국민학교 영어교육 프로그램 개발 연구 = Developing An Elementary School English Program For for Third Grade Students

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this study is to develop a model for an Elementary School English Program assuming that English would be included as a regular subject in elementary schools. Since 1982 students in Korea have been studying English in many private and public elementary schools voluntarily. However, inconsistency in teaching materials and the organization of the program among those schools have caused many problems including a lack of coherance of the program from elementary school to middle school and an absence of formal guide lines for teaching materials and classroom activities. Therefore, it was felt urgent that through in-class-experimentation a proper elementary school English program should be developed. The program was developed based on language learning theories, need assessments for students, parents and teachers, relevent studies and our own experiences. The program has been tested, corrected and finalized for third grade students(3 classes, 150 students with 50 students in each class) over a five-month period from March through July, 1989. We met twice a week and each period lasted for twenty minutes. The purpose of the program was to help students develop basic communications skills through listening and speaking. The topics included the child himself, his school life and his life. Various teaching methods and classroom activities have been applied. We conducted five different formal evaluations : two on communicative ability with tape recorders, and three written tests for phonics study. There was a final evaluation of the students` attitude and motivation toward English learning through questionaire. Findings of the study are as follows : 1. The students were highly motivated throughout the program. 2. The students` attitude was serious ; They desired a formal English education in their curriculum beyond casual lessons with songs and games alone. 3. The students preferred test books, homework and evaluation of their progress. 4. Sentences in the text should be short and simple. For the third graders they should be no more than two or three words. 5. The students showed a great interest in the phonics program and penmanship even though the objective was to help them develop only listening and speaking abilities. The following suggestions can be made out of the study : 1. Further experimentation, carried out over a longer period, focused on various grade levels is needed to establish the elementary school English program. 2. Integrated approach with other subjects is necessary for a meaningful application. 3. Ability grouping will help solve the problem of over-populated class size. 4. Qualified full time English teachers are needed. 5. Further studies are needed to establish the optimum age for the beginning of English study by Korean students.