LINGUISTIC PROBLEMS OF INTERNATIONAL KOREAN STUDENTS: DO
DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS MODERATE DIFFICULTY LEVELS?
This proposal consists of a research design aimed at examining whether the sociodemographic factors of number of years international Korean students have been living in the United States, the number of years they have spent studying English, their ages, and/or their genders is significantly associated with either their perceived level of difficulty English proficiency or their actual level of English proficiency. The first chapter describes the basic nature of the proposed research including the general research problem, relevant background information, definitions of key terms, research questions and hypotheses, the general significance of the study, and its basic boundaries and limitations.
The second chapter presents a review of the pertinent research. Specifically, the presented review examines the general linguistic difficulties of Korean students learning English and factors that moderate the degree of attained proficiency. The review ends with a series of conclusions about moderating factors based on the reviewed research.
The third and final chapter of the proposal describes and discusses all of the procedures and methods that will be used in both the collection and analysis of data. This chapter includes a restatement of the problem, a discussion of the basic instrumentation, and a delineation of the data gathering and analysis procedures.
In a study of 197 Korean students attending four different universities in Texas during the 1989-1990 academic year, Cunningham and Kang (1990) found that, while most of the students adjusted well to American higher education, they were confronted by a number of difficult adjustments, one of which was acquiring and/or speaking English. Regarding the nature of linguistic difficulties faced by these students in terms of English proficiency, research has shown that t...