earticle

영어

English teaching in Korea during the Japanese colonial period has often been described as the victim of a dark age. Most previous studies on the topic tended to cover diverse aspects of English teaching in Korea at different school levels and in different contexts, thus making it impossible to characterize the nature of English teaching at public schools. In an attempt to better understand the nature of English teaching in Korea during the Japanese colonial period, this study focused on English teaching at Korean public secondary schools during the period. First, the study looked at weekly instructional hours as dictated by four educational edicts to evaluate the commonly made claim that English teaching in Korea experienced a dark age throughout the Japanese colonial period. In addition, the study examined why the grammar-translation method was the most commonly adopted approach to teaching English at public secondary schools. An analysis of the four educational edicts showed that there were substantial differences in the number of instructional hours across different periods of Japanese colonial rule. Thus, characterizing the entire colonial period as a dark age of English teaching seemed to lack validity. In addition, considerations of various contextual factors suggested that the adoption of the grammar-translation when teaching English at Korean public secondary schools during the Japanese colonial period was a forced choice, not a choice mandated by any political entity. Big class size, Japanese teachers’ inadequate English proficiency, high-stakes English examinations, and other factors seemed to be responsible for widespread use of the grammar-translation method.