Improving temporal prepositions in Korean students and exploring gender differences in studying space and time

초록

Jeffery, Thomas. 2023. Improving temporal prepositions in Korean students and exploring gender differences in studying space and time. Linguistic Research 40(Special Edition): 207-228. English prepositions of time, (in, on and at) are generally accepted to be challenging for Korean students as shown by studies by Seong and Lee (2008). This study examines those difficulties and suggests effective learning strategies which can be implemented to help lessen these problems. The study took place in a Korean Elementary school involving more than 100 students of various ages and levels. Initially the nature of the problems surrounding preposition comprehension was identified. Then an analysis based on cognitive linguistics was applied to seek to improve teaching strategies. The study was extended to include foreign born English Teachers' and Korean Teachers' views on the problem. The results show improvement in temporal understanding and a particularly marked improvement in males when temporal prepositions were also linked to spatial concepts. This could be because with males, spatial prepositions may be acting as supportive scaffolding linking the abstract temporal prepositions to the more concrete spatial concepts, which appeared to have a more significant impact on males than females. (Kyungpook National University)

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