hese involve the acquisition of English restrictive relative clauses (Sadighi, 1994) as well as difficulties involving transfer and language universals (Park, 1996).
What is, however, especially important in terms of International Korean students' degree of difficulty understanding and speaking English is that low proficiency can seriously hamper not only their understanding of course material but also their interpersonal relationships. For example, in a study conducted by Kang (1987), it was found that level of English proficiency,
moderated the quality of International Korean students' interpersonal relationships. Specifically, it was observed that students with low English proficiency students were more likely to have contact with Koreans only. In other words, they were isolated in terms of making friendships with non-Korean students. On the other hand, moderate to high levels of English proficiency were associated with international Korean students have friendly and open contact with both Koreans and Non-Koreans. It was further noted that adjustment levels were higher for students with moderate to high English proficiency than for students with low English proficiency.
Given that successful adjustment to college life in another culture is often dependent upon the extent to which international students can form interpersonal relationships with people from the new culture (Cunningham & Kang, 1990), it seems important to determine the factors affecting English proficiency in order to help International Korean students increase their English speaking ability and so assist them in forming better interpersonal relationships with Americans. As a result of such assistance, these students should have a higher degree of success in both college and in satisfaction with college life.
The research problem consists of investigating the extent to which several demographic factors are associated with the perceived and actual En...