concluded that accuracy is low when learners speak about their interesting topics comparing to non-interesting topics. The reason is that their motive of speaking is low and lack of speaking contents rather than they focus more when they speak about non-interesting topics. Fluency is examined into three categories according to its sub-categories: obstruction factors, procuration factors, communication strategies. Both obstruction factors and procuration factors are affected by learners’ interests on topics. When they have high interest on topic, their fluency is also high. However, procuration factors shows relationship between subject and proficiency while obstruction factors does not have such interaction. Communication strategies are more frequently used according to their interests on the topics. It is considered fluent not only because learners use communication strategies frequently, but also they have a management skill to use strategy appropriately.
Finally, in the Chapter V, result and meaning of this study is concluded. In addition to this, limit of this study is mentioned and proposals for follow-up studies are added.
Through the study, relationship between topic and speaking ability is objectively proved. Most of all, it is noticeable that the study is done within a communicative conversation which is similar to reality as learners choose their interesting and non-interesting topics by themselves. This study assures again the necessity of interacting learners’ interest into study to make learning second language process active and subjective.