The Effectiveness of Flipped Learning Model on Korean Language Learning as a Foreign Language: Speaking Class in a University Level

This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of flipped learning model on Korean speaking learning as a foreign language at a university. The sample of this study consisted of 29 college students who were in their second year majoring in Korean language and literature. The responses and test grades of the students were compared and analyzed through questionnaire surveys and exam results. Both the flipped learning method and the traditional teaching method were used for this experiment. In the first week, students were oriented with the program, and the traditional teaching method classes were conducted for the first four weeks. After that, a questionnaire survey and a midterm exam were conducted. Subsequently, during the next four weeks, flipped learning teaching was used to the same students. After finishing the flipped learning class, a second questionnaire survey and final exam were conducted. In the last week, a general evaluation of this study was conducted that allows the students to present freely and have one-on-one interviews with the students. The study result indicates that the flipped learning method was effective for Korean speaking learning because not only did it improve the student’s grades, it also improved their learning motivation, learning engagement, and communicative competence in Korean.


Introduction
The purpose of foreign language teaching is to enable the students to communicate willingly with others in their daily lives (Akdemir, 2016;2021;Özyurt & Akdemir, 2021).To achieve this goal, foreign language teachers are always thinking about how to teach effectively and efficiently (Efe, 2016;Uysal & Selvi, 2021).Recently, in the field of foreign language education, a new teaching method called 'flipped learning' has been used (Bergmann & Sams, 2012;González-Gómez, Jeong & Rodríguez, 2016;Lage, Platt & Treglia, 2000;), and it is gaining the spotlight as a useful educational method for improving the learning and communication skills of students (Elfeky, Masadeh, & Elbyalya, 2020;Tsai, Liao, Chang & Chen, 2020;Yu, 2017;Zarouk, Olivera, Peres, & Khaldi, 2020).It has been found that flipped learning is effective in acquiring the knowledge and essential skills needed in modern society.Moreover, flipped classrooms with a student-centered approach provide time and opportunity for developing active learning to enhance the quality of face-to-face learning in the classroom setting and enhance student engagement and satisfaction (Manoharan, & Birundha, 2019;Parthasarathy & Mahilnan, 2017).
Flipped learning is an educational method in which the flipped activities are performed in the classroom setting and outside the classroom (Bergmann & Sams, 2012;Lage, Platt, & Treglia, 2000;Selvakumar & Sivakumar, 2018;Selvi, 2021a).Flipped learning consists of three distinct stages: Pre-class, in-class, and post-class.Students learn in advance at home through multimedia materials provided by teachers before attending physical classes (Jain, 2021).In this pre-class stage, the teacher prepares and provides the lecture videos, audio, and other sub-materials which contain the weekly learning topic for the students so that the students can learn in an interesting way on their own.In the classroom, activities, discussions, or problem solving are conducted based on the knowledge and content that students have already acquired.In this way, various activities that focus on using what students have learned are carried out at the in-class stage.In the post-class stage, the contents learned through the activities in the classroom are further deepened, and this includes performing assignments or feedback activities.Since such flipped learning enables the students towards self-directed learning, numerous studies are being conducted in various educational fields such as; Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Medicine, and Computer Programming (Ayık & Ataş, 2014;Choi, et. al., 2021;Lin, Hsia, & Hwang, 2021;Munir, et. al., 2018;Selvi, 2021b;Sun & Xie, 2020).
Particularly, flipped learning attracts the attention of foreign language education because it not only improves the self-oriented study of learners but also increases the opportunities to practice the foreign languages, which are absolutely lacking in foreign language classrooms (Abdullah, et al., 2019;Wagner & Urhahne, 2021).Although there may be some individual differences in learning ability, so it is very important that sufficient time and amount of study are required, and that students are able to have more opportunities to practice the foreign language they have learned in the flipped learning class.Moreover, flipped learning is claimed as one of the ways to overcome the gap in academic skills that exist among students (Yen, 2020).If the students' academic levels in a class are similar to each other, it will be easier for the teacher to choose the level of instruction for the class.However, in reality, it is common for students to have a large difference in skill level.If the content selected by the teacher is easy, students with relatively high academic skills will lose interest in the class.In other ways, when the content selected by the teacher is too difficult, students with a lower learning ability will lose interest in the class.However, in flipped learning, since it is possible to select activities individually according to the learning ability of each student in class, there is an advantage of gradually reducing the level difference among students (Bond, 2020).
This research aims to investigate the effect of flipped learning on Korean majoring students at a Turkish university in Ankara.For the students who took the Korean speaking class, the class was initially taught with the traditional method for 4 weeks, and immediately after, the same class was conducted with the flipped learning method for another 4 weeks.After each class method, the researcher used surveys to compare how the flipped learning method affected the students' motivation, learning flow, learning engagement, and communicative competence improvement.Besides the data collected from the surveys, the researcher also examined and incorporated the test scores into the analysis to fully discern the effect of flipped learning on the learning efficacy of the students.

Literature Review Flipped Learning in Korean Speaking Classes
There were several studies on Korean speaking classes or discussion classes using flipped learning.Some of these studies created and presented a class model simply, and in some cases, students' reactions were studied by actually applying flipped learning in class.Some studies were conducted in Korea, and some studies were conducted with students studying Korean as a foreign language in abroad institutions.According to the research design, these studies analyzed the effects of flipped learning on students' learning efficacy, speaking competence, or emotional changes.
Han and Kim (2016) analyzed the effects of flipped learning in Korean language classes using flipped learning for speaking classes held at a university in Hong Kong.The researchers said that when looking at the classroom environment of students studying Korean as a foreign language in a country outside of Korea, there is a difficulty in having the opportunity to practice the speaking aspect of the language during class due to the large size of the classes.Flipped learning was applied to solve this challenge.It was suggested, that flipped learning was an effective teaching method in Korean speaking classes since students could have more chances to practice in the flipped class.Lee (2016) proposed a flipped learning model for Korean debate classes to improve the speaking skills of university students.The research suggested that the flipped would help the students to have a chance to study the background knowledge or expressions on the topic of the debate class and for instructors to focus on the speaking performance as an 'in-class activity'.However, the limitation of this study is that it has not been practically applied.There is no statistical data on the effectiveness of the flipped learning method in the Korean speaking class.
Tong (2017) investigated the applicability of flipped learning to Korean learners in higher institutions in China.The researcher hoped that flipped learning would allow students who were bored with the teacher's one-sided lecture in class to communicate more freely with each other in small groups, resulting in improved Korean speaking skills.However, the limitation of the flipped learning model presented in this study is that it hasn't been utilized in an actual classroom.
Kim and Kim (2017) designed a Korean-speaking class based on flipped learning.They made the model by classifying it into three different stages i.e. preclass, in-class, and after-class.It was suggested that these three stages should be closely connected, but among them, the pre-class and the in-class must be linked intimately for improving the communication abilities of the students.However, the limitation of this model is that it has only been theorized and not utilized and verified.
Song (2017) applied flipped learning in communication and creative speaking class to explore the effectiveness of the learning method.The results show that the new method has a positive effect on relieving the anxiety of communication, improvement of cognitive engagement, and increasing class achievement.Besides this, the researcher mentioned that the teaching-learning method based on flipped learning is innovative in that it seeks to change the perspective of the class.However, this cannot be the only solution to the problems of all teaching-learning methods.The educational significance can be found in that flipped learning provides a meaningful experience to become an active participant by encouraging students, and it provides a new attempt and challenge to the existing teaching-learning method.
Lee and Yun (2017) applied flipped learning to Korean grammar classes to improve the Korean communication skills of students.Through flipped learning, students were guided into speaking-oriented activities that utilized their grammar knowledge in class and they could have enough time to practice speaking Korean with each other.As a result, it was emphasized that students' satisfaction in the class was very high compared to the previous class.This study is meaningful in that flipped learning was introduced for a grammar class to improve the speaking ability of Korean learners.Moreover, learning materials of pre-class and activities or assignments of in-class were presented along with specific examples, and speaking activities were discussed for reinforcement purposes.Kim (2018) presented a learning model for a public speaking class by using flipped learning in university education.The uniqueness of this study is that speech is not only important in education but also is an important ability for social life in modern society.The researcher designed the class steps and activities for the speaking class, which is the general procedure of flipped learning class.And according to the design, a teaching model was proposed for giving a speech to the class.However, the limit to this study is that flipped learning was not field verified in this public speaking class.
Sim and Kim (2020) designed the Korean speaking class as a flip learning method and studied the effect of the flipped learning method on the international students' emotional factors and speaking efficacy in Korean.The results of the study revealed that flipped learning raised positive emotions and lowers negative emotions such as negative perception, symphonies, or audience consciousness in students.Specifically, in this study, flipped learning improved the Korean speaking confidence of students by practicing speaking with Korean colleagues.

Motivation, Learning Flow, Learning Engagement and Communicative Competence
As seen in the previous studies, much of the research on the effect of flipped learning for a Korean-speaking class hasn't been sufficiently supported for use in an actual class.The basic argument was that flipped learning would improve the language ability of foreign language learners, but these arguments should always be actualized and evaluated in a real classroom setting with real subjects.Moreover, it is beneficiary to analyze the effects of flipped learning statistically according to the diversity of learners and learning environments.As a Korean language teacher for foreign learners, the ultimate goal is to educate students whose major is Korean as a foreign language so that they can speak Korean proficiently when meeting Koreans or when they need to use Korean.To reach this goal an array is needed to motivate the students after that students' focus on learning will enhance and actively participate in the class.And eventually, through that process, the communication skills of students will be improved (Song & Keller, 2001).
The behavior in which learners actively spend time and effort on instruction is called 'learning flow' (McCallum, et. al., 2015).Learning flow, including all efforts made for the study of the subject, such as taking preparations, attending class, and doing homework and review, is a basic element that guarantees educational performance and affects the success or failure of flipped learning.Students with high learning flow tend to have high enthusiasm for learning and internalize the learning content and are more likely to use the learning content as well as academic achievement in their own lives.When learning flow is achieved, students naturally participate in class actively.In a flipped learning environment, if students do not faithfully participate in the pre-class stage, it will be difficult to participate in the learning activities of the inclass stage, and as a result, academic achievement and learning satisfaction will be lowered.This involvement can be named 'learning engagement' and the degree of participation in various learning activities in the classroom affect the learning outcomes (Ataş & Ayık, 2013;Milman, 2012).As a result, the students' communicative competence can be achieved in flipped learning.Figure 1 shows the learning flowchart starting with learning motivation and leading towards communication improvement through learning flow and learning engagement.When each stage of this learning flowchart is maximized, it is believed that the effect of learning will be expanded.However, not many studies have yet been conducted to examine how flipped learning affects learner motivation, learning flow, learning engagement, and communicative competence in Korean language education in Turkey.

Figure 1 Learning Flowchart in Foreign
Language Education

Methodology Research Design and Participants
This study compared and analyzed students' responses and test grades through questionnaires and exams after using a traditional teaching method and flipped learning for 29 second-year college students majoring in Korean language and literature.Table 1 shows the timetable for one semester (15 weeks) of this experiment.In the first week, students were given an orientation to the upcoming classes, and then for four weeks, classes were conducted through a traditional teaching method.After that, a questionnaire survey and midterm exam was conducted.Subsequently, flipped learning was used for the same students for four weeks.First, the general orientation of flipped learning, how the class will be conducted in the future, and what students must do in the flipped learning class were introduced.After finishing the flipped learning class, a second questionnaire and final exam were conducted.In the last week, a general evaluation of this study was conducted, allowing students to present freely, and having one-on-one interviews with the students.

Hypotheses and Data Collection
To determine whether the flipped learning method is useful for the Korean speaking class the null and alternative hypotheses were formulated as follows: • H 0 : The flipped learning method is effective for the Korean speaking class.• H 1 : The flipped learning method is not effective for the Korean speaking class After conducting classes using both traditional teaching method and flipped learning, the learners' motivation, learning flow, learning engagement, and communicative competence improvement were obtained through the same questionnaire.In the first questionnaire, questions were added for collecting personal information of the students to know the students' familiarity with digital technology.In the second questionnaire, questions related to the students' overall view and personal perspectives on the flipped learning method were added.The survey was conducted anonymously, and the 5-point Likert scale was used.Midterm and final exams were calculated based on 100 points.For the test requirement analysis, data normality test and variance homogeneity test were carried out.Data normality test used Kolmogorov-Smirnov technique whereas variance homogeneity test used Levene's test.Data normality test and variance homogeneity test were used to fulfill all parametric assumptions.Moreover, the paired samples t-test was utilized to find out whether there is any statistically significant difference between the two teaching methods.Reliability coefficients were calculated to guarantee that students had appropriately understood the different items (α = 0.95).All analyses were conducted in IBM SPSS statistics 25.

Results and Discussion
Flipped learning class is based on the latest digital technology.This study found that the learning effects can be maximized when students become accustomed to using the Internet freely, using digital learning materials, and posting opinions or questions on social networks.Table 2 shows the relationship between the questionnaire content used in this study.Considering that the Cronbach's Alpha value was 0.720, all questionnaires had a high internal consistency and were decided to be used for computation.Moreover, the mean value of familiarity with digital technology was 4.1±0.5.Therefore, it can be understood that most students are already accustomed to using digital technology and they are already free to access or search the Internet in their learning.

Learners' Motivation
Tables 3 and 4 are the paired sample test data on the learner motivation of the flipped learning.Participant motivation recorded a mean of 4.0728 on the first survey and 4.4202 on the second survey.An increase of 0.3474 points was registered in this study.The Sig. value of 0.021 (< α=0.05) indicates that this difference was statistically significant and the flipped method was effective on this topic in the Korean speaking class of this study.

Learning Flow
Tables 5 and 6 show the effect of flipped learning on learning flow.Learning flow registered an increase of 0.1645 points in the second survey to attain a mean of 4.3030 in the second survey up from a mean of 4.1385 in the first survey.With the Sig.value of 0.322 (> α=0.05), indicates that this increase was not statistically significant, and therefore the flipped method was not effective for the learning flow.

Learning Engagement
Tables 7 and 8 show the effect of flipped learning on learning engagement.Learning engagement had a mean of 3.4635 in the first survey and a mean of 3.9746 in the second survey representing an increase of 0.5111 points.The Sig. value of 0.001 (< α=0.05) indicates that this increase was statistically significant.So, the flipped method was effective for learning engagement in the Korean speaking class of this study.

Communicative Competence
Tables 9 and 10 show the effect of the flipped learning on communicative competence.The communicative competence recorded a mean of 4.1143 in the second survey and a mean of 3.4476 in the first survey.This represented an increase of 0.6667 points and with the Sig.value of 0.021 (< α=0.05), this increase was statistically significant and can be attributed to the flipped learning method.Therefore, it is seen that the flipped method was effective in improving the communicative competence in the Korean speaking class.

Exam Grades
Table 11 shows the statistics of the midterm and final exams.It is observed that there is increasing in mean value and the narrow spread in the final exam than in the midterm exam.A paired sample test statistic of the two variables was carried out to investigate whether the difference in means is statistically significant.Table 12 indicates the midterm and final exams had a weak positive correlation (r = 0.472).Moreover, the p-value of the paired-sample t-test is 0.000 and it is smaller than 0.05 in Table 13, so it shows that the difference in means is statistically significant and hence we reject the null hypothesis.The learners had 5.6897 points more on their final exams compared to the midterm exams, given that the final exam was sat after the learners had engaged in flipped learning methods.This difference is statistically significant and can be attributed to the flipped learning method.Therefore, it can be concluded that the flipped learning method was effective in exams during the second year Korean speaking class of this study.

Conclusion
This study was conducted to find out the effectiveness of flipped learning on Korean speaking learning as a foreign language at a university in Ankara.The study results indicate that the majority of the students were accustomed to using digital technology and were already familiar with accessing and searching the Internet for their education needs.The statistically significant differences in the surveys show that the flipped learning method was indeed effective in improving the Korean speaking ability.Despite having a statistically insignificant effect on the learning flow, there was a great statistical significance in the learners' motivation, learning engagement, and communicative competence in a flipped-learning operated Korean speaking class.Additionally, the exam's average grade differences between the two exams indicate that the flipped learning method was an effective teaching method in a Korean-speaking class abroad.Furthermore, the flipped classroom provided an engaging environment for students and altered the conventional teaching method -which could have added to the student's interest and concentration.This methodology is also beneficial to students since it has resulted in a significant shift in their learning process.Therefore, it concluded that the flipped learning method is an effective method for teaching Korean speaking to Turkish students who are majoring in the Korean language.