KATE NEWSLETTER
February 2002, Volume 26, Number 1
On the Inside…
President’s Message
New Year’s Greetings to KATE
General Information on KATE
Feature Article
Guest Columns
Teaching Ideas
Special Reports
KATE News
Reports from the Council
Members in the News
News from Our Partners
Upcoming Events: 2002
Directory of KATE Officers
KATE Newsletter Contributor Guidelines
Membership Application
2002 1
한국영어교육학회
The Korea Association of Teachers of English
Website:
KATE: An Associate of IATEFL
ㆍ발행처 : 한국영어교육학회 ㆍ발행인 : 이효웅
ON THE INSIDE
President’s Message ......
English Teaching Rated "Most Outstanding Journal"
By Lee Hyo Woong
New Year’s Greetings to KATE ......
General Information on KATE ......
Feature Article ......
Language "Instinct" and Language Engineering
with Reference to Second Language Learning
By Kim Soonbok
Guest Columns ......
Knowing Where to Begin. Meeting Your Professional
Development Needs By Neil Anderson
Elementary School English Instruction in Asia
By Tom Merner
Teaching Ideas ......
Etiquette in EnglishBy David E. Shaffer
Special Reports ......
The PAC3 at JALT 2001: A Language Odyssey By Park Jun-eon
The 2002 Thai TESOL ConferenceBy Lee Kilryoung
English Language Testing in AsiaBy Lee Jae Hee
KATE News ......
Reports from the Council
Members in the News
News from Our Partners ......
Upcoming Events: 2002 ......
Directory for KATE Officers ......
KATE Newsletter Contributor Guidelines ......
Membership Application ......
The KATE Newsletter is edited by:
Joo-Kyung ParkDavid E. Shaffer
Dept. of English.Div. of English Language and Literature
Honam UniversityChosun University
Tel (062) 940-5310; Fax (062) 940-5116 Tel: (062) 230-6917; Fax (062) 232-4704
Email: ail:
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
English Teaching Rated "Most Outstanding Journal"
Lee Hyo-Woong
Korea Maritime University
My fellow KATE members, I would like to extend my sincere gratefulness to you for the excellent results obtained by KATE’s academic journal, English Teaching, in the evaluation conducted by the Korea Research Foundation. I would especially like to express my deep gratitude to those executive committee members who spent formidable amounts of time and energy preparing for the evaluations of the journal.
As you may well know, our journal, English Teaching, is now included in the list of outstanding academic journals through three consecutive years of evaluation of the journal by the Korea Research Foundation. Our journal is the first in the nation in the fields of English language teaching and language learning to be included in the exclusive list. Furthermore, our journal has received an A rating in another Korea Research Foundation evaluation of language-related journals. The latter evaluation, implemented by the Foundation, was conducted on behalf of the Ministry of Education and Human Resources.
Such excellent achievements would not have been possible without our former presidents’ strong leadership and devotion, our executive committee members’ efforts and sacrifice, and our general members’ enthusiasm for English language teaching and learning and their cooperation for the betterment of our journal. Such achievements would also have been impossible without the generous financial support we receive from a number of commercial enterprises which graciously continue to sponsor our organization.
On the basis of these achievements, the Korea Association of Teachers of English will continue to exert its efforts for English Teaching to make an even greater contribution to English education in Korea and to be recognized internationally. One of the best ways for the journal to be recognized globally is to invite many distinguished overseas scholars to KATE's annual international conferences and to ask them to contribute their papers to the journal.
On this occasion, I would like to boldly propose that from the year 2003 our Association hold one conference annually and that the conference run for three days. I firmly believe that such a conference could prove to be a shortcut to globalizing our Association and our journal, English Teaching.
Your constant interest, active cooperation, and undying devotion are crucial to our Association’s continued success. I wish the best of health, wealth, and wisdom to all of you.
NEW YEAR’S GREETINGS to KATE
Greetings from IATEFL
To the members of KATE:
On behalf of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL) I would like to wish the members of KATE all the very best in 2002. I remember so fondly my visit to you last February. It was truly one of the highlights in my year. I enjoyed my experiences with you enormously because of your many kindnesses and your generosity in sharing your beautiful country with me.
We are very pleased that KATE is an Associate of IATEFL, and we look forward to meeting your representative at our annual conference in York, March 23-27. It was wonderful having so many delegates from Korea at our conference last year, and I hope more of you will come this year. It's going to be an excellent conference, with 1500 participants. The plenary speakers will be Peter Skehan, Diane Larsen-Freeman, Leni Dam, B. Kumaravadivelu, and Martha Pennington. See you there!
Dr. Susan Barduhn
President, IATEFL
Greetings from JACET
Dear Professor Lee,
Thank you very much for your "New Year's Message from KATE." I would like to extend my best wishes for the new year to you and KATE on behalf of JACET. We also hope that we will keep good and strong ties with warm friendship.
I was delighted to hear that KATE's journal, English Teaching, has been rated as the most outstanding journal in Korea. I would like to express my sincere congratulations on your achievement. This indicates clearly that you and your members are always working hard for the betterment of English education as well as international education for your country. I also know that your quarterly journal well deserves the A rating. I hope you and KATE will be very active in the academic world again this year.
I wish you a Happy New Year again, and I sincerely hope this year is another great year for you and KATE.
Yoji Tanabe, President
Japan Association of College English Teachers
Greetings from JALT
Greetings from the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT). We hope this New Year's greeting finds you well and our best wishes go out to you.
JALT and KATE initiated its affiliation agreement at the TESOL conference in Vancouver just about two years ago. One ofJALT's primary objectives is developing professional links worldwide and our association with KATE has proven to be a positive step in fulfilling that goal.
Our 28th annual international conference is now well into the planning stages. We will be at Shizuoka in 2002, on November 22-24 ( We are just a short hop on a plane from Korea and we would love to see you make it over.
Thom Simmons, President
Japan Association for Language Teaching
Greetings from ETA-ROC
Dear Prof. Lee,
On behalf of the English Teachers’ Association-Republic of China (ETA-ROC), I would like to convey my best wishes to you and your organization KATE for great success in 2002.
Since the organization’s birth in 1992, ETA-ROC has been able to hold a conference every year, and each year we have been successful in reaching more and more teachers. In recent years, we have also been trying our best to strengthen our ties with our long-term members and offer more services to them. Apart from holding annual conventions, we publish a bi-annual newsletter as a platform for networking, information, and research on the varied theories and practices of English language teaching.
In our efforts to meet the demands of increasing globalization, to share our expertise, and to learn from others, ETA-ROC has, in the past few years, established cooperative relationships with sister organizations in Thailand, Korea, Japan, Russia, and the US and UK, and is in communication with other groups of English teachers in Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Australia. As a matter of fact, we earnestly hope to explore the possibility of cultivating ties and exchanges with the Korea Association of Teachers of English in the near future.
Our Eleventh International Symposium with its theme “ELT in Asian Contexts: Four PCs in the 21st Century” will be held in conjunction with the Fourth Pan Asian Conference (in cooperation with JALT, ThaiTESOL, KoreaTESOL, and FEELTA) on November 8-10, 2002 in Taipei. One of the aims of this conference is to continue to promote professional collaboration. We are excited about having the opportunity to bring teachers together from East Asia and other regions to discuss our common problems and concerns and to develop strategies to make both our teaching and student and teacher mutual learning more effective and more enjoyable.
May I once again wish you every success in your future endeavors and in the upcoming conference.
Yiu-nam Leung, President
English Teachers’ Association-Republic of China
Greetings from CETRAC
Dear President Lee,
On behalf of College English Teaching and Research Association of China (CETRAC), I would like to extend to you, and through you to all the colleagues ofKATE, our warmest greetings for the New Year, the year 2002.
CETRAC is an association for college English teachers throughout China. With the nation further opening up to the outside world, there have been higherand higher demands in college students' English language proficiency. This has proved a severe challenge to our college English teachers. CETRACwishes to serve as a link among its member institutions and colleagues in the way of information and experience exchange.
China and Korea are close neighbors. KATE and CETRAC are both academic associations which aim to promote the teaching and research of English asan international language. In the past two years, we have sent representatives to attend each other's conferences and exchanged academic journals. Such exchanges have not only strengthened the academic ties between our two organizations, but also contributed immensely to better understandingbetween Chinese and Korean language professionals. I sincerely hope our friendly relations will continue to develop in the years to come.
Zhizhong Yang, President
College English Teaching and Research Association of China
GENERAL INFORMATION ON KATE
The Korea Association of Teachers of English (KATE), established in 1965, is a leading language education organization with a thirty-six-year history of advancing professionalism in English language instruction. Begun in 1965 as an organization of university professors, KATE has gradually opened its membership to include many levels of instructors in order to reach out to a broad spectrum of teachers who are committed to language education and to their own professional development. Today, KATE's membership includes over 1,000 educators ranging from elementary school teachers to university professors as well as adult education instructors.
Conferences
KATE holds an annual national conference in winter, usually in February. In order to properly serve its members, who are based in different regions, the conference venue is rotated among universities in the different regions of the country, often co-hosted by KATE and one of the other associations of English teachers of the region.
The KATE annual international conference is held in June with distinguished speakers from around the world in attendance. Also, speakers from colleges, elementary and secondary schools, and educational institutions around the country give talks on recent theories and practices in teaching English.
Publications
The KATE Newsletter is published three times a year, in February, June, and September. The newsletter includes feature articles, guest columns, special reports, teaching ideas, reports from the council, announcements, a call for papers, news about partner organizations, and membership application and other information about the organization and its members. For information on contributing, please refer to the KATE Newsletter Contributor Guidelines in this issue.
The KATE journal, English Teaching, is devoted to publishing theoretically and/or practically grounded reports of research and discussions of central issues in the field of learning and teaching English. English Teaching, a quarterly journal, is published in March, June, September, and December. The deadline for submissions for each issue is three months ahead of the publication month. All manuscripts for English Teaching must follow APA style guidelines. For more information on contributing, please refer to the Information for Contributors section in every issue of the journal. Please mail your manuscripts to: Choi Yeon Hee, Dept. of Foreign Language Teaching (English), Ewha Womans University, 11-1 Daehyeon-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, 120-750, Korea, or email them to her at <>. “Since 1965” printed on the cover of English Teaching starting from Vol. 55-1 designates the founding year of KATE.
All KATE journals (except Vol. 1-3) published in 1972 through 1999 are available on CD-ROM. Kyobo Book Corporation published this CD-ROM in March 2000. You can search for information based on content, indices, authors, and years of individual journals. In order to purchase the CD-ROM or for further information, please contact Kyobo Book Corporation from the webpage <
The KATE website is accessible at < This site includes the following features: Introduction to KATE, Members Corner, On-line Forum, Search Tool for ESL-related Information, and Useful Links. Please check it out for yourself and bookmark it in your directory. Also, do not hesitate to post your inquiries on the bulletin board at the website.
The biennial publication titled Information Guide and Directory gives a full description of the overall activities of the Association. This booklet contains a brief introduction and the history of KATE, conferences, publications, and international exchange programs. It also includes a directory of officers, associate and commercial members, and membership application procedures. The booklet, written in English, is especially useful for public relations at international conferences, domestically as well as internationally.
The KATE Membership Directory is also published biennially and is distributed to all members. This directory gives updated information on the whereabouts of KATE members.
Partners
KATE has developed various exchange programs with professional organizations overseas by sharing news and information about its activities, discussing issues of international importance, and enhancing the quality of English education worldwide. These organizations include the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL), Japan Association of College English Teachers (JACET), Japan Association of Language Teaching (JALT), the Organization of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Language in Thailand (Thai TESOL), the College English Teaching and Research Association in China (CETRAC), and English Australia (EA).
Membership
KATE has two membership categories: regular membership and special membership. The regular membership is open to specialists in teaching English, such as teachers, teacher trainers, researchers, and administrators. Libraries, publishing companies, and former KATE presidents constitute the special members. The application fee is 25,000 won. The annual fee is 25,000 won for regular membership and 30,000 won for libraries and publishing companies. Send your fee to Treasurer Kang Hoo-dong (Email: ) at one of the following accounts: NongHyup (농협) 121070-52-211071; Post Office 600387-02-107634; Korea Foreign Exchange Bank (한국외환은행) 329-18-06827-8, which is also for international membership. For more information on application for membership, please contact Secretary-General Oh Junil (Email: ). The membership application form appears at the end of every issue of the Newsletter.
English Contests
KATE holds nationwide English contests annually for high school and college students. The sponsors of the contests have been Dong-A Daily Newspaper, the International Communication Foundation (ICF), and the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development. The finalists, who are screened on both their English writing and speaking skills, are given awards. The purpose of the contest is to give Korean secondary school and college students opportunities and motivation to use English and to give new guidance in learning English. Through such nationwide English contests, students’ written as well as spoken skills in English will gradually improve.
FEATURE ARTICLE
Language "Instinct" and Language Engineering
with Reference to Second Language Learning
Kim Soonbok
Sejong University
Background
Language has been claimed to be a distinct piece of the biological makeup of the human brain (Pinker1994, p.4). Cognitive scientists see language as a psychological faculty, a mental organ, and a computational module as opposed to a cultural invention of mankind.
Language engineering refers to a range of technologically advanced applications of information and communications technology(ICT) to human language, including speech recognition, speech synthesis, speech-to-speech communication, and machine translation between the human user and the non-human machine, i.e.,the intelligent computer.
Language learning, however, is known to be a complex endeavor that involves the mastery of different processes divided basically into two main categories: comprehension and production. Recently neuroscience and biotechnology have becomeequipped with powerful resources in understanding how the brain functions and how learning takes place. These related resources have shown the higher probability of the successful mastery of a new language(L2) when the learning process starts early in life without any adverse effects on the mastery of the native language (L1).
Today, in this age of access, proficiency in a second language is required as a necessary condition for connecting with a global knowledge-based economy and interacting with an escalating body of information around the globe(Rifkin2000).
On the other hand, the Internet, combined with advanced speech technologies, is on its way to revolutionizing the concept of the classroom, the language lab, the drill exercise, the learner, and the teacher in second language teaching and learning. E-mail, v-mail, and chat rooms in particular, are being used as promising tools for L2 learning, as they allow learners to interact with native speakers from a country where their target language is spoken.
This network-based communication has been supported for increasing the learner’s opportunities to use the target language, inducing a series of negotiations of meaning, and improving the quality of written and spoken language.