The problematic areas of the teaching of Korean as a foreign language have been largely neglected in the past. Few studies combine the following three aspects: 1) an examination of learner Korean; 2) the provision of substantial linguistic and pedagogical explanations; and 3) the devising of teaching or learning strategies based on empirical evidence. By studying KFL learners and their language production, insights can be gained relating to the learning of KFL and instructors will be able to provide appropriate corrective measures. This study investigated errors produced by KFL learners, focusing primarily on high frequency orthographic, lexical and grammatical errors in written language production. The study attempts to identify key areas of difficulty in learning Korean, to investigate the possible cause of difficulties and to provide more adequate information for the teaching and learning of KFL. To this end the study uses two classes of textual data and employs both statistical and descriptive analyses. At an orthographic level the study has identified four main error categories: 1) mismatch in three series consonants, 2) mismatch in vowel sounds, 3) misuse of nasals and laterals, and 4) omission and addition of ???h???. Overall the cause of key error types correlates strongly with the differences in sound quality and sound patterns between Korean and English, with some intralingual features. At a lexical level, the study found nine types of errors including 1) semantic similarity, 2) lexical misselection and 3) overgeneralization. The findings suggest that learners have a great deal of difficulty in differentiating lexical items with similar meaning and in selecting words appropriate to particular contexts or situations. As for grammatical errors, the study identified the five most active error categories, which made up more than 80% of the total grammatical errors. An overwhelming majority of grammatical errors and case particle errors in particular were errors of substitution. Many high frequency grammatical errors had distinctive triggering factors such as particular types of verb and sentence construction. The findings of the study have several pedagogical implications. First, there are key common errors for English L1-KFL learners and these common errors need increased linguistic and pedagogical attention. Secondly, the results reinforce the need to pay more active attention to the usage of the main case particles, along with the triggering constructions causing substitutions. Thirdly, the findings suggest that different types of analysis should be done in order to facilitate a plausible description of the problematic KFL items. The study argues that despite being problematic, the items discussed in this thesis are learnable and worthy of being taught with explicit or intentional strategies and that there is a need for pedagogically effective and adequate instructional input to maximize the potential of the learner???s language development in Korean.

The problematic areas of the teaching of Korean as a foreign language have been largely neglected in the past. Few studies combine the following three aspects: 1) an examination of learner Korean; 2) the provision of substantial linguistic and pedagogical explanations; and 3) the devising of teaching or learning strategies based on empirical evidence. By studying KFL learners and their language production, insights can be gained relating to the learning of KFL and instructors will be able to provide appropriate corrective measures. This study investigated errors produced by KFL learners, focusing primarily on high frequency orthographic, lexical and grammatical errors in written language production. The study attempts to identify key areas of difficulty in learning Korean, to investigate the possible cause of difficulties and to provide more adequate information for the teaching and learning of KFL. To this end the study uses two classes of textual data and employs both statistical and descriptive analyses. At an orthographic level the study has identified four main error categories: 1) mismatch in three series consonants, 2) mismatch in vowel sounds, 3) misuse of nasals and laterals, and 4) omission and addition of ???h???. Overall the cause of key error types correlates strongly with the differences in sound quality and sound patterns between Korean and English, with some intralingual features. At a lexical level, the study found nine types of errors including 1) semantic similarity, 2) lexical misselection and 3) overgeneralization. The findings suggest that learners have a great deal of difficulty in differentiating lexical items with similar meaning and in selecting words appropriate to particular contexts or situations. As for grammatical errors, the study identified the five most active error categories, which made up more than 80% of the total grammatical errors. An overwhelming majority of grammatical errors and case particle errors in particular were errors of substitution. Many high frequency grammatical errors had distinctive triggering factors such as particular types of verb and sentence construction. The findings of the study have several pedagogical implications. First, there are key common errors for English L1-KFL learners and these common errors need increased linguistic and pedagogical attention. Secondly, the results reinforce the need to pay more active attention to the usage of the main case particles, along with the triggering constructions causing substitutions. Thirdly, the findings suggest that different types of analysis should be done in order to facilitate a plausible description of the problematic KFL items. The study argues that despite being problematic, the items discussed in this thesis are learnable and worthy of being taught with explicit or intentional strategies and that there is a need for pedagogically effective and adequate instructional input to maximize the potential of the learner???s language development in Korean.