Exploring language contact and use among globally mobile populations: a qualitative study of English-speaking short-stay academic sojourners in the Republic of Korea

This study explores the language contact and use of English speaking sojourners in the Republic of Korea who had no prior knowledge of Korean language or culture prior to arriving in the country. The study focuses on the use of mobile technology assisted l anguage use. Study participants responded to an online survey about their experiences using the Korean language when interacting with Korean speakers, their free time activities, and the types of digital and mobile technologies they used. The survey respon ses informed questions for later discussion groups, in which participants discussed challenges and solutions when encountering new linguistic and social scenarios with Korean speakers. Semi structured interviews were employed to examine the linguistic, soc ial and technological dimensions of the study participants’ brief sojourn in Korea in more depth. The interviews revealed a link between language contact, language use and a mobile instant messaging application. In the second phase of the study, online surveys focused on the language and technology link discovered in the first phase. Throughout Phase Two , the researcher observed the study participants in a series of social contexts, such as informal English practice and university events. Phase Two concluded with semi structured interviews that demonstrated language contact and use within mobile instant messaging chat rooms on participants’ handheld smart devices. The two phases revealed three key factors influencing the language contact and use between the study participants and Korean speakers. Firstly, a mutual perspicacity for mobile technologies and digital communication supported their mediated, screen to screen and blended direct and mediated face to screen interactions. Secondly, Korea’s advanced digital environment comprised handheld smart devices, smart device applications and ubiquitous, high speed Wi Fi their Korean speaking hosts to self reliance. Thirdly, language use between the study participants and Korean speakers incorporated a range of sociolinguistic resources including the exchange of symbols, small expressive images, photographs, video and audio recordings along with or in place of typed text. Using these resources also helped the study participants learn and take part in social and cultural practices, such as gifting digitally, within mobile instant messaging chat rooms. The findings of the study are drawn together in a new conceptual model which h as been called sociolinguistic digital acuity , highlighting the optimal conditions for language contact and use during a brief sojourn in a country with an unfamiliar language and culture

Critical Evaluation of a Smart-phone Movie Project for University Students

Smart-phone movies were utilized for examinations at Kyungpook National University, Sangju Campus for the Freshman English Second Language course, and the results were analyzed. Students employed many movie genres: religious influences; sports; reality; news; factual; sitcom; police procedural; horror; traditional fantasy legends; slice of life; military; science fiction; romance; Bildungroman; gangster; instructional genre; and disaster genre. They worked many hours outside the class producing short English movies with enjoyment. Written content and performance were important for exams. The teacher, as a DSL (Digital Second Language) generation person, was surprised by the DFL (Digital First Language) generation producers. Even though the smart-phone is an excellent motivational tool for young learners, yet looking at the necessity for them to develop a proper philosophy of life one must be aware of the danger to prioritize image above text since it has cognitive implications for the long-term memory and creative aspects of the brain. The future successful teacher will utilize the mobile-learning utility to make them research with electrical-learning tools enabling them to self-construct through a process of deconstruction and reconstruction with cognitive sensitivity fulfilling the old traditional behavioristic objectives. A literature review notably revealed an upsurge of related studies by Korean scholars recently

Get yourself connected: conceptualising the role of digital technologies in Norwegian career guidance

This report outlines the role of digital technologies in the provision of career guidance. It was commissioned by the c ommittee on career guidance which is advising the Norwegian Government following a review of the countries skills system by the OECD. In this report we argue that career guidance and online career guidance in particular can support the development of Norwa y’s skills system to help meet the economic challenges that it faces.The expert committee advising Norway’s Career Guidance Initiativ

Exploring the influence of utilitarian, cognitive and affective factors on the use of e-books via handheld mobile devices: a review

Electronic books (e-books) can be read via dedicated e-book readers and multipurpose handheld mobile devices such as iPads and iPhones. Certain factors influence the use of academic e-books via these handheld mobile devices. The aim of this paper is to systematically review the factors which influence the use of e-books via handheld mobile devices for academic purposes in higher learning institutions. Two search strategies were used to identify the relevant literature of the studies reviewed. At the first stage, electronic databases and journals such as Emerald, Scopus, ProQuest, SpringLink, Science Direct, Wiley Online Library, Academic Search Premier, Communication and Mass Media Complete and Education Research Complete and ERIC were used to search for the relevant articles. Furthermore, journals pertaining to technology in education were searched individually to identify more relevant papers. The keywords used for the search were acceptance, adoption, use, electronic book, handheld mobile devices, e-reader, iPad, PDA and iPhone. At the second stage, snowballing method was used to identify the relevant articles by extracting them from the bibliography of key articles cited in this paper. An article was used for this review if it met three pre-determined criteria. The findings show that utilitarian, cognitive and affective factors influence the use of e-books via handheld mobile devices. However, not many articles explore the influence of affective factor on the use of academic e-books via handheld mobile devices. This systematic review is able to identify the main contributing factors that influence the use of e-books via handheld mobile devices. This review may guide e-book designers, publishers, aggregators and authors to develop e-books which are tailored to the consumers’ needs

Educational use cases from a shared exploration of e-books and iPads

E-books and e-book readers are becoming increasingly widely available, particularly for the general reader, and there have been many studies on their adoption. However, less is known about their use for educational and academic purposes. We report here on work carried out on e-books and e-book applications using iPads by academic and teaching staff. After considering pedagogical issues and reporting survey results, we identify a spiral of six key use case areas for e-books. This spiral of use cases moves from basic e-book use, through situational reading, e-books and learning, using multiple learning resources, collaborative/group learning, to e-book production. We discuss each of these use case areas and provide guidelines that will be of interest to practitioners and researchers alike

A Comparative Study Of Smartphone Users Perception And Preference Towards Mobile Payment Methods In The U.S. And Korea

As the Smartphone adoption rate increases, Smartphone users pay more attention to mobile payment. There are several options for mobile payment but there is no dominate method. Proximity mobile payment is the newest form of mobile payment. Security, cost, and convenience are three main factors Smartphone users keep in mind when making a mobile payment. This paper investigates Smartphone users perceptions and preferences toward mobile payment methods in Korea and the U.S. U.S. Smartphone users have a willingness to pay more for a secure mobile payment transaction, even though Korean users have more experience in the mobile payment frequency. Among the three factors, mobile security is the factor of strongest influence on mobile payment frequency in both countries

An extended information system success model for mobile learning usage in Saudi Arabia universities

The emergence of 4G networks allows m-learning to be attractive for educational systems. Mobile devices have the potential to enhance accessibility and efficiency distribution of educational materials and information. Developing countries, especially in the Middle East, lag behind as they face difficulties in the adoption and use of m-learning. Previous researches stated that the studies in the success of m-learning are still insufficient in developing countries, particularly in Saudi Arabia where the number of students involved in m-learning also constitutes low percentages. Nine factors that influence the success of m-learning are incorporated and evaluated into a research model. A quantitative approach was used, where questionnaires were sent to three universities in KSA. The contributing factors and the relationships between them were evaluated using a Structural Equation Modelling technique. The research revealed that information quality, user satisfaction (US), trust in technology, attitude, organisation support, trust in organisation, and the net benefits of m-learning positively influence m-learning usage. In addition, the results confirmed that user satisfaction is positively affected by system quality (SEQ), service quality (SQ), and net benefits (NB) of using (U) the system. The results also showed that there is a significant relationship between NB and US for m-learning technology. This study extends the previous research by providing a conceptual model for the successful execution of m-learning services in universities. This mediating effect of US explains the impact of independent variables (IQ, SEQ, SQ) on U. It also examined the mediating effect of U in explaining the influence of US on the NB using m-learning services. The findings of this study are valuable as input for the Ministry of Higher Education and practitioners concerned with successful m-learning services. This study constructed a new model to enhance the mobile learning usage among students in universities

Language Learners as Digital Bricoleurs: Exploring Independent Learning in Individual Digital Ecologies

Though there is a wealth of digital resources available for independent computerassisted language learning, language teachers may find mixed success in supporting learners in using it. Teachers need to understand their learners and how educational information-communication technology and the target language are integrated in their lives. We present the concepts of digital ecology and digital bricolage. Building on a prior survey study on English learner technology use at a Korean college, this qualitative case study explores ways that four Korean college students integrated technology and English into their lives. Drawing on a priori and emergent themes from interviews, we explore students’ digital ecologies and their processes of digital bricolage. We found that types of technology use varied across these cases, suggesting the value of digital ecologies for thinking about student technology use. Further, variations of technology use across the cases suggest that learners draw selectively from their available digital ecologies based on their perceptions of what it means to learn English and their personal priorities. We propose a framework for understanding language learner digital bricolage based on formality and instrumentality. This framework is of value to researchers and teachers who want to support students in digitally mediated self-directed language learning

Creating a Korean Engineering Academic Vocabulary List (KEAVL): Computational Approach

With a growing number of international students in South Korea, the need for developing materials to study Korean for academic purposes is becoming increasingly pressing. According to statistics, engineering colleges in Korea attract the largest number of international students (Korean National Institute for International Education, 2018). However, despite the availability of technical vocabulary lists for some engineering sub-fields, a list of vocabulary common for the majority of the engineering sub-fields has not yet been built. Therefore, this study was aimed at creating a list of Korean academic vocabulary of engineering for non-native Korean speakers that may help future or first-year engineering students and engineers working in Korea. In order to compile this list, a corpus of Korean textbooks and research articles of 12 major engineering sub-fields, named as the Corpus of Korean Engineering Academic Texts (CKEAT), was compiled. Then, in order to analyze the corpus and compile the preliminary list, I designed a Python-based tool called KWordList. The KWordList lemmatizes all words in the corpus while excluding general Korean vocabulary included in the Korean Learner’s List (Jo, 2003). Then, for the remaining words, KWordList calculates the range, frequency, and dispersion (in this study deviation of proportions or DP (Gries, 2008)) and excludes words that do not pass the study’s criteria (range ≥ 6, frequency ≥ 100, DP ≤ 0.5). The final version of the list, called Korean Engineering Academic Vocabulary List or KEAVL, includes 830 lemmas (318 of intermediate level and 512 of advanced level). For each word, the collocations that occur more than 30 times in the corpus are provided. The comparison of the coverage of the Korean Academic Vocabulary List (Shin, 2004) and KEAVL based on the Corpus of Korean Engineering Academic Texts showed that KEAVL covers more lemmas in the corpus. Moreover, only 313 lemmas from the Korean Academic Vocabulary List (Shin, 2004) passed the criteria of the study. Therefore, KEAVL may be more efficient for engineering students’ vocabulary training than the Korean Academic Vocabulary List and may be used for the engineering Korean teaching materials and curriculum development. Moreover, the KWordList program written for the study can be used by other researchers, teachers, and even students and is open access (https://github.com/HelgaKr/KWordList)