Grammatical Development of Korean by Elementary School Students in Differing English Learning...

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English Teaching, Vol. 66, No. 4, Winter 2011

Grammatical Development of Korean by Elementary School Students in Differing English Learning Contexts*1

**HyunSook Ko (Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation)

***Injae Lim (Konkuk University)

Jeongsoon Joh (Konkuk University)

Shinsook Lee (Korea University)

Ko, HyunSook, Lim, Injae, Joh, Jungsoon, & Lee, Shinsook. (2011).

Grammatical development of Korean by elementary school students in

differing English learning contexts. English Teaching, 66(4), 165-189.

The study investigates whether different English learning contexts result in different

grammar development in learners’ shared mother tongue, Korean. The research

instrument included a sentence completion task of collocational expressions in

Korean dialogues, a multiple-choice test of grammar in Korean sentences and

dialogues, and a sentence composition task using double nominative structures. The

participants were 26 students at the age of 8 to 9 year old in the EFL context, 21 in a

type of immersion program, and 19 in the ESL context. The results showed little

difference among the three groups in the collocation sentence completion task and

the multiple-choice test, but a clearly significant difference between the EFL

students and the ESL students in the double nominative sentence composition task.

The students who had been learning English in English culture showed more limited

knowledge in the writing sentences with such peculiar but common structures in

Korean language, compared with those who had been learning English in a Korean

cultural context. In the complementary correlation analysis of the scores in the

sentence composition task with a double nominative structure, the length of

residence in Korea proved the strongest correlation, implying that the longer

students live in Korea, the better they perform.

The study provides the pedagogical implication that the curriculum of a mother

tongue for bilingual learners could need to intervene with more emphasis on

enhancing learners’ grammatical development, including language-specific

structures.

* This work was supported by the Korean Research Foundation Grant funded by the Korean

Government (KRF-2008-A00074).

** First author: HyunSook Ko, ***Corresponding author: Injae Lim, Coauthors: Jeongsoon Joh and

Shinsook Lee

166 Grammatical Development of Korean by Elementary School Students in Differing …

I. ITRODUCTION

One of the hot and unsolved issues in second language acquisition (henceforth, SLA) is

the positive or negative relationship of language skill development between a mother

tongue and a second language. More specifically, regarding language policy in Korea,

some researchers including, Ki-young Kim (2003) strongly believed in the benefit of

second language learning and suggested that all English classrooms should use an

“immersion program” and provide learners with an ESL-like curriculum in Korea. This

approach corresponds well with the current popular English teaching policy, teaching

English through English (TEE). Meanwhile, other researchers like Hui-suk Kang (2005)

are seriously concerned about delay or damage in the acquisition of either or both

languages that such aggressive exposure to second or foreign languages (especially before

the system of children’s mother tongues were not stably established in the brain) might

cause. Considering the critical aspects of this issue and consequences on children

development, it must be of great importance to find convincing answers to the question:

what learning contexts (ESL, immersion, or EFL) and what aspects of language

development show more or less progress by learners?

The academic research on this theme, however, has been performed in a very limited

field of second language acquisition and hasn’t yet produced any convincing conclusion.

The majority of them are focused on the effect on second language learning by the first

language. The opposite effect has not yet been discussed with empirical data enough to

reach informative and convincing conclusion. Thus, as an attempt to contribute empirical

data and scientific diagnosis, the current study will examine and compare Korean

elementary school students’ grammatical development in their mother tongue in three

different English learning contexts: ESL, the immersion program, and EFL.

II. BACKGROUND

This section summarizes three fields in SLA research: first language development of

bilinguals, grammatical features representing interlanguage development in Korean, and

double nominative structures in bilingual students.

1. First Language Development of Bilinguals

Regarding how differently bilinguals use their first language from other language users,

Kecskes (1998) has provided interesting results. He reported that Hungarian students,

ranging from 14 to 16, showed different frequencies of subordinate clauses in their

HyunSook Ko, Injae Lim, Jungsoon Joh, Shinsook Lee 167

Hungarian writing, depending on what language they learned as a second language and

how many hours of classes the second language curriculum assigned. The study found that

the students learning French through an immersion program showed the most frequent use

of subordinate clauses, that those learning English for 7 to 8 hours per week did so less

frequently than the students in the immersion program, but still more than the group of

students who studied for two to three hours.

Another interesting finding on differing development of a mother tongue was reported

by Pavlenko and Jarvis (2002). The research asked the Russian university students

learning English in the U. S. to retell a story in two languages, English and Russian. The

results showed that the semantic aspects of English words were involved in story retelling

in Russian. In addition, more frequent use of adjective-oriented structures were observed,

which seems to replace the potential verb-oriented structures typical in Russian. Jarvis

(2003) also reported a lot of grammatical errors by a 34-year old Finnish woman in her

mother tongue. The woman had immigrated to the U. S. at the age of 23 and Jarvis

interpreted that many of the grammatical errors were due to her second language, English.

Regarding Korean learners’ language developments, there are two interesting studies to

note. First, Hwa-Ja Lee (2000) found no significant difference in cognition and mother

tongue development between 5-to-6-year old children who did and who did not learn

English as a foreign language. On the other hand, Jeongsoon Joh, HyunSook Ko, Injae,

Lim, and Shinsook Lee (2010) reported different extents of impact across the linguistic

areas in first language. Students at the ages of 8 to 9 who learned English either in the EFL

context or through the immersion program in Korea showed comparable performance in

their phonological development and reading comprehension in Korean. In contrast, the

performance by those who learned English in the ESL context was significantly poorer in

sentence repetition and reading comprehension tasks in Korean than the other two groups.

Said negative relationship between first and second language development by ESL

learners was also found in the acquisition of vocabulary. More specifically, Joh, et al.

(2010) reported the highest score in lexical collocation and lexical association tasks by

EFL students, the second by those in the immersion program, and the lowest by ESL

students. Integrating these studies above, it seems to be reasonable to suppose that second

language acquisition is involved in mother tongue development in some ways, though

there is one conflicting result mentioned above by Lee, H.-J. (2000).

However, there are several gaps in the previous research to consider before generalizing

any of the conclusions. First, the previous studies covered only few languages, such as

Hungarian, English, French, Finnish, and Spanish. In order to obtain more convincing

generalizations of the relationship of first language development and second language

acquisition, further research needs to expand the ranges of participants, covering a variety

of language backgrounds and second language learning contexts. To this end, the current


study will investigate first language development by Korean learners who learn English as

a second or foreign language.

Another gap in the previous studies is the task types tried so far. The previous research

investigated learners’ development in limited aspects of language development through

tasks such as word-picture matching task, picture describing, reading/listening

comprehension task, saying antonyms, answering to the questions given, dialogue

interpretation, and discourse completion. Ongoing research needs to refine more precisely

its linguistic measurements with convincing reasons. Research should expand its field of

exploration, in order to enhance profound discussions on second or foreign language

acquisition itself and complete the whole picture to understand language development. For

example, research may develop a grammatical task to examine some particular structures

that are known to appear as errors frequently made by second or foreign language learners

in their communication. More specific details regarding this possibility will be discussed

below.

2. Grammatical Features of Interlanguage Development in Korean

This section summarizes the previous studies on developmental aspects of bilinguals

learning Korean in terms of interlanguage development. The overview proposes to develop

more concrete ideas for the design of the current study, in particular, aspects of

interlanguage relevant to development and also how to examine them in the experiment.

Our definition of “interlanguage” in this study follows Selinker (1972, 1992). It refers to

‘a separate linguistic system based on the observable output which results from a learner’s

attempted production of a target language norm.’ Thus, instead of “transfer” from mother

tongue, or what is called “reverse transfer,”the current study uses the term,

“developmental aspects of interlanguage” in the discussion of bilinguals’ language system,

emphasizing the independent characteristics of the system.1

Previous studies, as seen in 1. First Language Development of Bilinguals above,

suggested that bilinguals may have a different semantic understanding of entries in their

mental lexicon and that they may use different mechanisms in determining the function of

grammatical structures from those of monolinguals in corresponding languages. More

direct examination of this idea has been tried in several studies. Regarding the

developmental aspects of interlanguage in those who learn Korean, two studies are

noteworthy in terms of the quantity and the quality of the data they explained: Chul-Hyun

Cho, Songhwa Han, Jey-Yel Kim, Heejeong Jeong, Seok Joo Koh, and Mi-Ok Kim

(2002) and Jung-Hee Lee (2003). Both of them analyzed corpora, composed of mainly

1 For more discussion on interlanguage itself, refer to Selinker (1992).


written texts by adult learners who were learning Korean as their second language in

Korea. Through the analysis, they provided error types and examples found in

interlanguage development. The following shows examples of such error types found in

those two studies in five areas: morphology, grammar, semantics, collocational

expressions, and honorific forms.

TABLE 1

Morphological Errors by Learners of Korean as a Second Language

Example of Error Correct Form

그래서 조금씩 잃어 버렸다. Kulayse cokumssik ilebey-ess-ta2

so little by little lose-PAST-DECLARATIVE

(Cho, et al., 2002: 150) 가족들과 살지 못하지만 외롭하지

않습니다. Kacoktul-kwa sal-ci mos-ha-ciman oylop-haci

anh-supnita family-with live-DETERMINATIVE not-

do-though alone-do-DETERMINATIVE not- DEFERENTIAL DECLARATIVE

(Lee, J.-H., 2003: 121)

그래서 조금씩 잊어 버렸다 kulayse cokumssik icebey-

ess-ta so little by little forget-PAST-

DECLARATIVE (so I forgot little by little.) 가족들과 살지 못하지만 외롭지

않습니다. Kacoktul-kwa sal-ci mos-ha-ciman oylop-ci

anh-supnita family-with live-DETERMINATIVE

not-do-though alone-DETERMINATIVE not- DEFERENTIAL DECLARATIVE

(Though I cannot live with my family, I am not alone.)

The example above shows that the learners have difficulty in distinguishing phonemes

with different meanings and words that belongs to different parts of speech.

2 The study follows the Yale Romanization system.


TABLE 2

Grammatical Errors by Learners of Korean as a Second Language


<Particles> 오른에 저는 입니다 Olun-ey ce-nun i-pnita right-on POLITE I-TOPIC be-

DEFERENTIAL DECLARATIVE (Cho, et al., 2002: 151) 회기동에 집입니다. Hoykitong-ey cip-i-pnita Hoykidong-at house-be- DEFERENTIAL

DECLARATIVE (Lee, J.-H., 2003: 105) 점심과 저녁은 식당에 먹습니다. cemsim-kwa cenye-un siktang-ey mek-

supnita lunch-and dinner-TOPIC restaurant-at

eat-DEFERENTIAL DECLARATIVE (Cho, et al., 2002: 182) 날마다 학교에 한국말을 공부해요. nalmada hakkyo-e hankukmal-ul kongpu-

hay-yo everyday school-at Korean-

ACCUSATIVE study-do-POLITE DECLARATIVE

(Lee, J.-H., 2003: 112) <Conjunctions> 비행기를 타서 갔어요. pihayngki-lul ta-se ka-ss-eyo Airplane-ACCUSATIVE take-and go-

PAST-POLITE DECLARATIVE (Cho, et al., 2002: 205) 밤에 까지 일이 있는데 음악을 듣고 싶어지만 시간 없어요.

pam-e kkaci il-i iss-nuntey umak-ul tut-ko siph-eciman sikan eps-eyo

night-at until work-NOMINATIVE music-ACCUSATIVE listen-to want-but time lack-POLITE DECLATIVE

(Lee, J.-H., 2003: 114)

오른쪽에 제가 있습니다. Olunccok-ey ce-ka iss-supnita right-on POLITE I-TOPIC exist-

DEFERENTIAL DECLARATIVE (On the right side I am.) 회기동에 집이 있습니다. Hoykitong-ey cip-i iss-upnita Hoykidong-at house-NOMINATIVE exist-

DEFERENTIAL DECLARATIVE (My house is at Hoykidong.) 점심과 저녁은 식당에서 먹습니다. cemsim-kwa cenye-un siktang-eyse mek-

supnita lunch-and dinner-TOPIC restaurant-at eat-

DEFERENTIAL DECLARATIVE (I eat lunch and dinner at the restaurant.) 날마다 학교에서 한국말을 공부해요. nalmada hakkyo-ese hankukmal-ul kongpu-

hay-yo every day school-atKorean-ACCUSATIVE

study-do-POLITE DECLARATIVE (every day I study Korean at school.)

비행기를 타고 갔어요. pihayngki-lul ta-ko ka-ss-eyo Airplane-ACCUSATIVE take-by go-PAST-

POLITE DECLARATIVE (I went by airplane.) 밤에까지 일이 있어서 음악을 듣고 싶었지만 시간이 없었어요.

pam-e kkaci il-i iss-ese umak-ul tut-ko siph-eciman sikan eps-eyo

night-at until work-NOMINATIVE music-ACCUSATIVE listen-to want-but time lack-POLITE DECLATIVE

(I’d like to listen to music until the midnight, but I have no time.)

The examples in Table 2 reveal some of the most frequently found errors due to

confusion in bilingual learners’ Korean syntax: topic versus nominative case marker,

prepositions that represent stative locations versus dynamic (or agentive) locations,


conjunctions that express consequent actions versus instrumental meaning, and

conjunctions that represent additive explanations and conflicting situations.

TABLE 3

Semantic Errors by Learners of Korean as a Second Language


지난 주말에 저는 이바나 생일파티에 왔어요.

cinan cwumal-ey ce-nun Ipana sayngilpathi-ey wo-ass-eyo

last weekend-at POOLITE I-TOPIC Ipana birthday party-to come-PAST-POLITE DECLARATIVE

(Lee, J.-H., 2003: 121)

지난 주말에 저는 이바나 생일 파티에 갔어요.

cinan cwumal-ey ce-nun Ipana sayngilpathi-ey ka-ass-eyo

last weekend-at POLITE I-TOPIC Ipana birthday party-to come-PAST-POLITE DECLARATIVE

(Last weekend I went to Ipana’s birthday party.)

The semantic errors above show that the learner expressed his different point of view or

different way of thinking regarding who is regarded as a center of the event in terms of

coming and going.

TABLE 4

Collocation Errors by Learners of Korean as a Second Language


숙제를 씁니다. swucey-lul ssu-pnita homework-ACCUSATIVE write-

DEFERENTIAL DECLARATIVE (Cho, et al., 2002: 154) 바이올린도 치고 paiolin-to chi-ko violin-also hit-and (Cho, et al., 2002: 156) 저는 배구를 놀아요. ce-nun paykwu-lul nol-ayo POLITE I-TOPIC volleyball-

ACCUSATIVE play-POLITE DECLARATIVE

(Lee, J.-H., 2003: 121)

숙제를 합니다.swucey-lul ha-pnita homework-ACCUSATIVE write-

DEFERENTIAL DECLARATIVE I do my homework. 바이올린도 켜고 paiolin-to khy-eko violin-also play-and (I play violin and) 저는 배구를 해요. ce-nun paykwu-lul hay-ayo POLITE I-TOPIC volleyball-ACCUSATIVE

play-POLITE DECLARATIVE (I play volleyball.)

The definition of collocation in the current study is ‘two-word phrases which co-occur,

and whose meanings are clearly related to their parts,’ following Biber et al. (1999).3 The

examples in Table 4 show the misuse and correct form, respectively, of verb-noun

3 According to Biber, et al. (1999), idioms are different from collocations in that the former type of

phrases has meanings that cannot be inferred from their components.


collocations by learners who learn Korean as a second language. They suggest that

learners need instructional intervention to acquire collocational relationships at a specific

phase of their learning. Actually, Yong Moon (1999) and Young-kuk Jeong (2008) have

also pointed out that correct use of a language requires specific knowledge of verbs,

including collocations, and that such knowledge needs to be emphasized both in lexical

and grammar instruction.

In addition, according to de Glopper (2002) and Nation (2001), knowledge of

collocations reduces cognitive effort, saving processing time and making a language more

available for immediate use, which finally enhance both accuracy and fluency in language

use. Specifically related to second language acquisition, Biskup (1992) reported that Polish

and German learners showed different translation of lexical collocations in English, which

seems to be influenced by their mother tongues. In addition, Nessalhauf (2003) analyzed

32 essays by English learners and concluded that collocations with relatively little

linguistic restriction were significantly more difficult than those with clear linguistic

restrictions for second language learners to acquire since they were misjudged as a free

combination of words. More specific criteria to predict difficulty in learning collocations

in second language acquisition has been pursued by Dong-Kwang Shin (2006). He

claimed that one of the main criteria to judge difficulty in learning should be the extent of

literal transparency translating from a learner’s mother tongue into a target language. If the

translation of a target language is equivalent to the collocation in a mother tongue, the

collocation is predictable and easy to acquire. If not, the collocation needs special attention

to be acquired. Recently, HyeJin Kim and Hyunsook Yoon (2008) performed a cloze test

of verb-noun collocations, asking participants to complete the conversation by filling the

blanks, and a translation test, requiring participants to translate the meaning of English

sentences into Korean. The results confirmed Shin (2006)’s claim on the influence of

transparency.4 Considering these results of the previous studies, the current study included

collocational expressions as test items to measure linguistic knowledge in Korean.

4 Interestingly, Kim and Yoon (2008) also found an additional factor involved in collocation learning

difficulty, which was called overgeneralization, from prior learning within a target language.


TABLE 5

Honorific Errors by Learners of Korean as a Second Language


제 방이 제일 평화스럽다. cey pang-i ceyil pyenghwaslep-ta my room-NOMINATIVE most peaceful-

DECLARATIVE (Cho, 2002: 192) 제 부모와 여동생은 아주 귀여워요 cey pwumo-wa yetongsayng-un acwu

kwiyew-eyo my parents-and sister-TOPIC very cute-

DEFERENTIAL DECLARATIVE (Lee, J., 2003: 118)

제 방이 제일 평화스럽습니다. cey pang-i ceyil pyenghwaslep-supnita my room-NOMINATIVE most peaceful-

DEFERENTIAL DECLARATIVE (My room is most peaceful.) 제 부모님도 그러시고 여동생도 아주

귀엽습니다. cey pwumonim-to kule-si-ko yetongsayng-to

acwu kwiyep-supnita my parents-DEFENTIAL-and so-

HONORIFIC sister-TOPIC very cute-DEFERENTIAL DECLARATIVE

(My parents and sister are very cute.)

The example above shows that learners have problems in using appropriate honorific or

deferential forms for a context given. Those sociolinguistic meanings regarding politeness

would be represented through an ending morpheme of a sentence and, sometimes, more

complicatedly, a specific lexical choice depending on a variety of status of a sentential

subject or audience assumed (as in kule-si-ko instead of kwiyew-eyo). In this research, all

of these types of errors were included in the test to measure Korean linguistic of Korean,

except for the errors in honorific expressions. The reason to exclude honorific errors was

that it was regarded as relevant more closely to discourse and pragmatic usage rather than

determined by the sentence level of grammatical knowledge, which is the focus of this

study.

Thus, the current study was designed to examine four grammatical components of

mother tongue development in Korean bilinguals: morphology, grammar, semantics, and

collocational expressions.

3. Double Nominative Structures in Bilinguals

The current study proposes a production task to examine Korean bilinguals’ mother

tongue development at the sentence level of language use. The task investigates how

successfully English learners in different contexts acquire a particular structure in Korean,

what is called double nominative or double noun phrase structures. The reason to select

double nominative structures for testing syntactic development in Korean is that they are

known as one of the most unique structures in Korean language (HyunSook Ko 2009; Li,

& Thompson, 1976). The following is an example sentence with such seemingly double

nominative cases in Korean.


(1) Korean

우리 가족 중에서 나이는 아빠가 제일 많다.

wuri kacok cwungeyse nai-nun appa-ka ceyil manh-ta.

our family among age-TOPIC dad-NOMINATIVE most much-DECLARATIVE.

(2) English

(As for/In terms of age,) My dad is the oldest in my family.

Though there are a variety of interpretations regarding the status of the two noun

phrases with seemingly nominative cases in linguistics,5 it is commonly agreed that the

nouns taking two initial positions in Korean sentences with particle –nun and –ka carry

different grammatical and semantic meaning, including a topic and a subject respectively

(Ahn, 2003, 2006; Lim, 1972, 2007). As seen above, nai (meaning age) in (1) was

specified as topic, independent from appa (meaning dad), a subject in the Korean sentence.

In contrast, the English sentence (2) employs a complementizer, as for for the topic noun,

age, the initial position of a sentence containing the predicate is is taken by the subject

noun, my dad. These contrasting assignments of double nominative structures in Korean

and English provide an ideal context to examine what features are transformed or newly-

learned in grammaticization by Korean learners who learn English as their second or

foreign language. Examining how frequently the double nominative structures are

correctly produced in an appropriate context, for example, nai and appa in (1), will

provide good empirical evidence for productive discussion on the interlanguage

development. If learners are not proficient in Korean or not good at using Korean-specific

grammar, they are most likely to avoid the double nominative structures but produce

sentences with a single noun phrase in an initial position of a sentence, as common in both

Korean and English. That is, when comparing learners’ performance in different English

learning context, the more Korean-dominant context would reveal the more frequent use

of Korean-unique structures, double nominative structures in the discussion. For example,

in the task to complete a sentence with both age and dad, Korean proficient learners would

produce a sentence like (1), and English-dominant speakers a sentence like (2).

In this context, in order to examine such potential preference between topic-dominant

structures in Korean grammar and subject-dominant structures in English, the current

study designed a picture-describing task that asked participants to complete Korean

sentences, which would typically be represented with double nominative constructions in

5 For more details, refer to Sungho Ahn (2003, 2006), Youngjoon Jang (2000), Hongbin Lim (1972),

and Jungsoo Seo (1991). The current study will not discuss which approach is more valid or reasonable, since each approach still needs a considerable amount of refinement to be positioned as a robust theory.


Korean. The types of the sentences were selected from Hye-won Kim (1991), in particular

those types of double nominative structures with a clear potential typological difference in

the status of the two nominative nouns. The selection was also made in consideration of

both familiarity with the authentic context of language use and structure complexity for the

participants’ age.6 The following is an example of test items used in the task (For more

details, see Appendix C).

(3) 우리 가족 중에서 나이는 .

wuri kacok cwungeyse nai-nun .

our family among age-TOPIC .

Regarding acquisition of subjecthood by bilinguals, Ko (2009) recently showed that

subjecthood in English grammar was difficult for Korean speakers and that it was acquired

at a late phase of English learning at middle and high schools. Reversely applying this

logic to grammar development in Korean, it is possible that Korean double nominative

structures might be difficult for English-dominant learners. Thus, the current study makes

two assumptions: that double nominative structures in Korean would be challenging for

those who learn Korean as a second or foreign language, and that those structures would

provide an excellent opportunity to check whether a learner’s Korean grammar acquires a

unique status distinguished from his/her second language grammar. This approach is

expected to help completing the whole picture of second language development and

enhance profound discussions on the nature of second or foreign language acquisition

itself.

6 For example, sentence (3a) is not included in the task because its corresponding English sentence,

(3b) does not syntactically specify whether the noun phrase, I, takes the sentence’s initial position as a subject or, otherwise, as a topic. It is problematic that it can be interpreted either way. (3a) 나는 안경이 깨졌다

na-nun ankyeng-i kkay-cye-ss-ta I-TOPIC glasses-NOMINATIVE break-Passive-Past-DECLARATIVE (3b) Possible composition: I had my glasses broken.


III. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The current research proposes to investigate the following two questions:

1. Do Korean bilingual children who are learning English in different learning context

have different intuition or knowledge of grammar in Korean, particularly regarding

the grammatical items reported challenging for learners of Korean as a second or

foreign language?

2. Do Korean bilingual children who are learning English in different learning

contexts use different grammar in sentence completion that requires Korean-

specific structures?

Different learning contexts in the current study refers to three learning contexts in

comparison: 1) the EFL context where Korean students learn English through the national

curriculum at elementary schools, 2) the immersion context where Korean students have

already learned English for more than one year in English cultures, such as England, the U.

S. and Canada, where English is taught entirely through English at the current school and

mostly also used at home, 3) the ESL context where students were born in a Korean family,

moved to an English culture and have been currently learning English in the local culture

for more than one year. The task performance by students in these different learning

contexts is compared with those in other groups in two aspects: the knowledge to choose

correct grammatical forms, and composing skills to complete sentences with common and

appropriate grammatical structures in Korean. The former aspect will be measured through

performances by students where they will be asked to complete a sentence or a dialogue

with appropriate predicates (including verbs and adjectives), particles, and conjunctions

that have been discussed in the previous research as challenges for foreign or second

language learners. The other aspects, sentence production skills with linguistically Korean-

specific structures, are tested in a picture-describing sentence completion task using double

nominative structures in Korean. It will answer the second research question above.

IV. RESEARCH PROCEDURES

1. Subjects

The subjects of the study were three groups of 9-to-10-year-old students: 1) 26 Korean

EFL students studying at a public elementary school in the county called Kyengki-do

(henceforth, EFL students), 2) 21 Korean students attending an international school in


Seoul (henceforth, students in the immersion context), where English is taught entirely

through English and mostly used at home as well, 3) 19 Korean ESL students at a public

elementary school in Austin, Texas, in the U.-S. (henceforth, ESL students). The EFL

students have no experience living in English speaking countries, but the learners in the

other two groups have more than one year of residence in the U. S. or Canada. These

differences in history of residence mean that the students in each group have been exposed

to different curriculum to learn English.7

The following is a summary of the learning backgrounds which were obtained through

interview sessions after the main tasks.

TABLE 6

Background of Subject Groups

English Learning Context

Number of

Participants

Average Age (months)

Average Length of

Residence in Korea

(months)

Average Initial Age of Exposure to

English (months)

Average Length of Learning English

(months)

EFL 26 112.48 112.91 93.04 25.70

Immersion 21 117.71 72.42 48.67 69.11

ESL 19 105.63 21.33 69.11 82.58

As seen above, the EFL students have taken two 45-minute English classes per week,

which mainly teaches daily-used words and simple sentences in spoken form under a

nationally standardized curriculum starting at the 3rd grade of public elementary schools in

Korea. Most of them were first exposed to English learning or English culture after the age

of 93 months (, corresponding with grade 2 or 3 of elementary school) and have less than a

26-month history of English learning. Meanwhile, the students in the immersion context

have started to learn English around their 49th month (the age of four) and have been

learning English for almost 70 months on average. Finally, the ESL students have started

to learn English around their 23rd month (before the age of two) and have been learning

for around 83 months on average.

2. Research Procedures

The main research was comprised of three sections of sentence completion items: 1) 10

items for dialogue completion with appropriate collocation expressions, including verbs

and adjectives, 2) 13 items for sentence completion with appropriate forms of particles,

verbs, negations and conjunctions, 3) 7 items for a picture-describing sentence completion

7 The subjects of the current study also participated in Joh, et al. (2009).


task with double nominative structures, plus 14 fake items to prevent bias.

The first task has 10 dialogues requiring participants to understand not only the

sentential meaning and but also produce correct verb forms in a collocational relationship

with a given word and complete the dialogues.8 The collocation patterns covered verb-

noun collocations and adverb-verb collocations, which are the main types of collocation

(Kim & Yoon, 2008; Nahk-Bohk Kim, 2007).

In addition to testing collocational knowledge, the current study designed a task with 13

test items to measure knowledge of critical sentential grammar. This grammar test was

composed of sentences with blanks and two choices, one of which contains critical

grammatical errors commonly found in learners of Korean. The participants were asked to

select a correct grammatical form of the two choices given. The test examines whether or

not a participant has a grammatical knowledge of those types of expressions in Table 1

through 6 above, which are known to characterize the interlanguage aspects in learning

Korean.9

To make sure that the testing items were within the knowledge of those who acquire

Korean through normal language use in Korea, all of the target words and expressions in

the both tests of lexicon and grammar were selected among the ones introduced in the

textbooks of four language skills in Korean by Kyoyukkwahakkiswulpwu [Ministry of

Education, Science, and Technology] (2000a, 2000b, 2001a, 2001b, 2001c, 2001d, 2001e).

Before they start the task, participants were informed orally and also in a written text

that there would be a time limit of 10 minutes for each test and that they could ask for help

of the researcher at any time, including for clarification of the question. The instructions

were given in Korean for EFL students and in English for the students in the immersion

and the ESL contexts.

After the test sessions completed, there was an interview for background information

with each participant under no time limit. On average 5 minutes were taken per participant.

V. RESULTS

First, using SPSS 17.0, an MANOVA test was performed regarding background factors

across three groups of participants. The results show that all of the mean comparisons

between participant groups were found significantly different in terms of learning

background. This includes length of residence in Korea, initial age of exposure to English,

8 For more details, see Appendix A. Note that the current study investigates the acquisition of

collocational expressions at the level of sentence completion, while Joh et al.(2010) measures at the level of a word or a phrase composition without sentential structures.

9 For more details, see Appendix B.


and length of learning English before the experiment date. Table 7 shows such results.

TABLE 7

MANOVA Test Results of Background Factors of Participants

F (df10) p

Length of Residence in Korea F (2, 57) = 71.361 p**< 0.001

Initial age of Exposure to English F (2, 57) = 53.363 p**< 0.001

Length of Learning English F (2, 57) = 35.613 p**< 0.001

Note. (**) represents that the possibility is statistically significant at α=0.01 level (two-tailed).

In the post hoc Bonferroni test of pair-wise comparison of these three factors among

groups, the followings were confirmed at the level of α = 0.01: The EFL group had resided

longest in Korea on average, followed by the immersion and then the ESL group. Initial

age of exposure to English was the lowest for the ESL group, next for the immersion, and

the highest for the EFL. Finally, the length of learning English was shortest in the EFL

group followed by the immersion, and then the ESL groups. This implies that our research

grouping of the research has selected appropriate learning contexts with distinguishable

characteristics for group comparisons.11

For this analysis, correct responses for questions were counted to represent individual

students’ grammatical competence in three tasks mentioned above: 1) dialogue completion

with collocational expressions, 2) testing on critical items in learning Korean as a second

or foreign language (henceforth, called Critical Grammar in KSL), 3) sentence completion

with double nominative structures. The following are the results of the MANOVA test by

SPSS 17.0.

TABLE 8

Results of MANOVA Test of Three Grammatical Tasks

F (df12) p

Collocational Expressions F (2, 63) = 1.371 p=0.261

Critical Grammar in KSL F (2, 63) = 2.440 p=0.095

Double Nominative Structures F (2, 63) = 5.535 p**=0.006

As seen above, the results showed that there is significant difference in composition

skills with double nominative structures (F(2, 63) = 5.535, p** <0.01, observed power

10 The minor differences of df in the table across factors are due to missing data (including the response such as “I don’t remember how long…” or “I am not sure when …”).

11 In the correlation analyses, the Pearson correlation was found highest between the length of living in Korea and the participant groupings (Pearson Correlation = 0.844, p** < 0.01.

12 The minor differences of df in the table across factors are due to missing data (including the response such as “I don’t remember how long…” or “I am not sure when …”).


0.149), but not in grammatical competence for collocational expressions and critical items

across the three groups of students. In the post hoc Bonferroni test of pair-wise comparison

among groups, it was confirmed significant at the level of α = 0.01 (two-tailed) that EFL

students outperformed ESL students in the composition test with double nominative

structures in Korean. The following are descriptive statistics of the test.

TABLE 9

Descriptive Statistics of the Composition Task with Double Nominative Structures

Group Average Number

of Correct AnswersStandard

DeviationNumber of Participants

EFL 3.0813 1.262 26

Immersion 2.57 1.748 21

ESL 1.63 1.300 19

Note. Scores in the table represents the raw numbers of correct answers to 7 questions.

These results are very interesting in that the study has partially confirmed the

insignificant difference across monolinguals and bilinguals in Lee, H.-J. (2000). This

implies that all of the three groups can be said competent at the level of minimum

knowledge of critical structures in Korean. At the same time, however, the results also

revealed that learners in the ESL and the immersion context have limited competence

using common but Korean-specific structures – double nominative structures in the study.

VI. DISCUSSION

Based on these results, the first research question above has been answered in the

negative. Korean bilingual children who are learning English in three different learning

contexts show similar performance with each other in the grammar test at least with

collocational expressions and items known challenging for learners of Korean as a second

or foreign language. However, regarding the second research question, the study showed

that ESL students show a significant delay in grammatical development of double

nominative sentences in Korean.

A remaining question might be what specific factors among the ones characterizing

English learning contexts closely relate to differing development of double nominative

13 The average number of correct answers reveals between 1.63 and 3.08, The reason of such low

scores are beyond the discussion of this research. One possible reason might be due to the severe

complexity of its syntactic structures, compared with other structures. This potential is supported

by the fact that there are still many conflicting theories on its syntactic structure in Korean

linguistics.


structures in Korean. To answer this question, the study counted and coded the length of

studying English and living in Korea, and the initial time of studying English, obtained

through interview sessions. Then, the study performed correlation analyses of those three

factors with the scores in the double-nominative sentence completion task. The results are

as follows in Table 10:

TABLE 10

Correlation Between Contextual Factors and the Test Scores of

the Double Nominative Structures

Factors from Learning Context Pearson Correlation Coefficient Significance

Length of Learning English (months) -0.234 p=0.65

Length of Residence in Korea (months)

0.318 p* = 0.011

Initial age of Exposure to English (months)

0.257 p* =0.042

Note. (*) represents that the possibility is statistically significant at α =0.05 level (two-tailed).

These results imply that among the context factors, length of residence in Korea is the

best predictor about how well a participant would perform in the composition test with

double nominative structures (Pearson Correlation Coefficient: 0.318, p* < 0.05). The

longer a participant lives in Korea, the better their double nominative structure, a common

and unique structure in Korean. In addition, though not as strong a correlation, those with

the earlier exposure to English also tended to be less competent on the composition test.

These two findings suggest that the social learning context of language learning works bi-

directionally between the mother tongue and second or foreign language. This is in

contrast to the heretofore emphasized uni-directional effect by mother tongue on second or

foreign language. The findings should draw language policy makers’ attention to the

necessity that apart from emphasis of efficient teaching of English at elementary schools

employing ESL context in Korea, the school curriculum should also consider how to

compensate for possible weakness in the development of Korean. For example, Joh et al.

(2009) showed that lexical development in Korean was significantly delayed by the 2nd or

3rd graders who are learning English in the immersion and ESL context. Moreover, the

current study specified that such differences in the development of Korea language have

significant correlation with length of residence and initial age of exposure to English.

One more fact to note in the study is the significant correlation with the scores between

the lexical test by Joh, et al. (2009) and the composition test with double nominative

structures in the current study. The Pearson Correlation between the two tests were 0.397,

p** = 0.01. This result implies that a participant with a better score in the lexical test also

performed better in the sentence writing test with Korean-specific structures. This finding


suggests that the development of mother tongue skill by Korean elementary school

students keeps along with one another at the lexical and grammatical levels.

In summary, the study found that the ESL students who were characterized by shorter

residence in Korea and earlier exposure to English were not as competent as EFL students

in terms of lexical knowledge and grammatical knowledge of Korean-specific structures,

but similar in their performance across the different learning contexts in the grammar test

of basics for elementary schoolers and KFL learners. Considering the high correlation of

the scores between the lexical test and the sentence writing test found in the study,

successful or unsuccessful lexical development still results in corresponding development

in Korean-specific grammar.

A possible reason for the insignificant difference across the three participant groups in

the grammar test might be that, compared to the lexical test, the grammar items in the test

were comparatively easier to master at early in language development, a kind of ceiling

effect. In order to address this possibility, a grammar test in further research may include

testing items sufficiently challenging to measure the development of higher level of

grammatical knowledge. The current study has made a significant contribution in

providing a pioneering picture of how different development of a mother tongue is

progressing or delayed in Korean learners who were learning English across three critical

contexts of bilingual education. In addition, the study suggests that at least Korean-specific

structures need active instructional intervention to compensate potential lack of knowledge

and skills in use of Korean sentences by elementary school children who are learning

English in the ESL or the immersion context.

In spite of those interesting findings, the current study, however, has a limit that it did

not specify one specific factor and control other factors than the specific factor enough to

produce any clear cause and effect relationship between the characteristics of the learning

contexts and the deficiency or proficiency in a mother tongue. Note that the current study

found the highest correlation between length of residence in Korea and lexical

development in Korean. This has, thus, remained as another of the promising topics for

further research that pursues generalizable and reliable conclusions on bilinguals’ language

development. Other limitations include the small size and the lack of a longitudinal factor.

Further research, for example, may investigate the question, whether or not bilinguals with

heavy English backgrounds eventually catch up to their peers in EFL context.


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APPENDIX A

Sample of Collocation Test (ESL version14)

[1-10] Read the followings conversations and complete the sentences with the

appropriate expressions.

(e.g.) 언니: 학교 몇 시에 끝나니?

동생: 아마 세시쯤.

Enni: hakkyo myechsi-ey kkukhna-ni?

School what time-at finish-INTERROGATIVE

Elder sister[or brother]: What time is your school over?

Tongsayng: ama seysi-ccum

probably three-or so

Younger sister[or brother]: Maybe at three or so.

1. 언니: 그래, 어떠니?

동생: 옷이 전혀 .

Enni: Kuray, ette-ni?

So/Then how about it- INTERROGATIVE

Elder sister[or brother]: So, how about it?

Tongsayng: os-i cenhye .

dress-NOMINATIVE at all .

Younger sister[or brother]: This dress at all.

……………………………………………………………

14 Romanization is added for readers, which was not provided in the test.


APPENDIX B

Sample of KFL Grammar Test (ESL version15)

[11-23] Read the following sentences and mark the appropriate ones with (√).

(e.g.) 윤이는 화를 내며 발을 동동 ( □ 찼다).

( □√ 굴렀다).

Yuni-nun hwa-lul nay-mye pal-ul tongtong ( □ chass-ta)

( □√ kwul-ess-ta)

Yuni-TOPIC anger-ACCUSATIVE explode-ing foot-ACCUSATIVE stamping

sound

( □ kick-DECLARATIVE)

( □√ stamp-PAST- DECLARATIVE).

Yunni stamped her feet in anger.

….

13. 오늘은 집에 ( □ 입니다).

( □ 있습니다).

Onul-un cip-ey ( □ i-pni-ta).

( □ iss-ipni-ta).

Today-TOPIC home-at ( □ is-POLITE-DECLARATIVE).

( □ stay-POLITE-DECLARATIVE).

Today I’m at home.

….

15 Romanization is added for readers, which was not provided in the test.


APPENDIX C

Sample of Composition Test with Double Nominative Structures

[24-44] Read the sentences below and fill in the blanks with appropriate words.

(e.g.) 민기가 간지러워서 쳐다보니, 모기에 물렸다.

60. 등산을 하면서 .

62. 서울은 .

63. 오늘 수업 시간에 호랑이 그림과 사자 그림을 보았는데,

나는 .

호랑이 사자


APPENDIX D

Sample of Oral Questions in Learning Background Survey

Part I.

아동의 이름 ( )

1. 성별: 남 여

2. 소속집단: 학교 학년

3. 생년월일: 년 월 일 � 월령으로 환산 ( 개월)

5. 영역별로 영어 능력 등급에 V 표시해주세요.

읽기: Beginning ( ) Intermediate ( ) Advanced ( ) Advanced High ( )

듣기: Beginning ( ) Intermediate ( ) Advanced ( ) Advanced High ( )

말하기: Beginning ( ) Intermediate ( ) Advanced ( ) Advanced High ( )

쓰기: Beginning ( ) Intermediate ( ) Advanced ( ) Advanced High ( )

Part II.

6. 한국에서 태어났나요? (예// 아니오, 미국에서 태어났어요):

1) 미국에서 태어났다면, 한국에서 1개월 이상 살아본 적 있어요? (예,

아니요):

2) 살아본 적이 있다면, 몇 살 때 얼마 정도? (_____살 때 _____ 개월 동안)

7. 언제 처음 영어를 배웠어요? ( 개월)

….

Applicable levels: elementary

Keywords: EFL, immersion, ESL, Korean-English bilinguals, mother tongue development,

sentence completion, double nominative structures, elementary schoolchildren

HyunSook Ko

Korea Institute for Curriculum & Evaluation

15-5, Joengdong Bldg, Jeong-dong, Jung-gu,

Seoul 100-784, Korea

Phone: (02) 3704-3922

Fax: 02-3704-3954

E-mail: [email protected]

Injae Lim

Dept. of English Education, College of Education, Konkuk University

143-701 1 Hwayang-dong, Kwangjin-gu, Seoul, Korea


Phone: (02) 2049-6007

Fax: 02-450-3906


Jeongsoon Joh

Dept. of English Education, College of Education, Konkuk University

Phone: (02) 450-4157

Fax: 02-450-3906


Shinsook Lee

136-701 Anam-dong, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, Korea

Dept. of English Language Education, Korea University

Phone: (02) 3290-2353

Fax: 02-3290-2353


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