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This study aimed to explored the relationship between basic Korean literacy skills and Korean language proficiency among international students who are learning Korean in a university language institute. Participants’ basic Korean literacy skills were measured by a set of tests including phonemic awareness and spelling. One hundred and eight international students who attended intermediate level Korean language classes participated in this study. The results showed that there was a significant correlation between their basic Korean literacy and Korean language proficiency. In particular, notable correlations with Korean language procificency were observed for basic vowels and the diphthongs ㅑ (ya) and ㅘ (wa), which are integral components of phonemic awareness and spelling tests conducted in a one-syllable (CV) structure. Furthermore, participants’ average accuracy in phonemic awareness test was only 59.92% and the average accuracy in spelling test was 72.48%. Considering that the test items were constructed with basic phonetic features of Korean language and orthography, their Korean literacy skills were found to be pretty limited, which were comparable to the native first-graders in Korea. Authors also compared the basic Korean literacy test scores between two groups who passes language course and who failed the course. The findings revealed that the basic literacy skills of the failed group was significantly lower than that of the passed group, indicating that phonemic awaeness and spelling abilities may affect Korean language proficiency and academic achievements. Authors discussed that Korean literacy of the foreign Korean language students are in needs of atttention among educators and researchers
Yoon et al. (Sun,) studied this question.