In order to communicate in a certain language, it is necessary to have a thorough understanding about various factors of the language. A full vocabulary competence of the language is prerequisite for the thorough understanding. It is thought that voca...
In order to communicate in a certain language, it is necessary to have a thorough understanding about various factors of the language. A full vocabulary competence of the language is prerequisite for the thorough understanding. It is thought that vocabulary is of great importance in a language and it is crucial. Nonetheless, academic-oriented foreign learners of the Korean language have a great difficulty in learning Korean vocabulary (words) in that it is difficult to find an optimal teaching method of them and to teach them in many aspects. Most Korean language education institutes are presently emphasizing the curriculum for communication. The curriculum of the communication-centered Korean language for general purposes and its contents are not connected to the study of foreign learners of the Korean language who aim to enter an undergraduate or graduate program of a university in Korea.
This study aims to examine differences between a pre-university lexicon and an academic-oriented one. To accomplish this purpose, we selected an introduction book to a specific major in a university and compared coverage of the basic lexicon of Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK), a certified test for university admission, to the book’s one. In other words, the purpose of this study is to investigate the coverage (i.e. the degree to which basic vocabulary words cover the academic-oriented book).
In order to accomplish this purpose, discussions in this study were conducted as follows.
Chapter 1 suggested the purpose and necessity of this study, to examine the amount of comprehensibility which a basic lexicon could provide for academic-oriented learners. We divided previous studies into two groups by field (i.e. academic-oriented Korean language education and academic-oriented Korean lexicon education) to review the studies. And we proposed the necessity to verify the hypothesis, ‘a basic lexicon does not provide the lexicon coverage extent which is required of academic-oriented learners’, formulated from the review.
In Chapter 2, we considered theoretical backgrounds. First, we looked into a concept of a basic lexicon in three aspects: 1) a concept of a lexicon in Korean language education, 2) a definition of a basic lexicon, and 3) an academic-oriented basic lexicon. Second, we investigated a current basic lexicon. Finally, we examined a concept of academic-oriented Korean language education.
In Chapter 3, we conducted a preliminary investigation. We selected as texts two reading & speaking text books for foreign students who aim to enter an undergraduate program through an afterschool course prior to basic major courses and examined the coverage of the basic TOPIK lexicon to the chosen text books. The scope of this research consists of four chapters (two chapters of each text book), and it showed the coverage of 65% approximately.
Chapter 4 took up the methodology of the main investigation. First of all, we explained the hypothesis. Korean language learners are required to acquire academic-oriented vocabulary in that they study to improve their academic knowledge before and after entering a university. Then, we devised a research design on whether a student who mastered vocabulary words of TOPIK Level 4 can study in an undergraduate program since universities in Korea are presently requiring TOPIK Level 4 as their admission standards. We adopted as scopes of our comparative analysis two types of basic lexicons: (1) basic vocabulary words of TOPIK for beginning and intermediate levels; and (2) basic vocabulary words of an introduction book for freshmen in Korean universities. We dealt with three methods text selection, corpus construction and word & phrase statistics.
In Chapter 5, we gave the results of the investigation. The total number of words extracted from the texts and the given number of lexicon was 48,410 and 7,425, respectively. The number of the extracted words overlapping with the basic lexicon and intermediate lexicon of TOPIK was 1,063 and 1,431, respectively. The sum of the two lexicons was 2,439. The ratio of the 2,439 words to the whole words of an introduction to advertising research and an introduction to business administration was 62.85% and 65.25%, respectively; the whole text coverage (64.07%) was significantly lower compare to the criterion for comprehensibility (80%).
In conclusion, this research has the following significances.
The above results told us that the TOPIK’s intermediate lexicon did not give sufficient text comprehensibility to academic-oriented learners. This is interpreted variously. For example, the insufficient text comprehensibility can raise a discussion on whether to elevate the admission standard or to make a new test for academic-oriented learners.
The TOPIK lexicon is not enough to perform academic education. The whole text coverage ratio can be increased by 6.99% if the learners study 19 words which were not suggested as basic vocabulary words for the TOPIK basic vocabulary words, among 100 words which were most frequently used in the extracted words from an introduction to business administration. The whole text coverage ratio can rise by 8.11% if the learners study 24 words which were not suggested as basic vocabulary words for the TOPIK basic vocabulary words, among 100 words which were most frequently used in the extracted words from an introduction to advertising research. From the importance of academic words, it can be drawn that the performance of academic-oriented tests are more necessary than the discussion of effectiveness of TOPIK which focuses on communication, as shown in the relation between TOEIC and TOEFL.
In addition, lexicon education for general purposes and academy should be respectively performed by a language institute and in a liberal art or basic major course of a university. If an academic-oriented Korean language course supplies the relevant class and teaching materials to students who aim to enter each division of the relevant university, their study quality will be improved.
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