This study is to figure out which ability is required when Korean language learners perform academic activities in Korean oral language. In this study, the term 'academic oracy' is used to explain it. Also, the study intends to discover the factors wh...
This study is to figure out which ability is required when Korean language learners perform academic activities in Korean oral language. In this study, the term 'academic oracy' is used to explain it. Also, the study intends to discover the factors which determine the academic oracy of Korean language learners and understand their academic oracy by diagnosing and analyzing the academic oracy of real Korean language learners.
'Academic oracy', the theme of this study, is derived from 'Oracy' of Wilkinson(1965). And this study defines that as 'the ability of Korean language learners to perform academic dialogue using Korean in the context of doing academic activities'. 'Academic activity' means the dynamic behavior which the academic community members do to study and make praxis of the knowledge. This study considers the interactional talk among the academic community members as the important study method and the nature of study itself. Therefore, 'academic dialogue', the oral academic activity such as presentation, debate and discussion, question and answer, exploratory talk, plays very significant roles. I define the ability to perform the academic dialogue in Korean as the academic oracy that is needed to Korean language learners. In chapter Ⅱ, I founds this concept of academic oracy on the theoretical basis such as social constructivism, dialogic teaching theory, critical pedagogy and academic literacy.
In chapter Ⅲ, I explore which factors determine academic oracy. To begin with, 3 categories of the factor of determination are set up based on the conceptual definition of academic oracy: the cognition, the language, and the praxis. And then I forms a hypothesis by extracting factors from each category discussing theoretically. After that, the validity of the hypothesis is verified by the expert survey. And the hypothesis is adjusted to be more appropriate after the opinions of the experts. In this way, 'depth and quality of thinking' is set up for the cognition factor, 'ability of the academic oral communication' for the language factor and 'attitude of thinking and talking' for the praxis factor. Furthermore, one more factor namely, 'ability of the academic dialogue task performance' is added for real performance situation through the process of the adjustment. Finally, the factor of determination of academic oracy is categorized by 4 factors: Ability of the academic dialogue task performance, Ability of the academic oral communication, Depth and quality of thinking, Attitude of thinking and talking. Except for the ability of the academic dialogue task performance, each factor has subordinate factors. Oral delivery of the meaning, ability of using academic language and ability of making academic discourse are set up as the subordinate factors of academic oral communicative ability. Depth of thinking and quality of thinking are set under depth and quality of thinking and critical attitude, reflective attitude and interthinking attitude are also set under attitude of thinking and talking.
In chapter Ⅳ, the diagnosis and analysis of the academic oracy of real Korean language learners is done on the basis of the academic oracy theory established previously. The academic oracy levels of the learners was diagnosed by three assessors with expertise. According to the diagnosis result, learners are classified into high level, intermediate level and low level. It is analyzed to examine the nature of factors which determine the academic oracy in each level. As a result, a high level learner is great in almost factors despite showing a slight weakness in oral delivery of the meaning. The intermediate level learners are divided into the learners who have competitiveness in thinking and the learners who have competitiveness in language. While the former shows lack of ability for oral delivery of the meaning and gets an excellent result in thinking and attitude factor, the latter is appeared to be good at oral delivery of the meaning but poor at the factor of thinking and attitude. Lastly, low level learners lack in all factors, especially they show poor level in oral delivery of the meaning and it is so bad that they are not able to overcome their weakness in thinking and attitude factor unlike the intermediate level learners who have competitiveness in thinking.
The educational implication which is the result of analysis is as follows. First, the language focused education has to be realized for high level learners in order to develop the ability of using more elaborate academic language as these learners have strength in thinking and attitude factor. Second, it is necessary to educate intermediate level learners in accordance with various nature of learners as far as possible, and at the same time all the factors should be reflected evenly in content of education. Third, letting intermediate level learners as good examples, low level learners should put priority on developing thinking and attitude toward learning. Consequently, the language ability should be improved naturally in that process of development. On the basis of the implication, in chapter Ⅴ, the study indicates the subject and the purpose of academic oracy education and suggests the way to compose the content of education.
This study proposes new point of view with regard to academic Korean language ability by studying their academic activity, academic dialogue and academic oracy conceptually. The study also specifies the factors which determine academic oracy and converts them into more systematic theory. Furthermore, the study not only establishes theory but also balances theory with reality and reveals how the academic oracy theory can be applied to real context through analyzing academic oracy of real Korean language learners empirically. The result of analysis can be the clue to interpret the level of learners in the field.
|
