The objective of this study was to examine how to teach Korean language learners the difference of meaning among the synonyms of emotive adjectives using scenes and situations.
Because emotive adjectives are abstract and connote various meanings, it is difficult to understand their meanings by circular definitions in the dictionary. Furthermore, teaching-learning in the vocabulary class has a limitation if it just relies on the teacher’s explanations. Accordingly, this study looked for methods that help learners recognize the difference of meaning among the synonyms of emotive adjectives by showing scenes and situations found in dramas and the corpus. The methods are expected to be useful also in stimulating learners’ interest and helping them memorize for a long time.
This study was conducted through four steps as follows. The first step selected a group of synonyms to be taught, the second step designed a class model for the experiment, the third step applied the class model to the experimental class, and the fourth step finally suggested teaching methods.
In the first step, synonyms to be taught were selected through the following procedure. Questions for distinguishing synonyms within sentences were prepared, and then, they were presented to and answered by foreign learners, Korean language teachers, and ordinary people and the results were compared. The reason for comparing the answers of foreign learners and Korean native speakers was to suggest the necessity of synonym education by presenting exemplary synonyms that native speakers use without difficulty but foreign learners use mistakenly. Through this procedure, we obtained 9 groups and 27 synonyms that showed a large difference in the percentage of correct answers between the learners and the teachers. In the second step, from the obtained 9 groups, we chose 6 synonym groups, which were ‘fearful’, ‘sorry’, ‘beautiful’, ‘lonely’, ‘boring’ and ‘convenient’, and with them, we formulated a class model to be applied to the experimental class. The worksheet for learners was also designed in this step, and it presented scenes and situations that contained the words to be taught. In the third steps, the class model was applied to the actual experimental class. The experiment was performed through a total of 6 sessions, and it was a preparation for proposing teaching methods. After the experimental class had been finished, we analyzed the effectiveness and limitations of synonym teaching using scenes and situations based on the results of class evaluation and a vocabulary test after the experiment, and finally proposed methods for the effective teaching of the synonyms of emotive adjectives.
The contents of the practical teaching methods proposed in the last step are as follows.
First, in order to select appropriate scenes and situations, it is desirable to find adequate examples by searching the corpus and then to look for situations that utter the words in dramas or movies. If situations containing the verbal expressions of the words to be taught are presented together with non-verbal situations expressed in gestures or actions, they are helpful to activate the learners’ background knowledge.
Second, the worksheet needs to provide exercises covering activities of various areas, and activities such as discussions and role plays can improve the learners’ communication skills. In particular, exercises that show new situations and have the learners choose words fit for the situations can be helpful in practicing the difference of meaning among synonyms according to situation.
Third, in order to lead the class centering on situations, the teacher should minimize explanations based on lexical definitions. Instead, he/she should provide various verbal and non-verbal situations so that the learners can guess meanings from the situations. Furthermore, a large variety of examples containing the words to be taught will facilitate learners’ understanding.
The teaching methods proposed in this study aimed to support actual classes on the synonyms of emotive adjectives to be covered in the next study. Furthermore, we expect that these methods may be reflected in Korean language textbooks for foreign learners or utilized in vocabulary education and Korean cultural education in the field.
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