Korean Language Learners Research Articles

Does the attractiveness of K‐culture shape the enjoyment of foreign language learners of Korean?

AbstractAttraction to the target culture can be a reason to study the language, especially in the case of languages other than English (LOTEs). Recently, the number of Korean language learners has surged alongside the growing popularity of Korean pop culture (K‐pop). However, it is unknown whether the initial attraction to the culture and the first steps in that direction shape foreign language (FL) emotions in the longer term. To fill this gap, this mixed‐methods study examined to what extent the attractiveness of the Korean Culture (K‐culture) predicts foreign language enjoyment (FLE) after controlling for other established learner variables (i.e., the length of FL study, FL proficiency, frequency of FL use outside of class, and attitudes toward the teacher and FL) through sequential regression analysis. The quantitative findings are complemented by the open‐ended responses to the sources of FLE using the American Council on Teaching of Foreign Languages 3Ps framework (products, practices, and perspectives) through NVivo. A total of 782 university students studying Korean as FL completed an online survey on the attractiveness of K‐culture and FLE. The results showed that the attitude toward the teacher and attractiveness of K‐culture are the strongest predictors of FLE.

TYPES AND FEATURES OF PRONOUNS IN THE KOREAN LANGUAGE

This article aims to highlight the pronouns of the Korean language and their distinctive features. In Korean, pronouns are used to indicate clarity and to indicate a person. The uniqueness of this language is that the use of pronouns varies depending on the social status and the level of respect in the sentence. The article also provides information about the grammatical functions of Korean pronouns, their place in a sentence and changes in content. This article serves as a useful resource for Korean language learners on how to use pronouns correctly and effectively.

Analysis of Sub-components and Correlations of Academic Self-Efficacy among Korean Language Learners

Analysis of Sub-components and Correlations of Academic Self-Efficacy among Korean Language Learners

A Comparative Study of Error Correction Patterns between Large Language Models and Native Speakers for Korean Language Learners

A Comparative Study of Error Correction Patterns between Large Language Models and Native Speakers for Korean Language Learners

이공계 고급인재 유학생의 한국어 학습의 필요성에 대한 고찰

[Purpose] Increasing population movements between countries have made the challenges of cultural diversity and multicultural coexistence a major social issue. This study examined the satisfaction of highly talented international students in Korea and some of the difficulties they face in the adaptation process. [Methods] This study explored the experiences of high-performing international students at a South Korean university, specifically examining differences in satisfaction between the students that learned some Korean and those that did not. A t-test analysis of survey responses from 852 students revealed some significant disparities between the two groups. [Results] While both groups reported similar levels of satisfaction with the academic and administrative aspects of university life, the members of the Korean-learning group exhibited significantly higher satisfaction and far fewer difficulties in their personal lives than the non-learning group. Specifically, Korean learners cited higher levels of satisfaction with regards to health, safety, and daily life in general, and less difficulty in adapting to life in Korea. [Conclusion] These findings highlight the importance of language proficiency in fostering successful adaptation and facilitating greater understanding, empathy, and adaptability among international students. Ultimately, the results of the study suggest that language acquisition can contribute to more harmonious and inclusive multiculturalism in the host society, and in Korea this carries implications for the importance of supporting Korean language learning among international students and other foreign residents.

Developing Tasks for Real-Life Kiosk Transactions for Elementary Korean Learners

ABSTRACT This study proposes a task-based teaching approach to assist Korean language learners in effectively navigating kiosk interactions. With the growing expansion of non-face-to-face transactions, particularly driven by development in the service industry and the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a remarkable surge in kiosk installations worldwide. This study analyzed the language commonly used in kiosk settings and introducing tailored teaching methods and materials for beginner and intermediate Korean learners. The study comprises two main parts: data analysis and the proposal of teaching content. The data analysis section examines how the task of “ordering” is presented in Korean language textbooks and refines corpus data sourced by the National Institute of Korean Language (2022). Specifically, the study analyzes kiosk language, identifying lexical morphemes (nouns, verbs, and adjectives), significant collocations, verb endings, and dependent nouns based on frequency. In the teaching content section, the study presents educational materials grounded in task-based teaching to facilitate direct engagement with kiosks for practicing ordering food and beverages in authentic scenarios. The significance of this study lies in its exploration of pervasive kiosk-related issues in Korea, providing learners with practical language skills essential for navigating modern society.

Study on the Correlation between Perception of Korea, Korean Language, and Korean Culture and Korean Classes Satisfaction: Focusing on Koryoin Korean Language Learners Living in Korea

Study on the Correlation between Perception of Korea, Korean Language, and Korean Culture and Korean Classes Satisfaction: Focusing on Koryoin Korean Language Learners Living in Korea

Analyzing the Essay Writing Patterns of Iranian Intermediate-Level Korean Language Learners: A Study Based on the TOPIK Exam

Analyzing the Essay Writing Patterns of Iranian Intermediate-Level Korean Language Learners: A Study Based on the TOPIK Exam

Study on classroom anxiety, self-efficacy, and their relationship among chinese korean language learners

Study on classroom anxiety, self-efficacy, and their relationship among chinese korean language learners

쓰기 과제 수행에서 국내외 한국어 학습자의 온라인 도구 사용 현황 연구 -기계번역과 생성형 AI를 중심으로-

This study investigated the perceptions and utilization of online tools in writing by Korean language learners. A survey questionnaire was distributed, asking learners about their attitudes towards writing, the online tools they use, their purposes for using these tools, and their satisfaction levels. The survey received 100 responses, with 50 learners studying in Korea and 50 studying in the US. The results indicated that the Korean language learners primarily use machine translators to look up the words and expressions. While there were no statistically significant differences between the student groups studying in Korea and the US, students in the US reported higher satisfaction levels with tool accessibility. Additionally, learners who were more open to trying new technologies were more satisfied with using online tools in their writing. Lastly, satisfaction levels in using machine translators or generative AIs did not show statistically significant differences between the student groups, but students in the US expressed a higher willingness to continue using these tools. This study contributes to the field by analyzing learners’ use of online tools and highlighting the growing need to integrate these tools in future classrooms.

외국인 한국어 학습자를 위한 한국 역사 영상 콘텐츠 문법 연구

This study proposes an approach to engaging foreign learners of Korean with Korean history, which can be somewhat heavy and challenging, by treating it as 'history consumption.' To provide learning materials that aid foreign learners of Korean in watching Korean historical video content, the study compiled a corpus of dialogues from a total of 44 Korean historical video works available on Netflix. The study pointed out that existing history textbooks for foreigners are not suitable for foreign learners of Korean and highlighted the issue that it increases the burden on instructors to thoroughly teach both Korean culture and history in actual Korean language learning settings. As an alternative, the study proposed the use of Korean historical video content and, based on previous research showing that watching videos with subtitles in the target language enhances learning effectiveness, organized frequently occurring grammar items in Korean historical video content by frequency, usage by social status, and usage by gender to assist learning.

Affordances, challenges, and possibilities of Hallyu in the classroom: Korean language instructors’ perspectives

ABSTRACT The intense popularity of Korean pop culture, known as Hallyu, which has increased interest in Korean language learning, is just one example of a pop-culture-driven globalising language. In the wake of such globalisation, language instructors must be responsive to the evolving needs of their learners, but few studies address how language instructors respond to such changes. Through a qualitative, thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with six language instructors of Korean, this study investigates how the globalisation of Korean media and cultural products has impacted these language instructors’ teaching contexts as well as their responses to these changes. While Hallyu can serve as a motivational tool in the classroom, instructor perspectives underscore challenges in incorporating such content. Specifically, concerns about cultural and linguistic authenticity and tensions between heritage and non-heritage learners in relation to Hallyu’s impact on the language classroom emerged from the data. We draw on these findings to put forth actionable recommendations and strategies that address prevalent pedagogical issues of fostering engaging, effective, and inclusive language instruction.

대조언어학적 관점을 통한 베트남어권 한국어 학습자를 위한 비음화 오류양상 고찰과 시사점

Objectives The purpose of this study is to obtain educational implications by examining the patterns of nasalization errors (correct and incorrect answers) that appear in each environment among Vietnamese Korean language learners. Methods In order to proceed with this discussion, we first reviewed previous research and theoretical background, and then established standards to analyze the nasalization error rate by environment. After that, from January 30, 2023 to January 30, 2024, in Korea, 19 to 30-year-olds After a basic survey, 15 Vietnamese Korean language learners (5 men and 10 women each) met 1:1 via Zoom and were asked to utter pre-prepared words related to nasal pronunciation. Then, by determining whether the answer was incorrect or correct, more detailed error types and their characteristics according to the overall results and characteristics of each environment were extracted. Results As a result of the analysis, through a review of previous research related to contrastive linguistics, it was possible to understand the fundamental cause of nasalization through differences in syllable structure between the two languages, and through a basic survey, despite the high demand for nasalization education, there was no awareness due to lack of educational experience. I could see that it was lacking. In addition, the results of error patterns by environment showed that the highest rate was in the case of ‘nasalization after adding ‘ㄴ’ or ‘nasalization after consonant group simplification.’ It was found that this was caused by a lack of awareness of nasalization by environment among the nasalization rules of Korean, the standard language. In addition, the higher error rate at ‘word boundaries’ rather than ‘word interior’ showed that nasalization education should be done ‘by phrase’. Lastly, as a result of examining error patterns by region, grade, and gender in an environment that previously showed a high error rate, all grades showed similar difficulties in pronunciation of bar consonants, but by region, it was more common in the south than in the north and central regions, and by gender, more than in women. A high error rate was observed in men. Conclusions In this way, this study identified the actual status of nasalization errors (total error rate by environment and error rate by word interior/boundary) of Vietnamese learners in more diverse environments and, unlike existing previous studies, provided basic data and implications for preparing educational measures. It was a meaningful study in that it was able to obtain results.

AI 기반 피드백의 교육적 활용 가능성 탐색

This study examines the potential of utilizing natural language processing technology to provide objective and efficient feedback in Korean language classrooms through an automated feedback system. To validate the effectiveness of AI-based automated feedback, the study compared corrections made by human annotators with those generated by the AI model, GPT4, using a corpus of beginner Korean language learners. The results indicated high concordance rates between human and GPT4 corrections, with Level 1 accuracy at 85.71% and Level 2 accuracy at 84.07%. Corrections primarily focused on grammatical corrections, averaging 61%, while lexical corrections comprised about 39%. Corrections across various parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, and adjectives, were performed at similar rates by both humans and GPT4. However, GPT4 showed limitations in appropriately correcting errors that required contextual understanding. Despite these limitations, the AI-based feedback system can be an effective supplementary tool in educational settings. Teachers can reduce their workload and focus more on content and structural feedback, while learners benefit from real-time, personalized feedback that encourages self-review and improves language proficiency. This study underscores the importance of AI-based educational tools and emphasizes the need for an integrated approach involving teacher collaboration to continually enhance the AI-based feedback system.

한국어 초급 학습자의 한국어 듣기 불안 분석

한국어 초급 학습자의 한국어 듣기 불안 분석

머신러닝과 딥러닝 언어모델을 활용한 한국어 학습자 작문의 주제 자동 분류 연구

The purpose of this study is to explore the possibility of automatically classifying the topics of Korean language learners’ writings using machine learning and deep learning. The Random Forest model, serving as a baseline, achieved an accuracy of 96.5%. In contrast, compared to the baseline, the deep learning model KoBERT showed lower accuracy at 64.25%, while KoELECTRA slightly outperformed the baseline with 97.25% accuracy. When comparing the topic prediction results of the three models, KoBERT demonstrated prediction outcomes that deviated from human intuition, failing to accurately predict topics that were correctly identified by the other two models, as evidenced by its low accuracy. The Random Forest and KoELECTRA exhibited similar tendencies in terms of error patterns, with no significant difference in performance between the two algorithms. Common prediction errors across the three algorithms included difficulties in classifying writings that used general vocabulary instead of topic-specific terms. Additionally, the models often failed to predict the topic accurately when the content included vocabulary related to other topics. To improve performance, a detailed analysis of various writing genres and continuous experimentation using new data and methodologies are necessary

한국어 교사, 한국어 학습자, 한국인 모어 화자의 단어 연상 의미 관계 비교 연구

Objectives This study investigates the semantic relations of associated words between Korean language teachers, Korean language learners and Korean native speakers through word association test. Methods This word association task was conducted with 3 subject groups. They were given 10 stimulus words which were derived from the novice level in Korean language text books, then they were asked to associate and write 3 associative words to 10 stimulus words. Results This study reveals three important results. First, Korean native speakers’ group showed the most associated words among the 3 groups. Second, Korean language teachers’ group showed the least number of associative words. Third, Korean language learnes’ group and Korean teachers’ group had the the most common associated words. Conclusions The result that Korean teachers’ group showed that least number of assciated words suggests that the diversity of associative words may have emerged due to occupational influences but it also means that the trained teachers focused on the language learners’ proficiency and associated the words which they use in teaching or from textbooks. Second, whereas the associative words of native Koreans are very authentic and various, other two groups’ associative words seemed more focused on the vocabulary in the textbook so they had more associated words in common. Therefore, in order to teach and use the authentic Korean words to foreign Korean language learners, we may utilize the word association test to find and develop more ways to use the authentic words which are frequently used in each field.

베트남 대학 한국어 전공 학습자의 기계번역 포스트에디팅 양상 연구

Objectives This study aims to investigate the modification patterns of post-editing(PE) in Vietnamese-to-Korean machine translation(MT) by Korean language learners at Vietnamese universities. Methods Twenty-five Korean majors at Vietnamese universities performed PE on a Vietnamese text and recorded their reasons for modifications. The 192 modifications made by the learners were analyzed based on eight error categories to identify their error recognition and correction intention. Results The results revealed that learners prioritized correcting semantic errors over morphological errors in the machine-translated texts and among semantic errors, attempts to correct clarity errors were the most common. However, some corrections deviated from the intended meaning, or introduced new errors during the correction process. Conclusions This suggests that learners need education to consider various aspects beyond simply replacing awkward or incorrect expressions when recognizing and correcting errors. Furthermore, machine translation er-rors frequently necessitate more comprehensive revisions than merely addressing individual aspects. Therefore, it is necessary to provide detailed and step-by-step education by providing post-editing guidelines so that learn-ers can improve by considering various aspects.

루마니아 내 한국학 교육에서의 북한학

Interest in Korean studies in Romania is gradually increasing. This is largely due to the heightened national status associated with the rapid growth of the Korean economy and the Korean Wave, which has rich and high-quality cultural contents. With this trend, Korean studies in Romania have created a large demand for education within a short period of time and are accumulating various research achievements. At this point, a more strategic attitude and effort are required to find long-term and stable growth engines for Korean studies. In addition to the development of human resources, which have played a central role in Korean studies education, communication from various perspectives for Korean studies research must be achieved. For the desirable development of Korean studies in Romania, where language education is the center, it seems that much discussion will be needed on what kind of educational contents are required and how these should be prepared and delivered to learners. The way to continue to raise the awareness of Korean studies, which has been heightened by the Korean Wave, is to operate Korean studies with rich educational contents. From this perspective, providing education on North Korean studies, especially their history, is considered necessary to build more diverse educational contents. The need for history education has been emphasized for overseas Korean language learners, but in fact, education about the history of North Korea, which is part of the Korean studies, has been taboo. We need to approach history more freely from ideological views and prejudices and instill in students a correct understanding of history. This is believed to be one of many problems that must be resolved for the development of Korean studies education.

Language for success: enhancing Chinese students’ careers through Korean language learning

Language for success: enhancing Chinese students’ careers through Korean language learning