Effects of the use of lexical chunks on practical English proficiency

김낙복 한국영어어문교육학회 2019 영어어문교육 Vol.25 No.1

The present case study explored the effects of utilizing lexical chunks in individualized coaching on university students’ practical English proficiency. Four participants took “Practicum for Practical English”, a weekly English elective in the Spring of 2018. Research data consisted of TOEIC tests, open-ended questionnaires, activity logs, self-reflections, and one-on-one interviews. To identify the impact on the students’ learning, coaching focused on windowing and shadowing. The qualitative case study method was utilized. The findings suggest that the two coaching strategies had a positive influence on students’ reading and listening progress, empowering students’ attitudes towards a practical English test, expressing greater autonomy related to self-improvement, building confidence, and facilitating a high willingness to communicate. Students, regardless of level, benefit the most when the teacher provides useful models of language phenomenon such as chunking, windowing, and shadowing. Autonomous learning through appropriate coaching demonstrated a wide range of applicable implementations. The implications for English education are that through this method, students become more self-reliant language learners and improve their ability to set customized learning goals. Furthermore, the teacher’s role and autonomous learning aspects are discussed for further research.

Effective Free-Talking Methods in a Korean University Setting

김낙복,Brent Dirks 현대영어교육학회 2011 현대영어교육 Vol.12 No.4

The current study explores the phenomenon of free-talking and seeks ways to improve students’ speaking abilities through the free-talking program at a specific university in Korea. The participants of this study are 66 university students and 21 international professors (IPs). Data analysis is conducted through questionnaires, interviews, and free-talking sessions. While observing students during weekly, thirty-minute free-talking sessions this study examines ways to improve free-talking by using chunks and chunking, shadowing and windowing,three methods based on the Lexical Approach. Overall the results show that these methods have a positive effect on students' free-talking skills by giving them more confidence about using longer sentences. Intentionally practicing chunkbased conversation with an IP gradually helps students to improve their English-communication ability. Students’ interview results demonstrate that fr ee-talking through these three methods enables them to express themselves more effectively. Students, regardless of their level, benefit the most when IPs provide useful models of how to carry on a conversation and adjust the level according to students’ abilities. IPs can tutor students more effectively by giving them appropriate feedback through research-based strategies, whic h requires them to be ready when students visit their offices. Finally a few practical applications are suggested in conjunction with the three lexical me thods for activating free-talking.

A Comparative Analysis of Public Speaking Anxiety Among Three Different Nationalities

김낙복 현대영어교육학회 2017 현대영어교육 Vol.18 No.2

The purpose of this paper was to comparatively analyze public speaking anxiety (PSA) as observed in a Public Speaking (PS) course at an American university. A PSA survey was conducted, targeting 23 college students enrolled in a speech course. For the utilization of the PSA survey, in-depth interviews were conducted with five students of different nationalities who had excessive public-speaking anxiety. Also, descriptive statistics were done with the collected samples using SPSS 14.0 for PSA analysis. The results were as follows. First, on the PSA pre-test, participants felt more nervous, having a comparatively higher PSA level, reticence to speak in public, and experiencing pre-speech anxiety. As time went by, students felt less nervous. Especially, Chinese and Korean students felt more nervous before giving speeches, whereas American students felt more nervous when delivering the actual speech. Secondly, regardless of gender, Chinese and Korean students were more anxious than American students and focused more on linguistic and verbal communication skills, while American students tended to focus on non-verbal communication skills. Furthermore, in overcoming PSA, Chinese and Korean students memorized the content and looked at the front row, whereas American students utilized the key words and delivery outline, and made eye contact with each person in class. These findings demonstrate an imperative need to develop applicable strategies for PS in the EFL context.

Korean students’ perceptions of free-talking and international professors’ role recognition

김낙복 한국영어어문교육학회 2011 영어어문교육 Vol.17 No.3

Free-talking in Korea has recently been emphasized as a way of improving students’ speaking ability outside of the classroom. The purpose of this study is to examine perceptions of free-talking, to understand what type of roles were played by or allotted between Korean students and international professors (IPs) and to look for effective speaking strategies for utilizing free-talking. Participants of this study were 68 university students and 23 IPs. The data collected through a survey type of questionnaire were analyzed by this researcher and the main findings indicate that students and IPs have somewhat different viewpoints about their concepts of free-talking. Students expressed varying viewpoints depending on their experience and class (year). In terms of the benefits, usefulness, and satisfaction of free-talking, students and IPs seem to be in more agreement with each other although the two groups have conflicting perceptions in the particular operation of free-talking, especially in terms of preparation and feedback. Students stated that they feel anxious, nervous, and that they struggle with peer pressure while free-talking. However, they feel that through free-talking they build up confidence and increase their speaking ability. Regarding roles, most professors play a helpful role as a guide or facilitator while students want professors to provide more suitable materials and to tutor them by means of appropriate feedback and strategies as well-prepared teachers like a prompter, participant or tutor in the timely manner. Finally, this paper proffers a few practical suggestions for activating free-talking and a discussion of the pedagogical implications.

Effects of Free-talking Sessions on EFL University Students’ Attitudes and Speaking Progress

김낙복 현대영어교육학회 2016 현대영어교육 Vol.17 No.2

The present study explored the effects of free-talking sessions (FTSs) in an English Café on Korean university students’ reflective progress and affective attitudes toward English speaking. Participants were four groups of two to three students who took Practical English II, a required freshman English conversation class once a week in the fall of 2015. Data consisted of open-ended questionnaires, interviews, free-talking activity logs and self-reports from nine students, a questionnaire survey and direct one-on-one interviews with six international professors (IPs) who participated in FTSs. To identify the impact of a Korean professor (KP)’s teaching methodology, the researcher utilized three speaking enhancement techniques in regular classes. Qualitative case study methodology was utilized. The findings suggest that the KP’s and IPs’ Positive Feedback Loop teaching methodology had a positive influence on improving students’ basic speaking progress, empowering students’ self-assessed attitudes towards English speaking and reducing their speaking anxiety, expressing appreciation for their involvement, building their gradual confidence and facilitating a high willingness to communicate in FTSs. IPs demonstrated some different applicable activities and suggestions in FTSs for more efficient administration, preferred semi-structured FTSs and proper time-management.

Improving Public Speaking:An English Speech Contest Case Study

김낙복 한국영어어문교육학회 2022 영어어문교육 Vol.28 No.1

This study explores how an English speech contest program integrates language learning over a 3-month non-regular course. Quantitative analyses were conducted, based on 5-minute video recordings of speeches with 6 participants for the final round of the speech contest program. Public Speaking (PS) courses were provided through the LMS and analyzed to identify speech improvement in various areas of public speaking anxiety (PSA) using a questionnaire, self-report, self-evaluation, and observation activity log. Based on the assessments noted above, the integration of language skills provides effective opportunities to speak. After taking a basic course and an in-depth coaching practicum, chunking-shadowing-windowing strategies had a positive effect on their PS skills strengthening their speaking progress. On the nonverbal side, students had a comparatively high level of PSA and did not feel engaged, or demonstrated a lack of confidence due to nonverbal communication skills they were unaccustomed to. However, participants felt less anxious, acquired the necessary techniques to boost confidence, and improved overall speech skills through participation in the program. Implications for better PS instruction and the importance of structured practice for speech preparation were suggested.

A Corpus-based Lexical Analysis of the Speech Texts: A Collocational Approach

김낙복 한국영어어문교육학회 2009 영어어문교육 Vol.15 No.3

Recently speech texts have been increasingly used for English education because of their various advantages as language teaching and learning materials. The purpose of this paper is to analyze speech texts in a corpus-based lexical approach, and suggest some productive methods which utilize English speaking or writing as the main resource for the course, along with introducing the actual classroom adaptations. First, this study shows that a speech corpus has some unique features such as different selections of pronouns, nouns, and lexical chunks in comparison to a general corpus. Next, from a collocational perspective, the study demonstrates that the speech corpus consists of a wide variety of collocations and lexical chunks which a number of linguists describe (Lewis, 1997; McCarthy, 1990; Willis, 1990). In other words, the speech corpus suggests that speech texts not only have considerable lexical potential that could be exploited to facilitate chunk-learning, but also that learners are not very likely to unlock this potential autonomously. Based on this result, teachers can develop a learners’ corpus and use it by chunking the speech text. This new approach of adapting speech samples as important materials for college students’ speaking or writing ability should be implemented as shown in samplers. Finally, to foster learner’s productive skills more communicatively, a few practical suggestions are made such as chunking and windowing chunks of speech and presentation, and the pedagogical implications are discussed.

Public Speaking Strategies for Improving English Speaking Skills in the EFL College Context

김낙복 한국영어어문교육학회 2018 영어어문교육 Vol.24 No.2

This paper aims to analyze the perceptions of Korean students’ public speaking anxiety (PSA) and suggest some applicable strategies for enhancing speaking skills in the EFL context. To do this, a survey on PSA was conducted, targeting 34 low-level students for G1 and 83 high-level students for G2 enrolled in an “English Conversation Class”. In-depth interviews were conducted with twelve students among enrolled students. Data was analyzed utilizing SPSS 22.0. The results were as follows. Students were more anxious in the pre-speech phase than during-speech phase. Overall, regardless of gender and English proficiency level, students feel nervous and anxious in PS. In addition, some effective and applicable strategies for improving English speaking skills were suggested; eliciting small group or individual students to speak freely in front of the class on certain familiar topics, a more relaxed environment ushered in by the instructor, evading a strong discouragement of mocking peers when they make mistakes, more opportunity to speak in front of students in building close rapport, and impromptu speech activities encouraging high-level students, and utilizing familiar chunks for speaking skills. Finally, implications for building up the value of speech communication skills were highly presented for better PS instruction.

Shadowing 훈련이 영어 듣기 능력과 전략 발달에 미치는 영향

김낙복(Kim, Nahk Bohk) 한국영어교과교육학회 2010 영어교과교육 Vol.9 No.3

Shadowing, repeating right after a native speaker speaks, is quite an intensive learning method where a learner listens and speaks at almost the exact same time. The purpose of this study is to identify how much effect the shadowing listening method has on listening ability and what effects it has on listening strategy development. The subjects were three female students with different English listening levels. Two experiments were basically conducted through ‘chunking’ and ‘shadowing’ in terms of amelioration of listening ability and listening strategy development. They were also given an open-ended questionnaire on the effectiveness of the study as well as observations and interviews. The tentative results were as follows: First, the high-level student performed the best, and mid and low-level students improved similarly on the actual TOEIC test. Second, in the first stage, three students had a hard time dividing the sense group in terms of chunking by slashing the appropriate chunks. Over time they became accustomed to grasping the meaning of the texts by the chunking method. It was especially difficult for the low-level student, but she eventually grasped the brand-new chunking method, though much more gradually. Finally, the study showed that the shadowing method had a positive influence on the enhancement of their listening ability and listening strategy development in interactive and dynamic activities such as confidence, concentration, chunking ability, pronunciation and even reading ability. The results suggest that researchers and teachers develop integrative methods and materials of the four skills, through doing research on chunking, windowing, shadowing and echoing in an integrated, students’ level-based fashion.

University Students Collocational Knowledge about Prepositions with Nouns in the EFL Context

김낙복(Nahk Bohk Kim) 한국영어어문교육학회 2016 영어어문교육 Vol.22 No.3

This paper reports on a case study that investigated Korean EFL university students knowledge about preposition collocations (PCs) and articulates effective methods for improving collocational knowledge for productive skills. Twenty university participants took a 75-item PCs test including three types of collocations in 2015: preposition + noun (PN), noun + preposition (NP), and preposition collocations in text (PCT). Firstly, descriptive statistics, and two-paired sample t-tests were conducted to analyze the data from the three PC subtests and questionnaires. The results indicate the general perceptions toward collocations are minimal. Students perceived the PC approach to be effective for enhancing their productive skills. Secondly, three types of PCs were statistically significant between pre- and post-test performance. Also students outperformed PN over NP, and PCT with the latter being the lowest. Students perceived NP collocations to be more complicated than PN collocations. L1 interference played a crucial role in students erroneous responses. Especially the percentage of errors in PCT was the highest. Overall students found it extremely difficult to choose the right preposition to collocate with nouns in spite of knowing the meaning of isolated nouns. Some effective methods for collocational knowledge were presented to help students improve their productive skills.