earticle

영어

The purpose of this study is to explore how elementary English education in Korea has changed since English was introduced as an official elementary school subject in 1997. For this purpose, the study quantitatively analyzed fifteen English class videos using the five categories of COLT Part A—activity, participant organization, content, student modality, and materials—across the 7th, 2007, 2009, and 2015 revised national English curricula. The results are as follows. First, with regard to activity, controlled and guided activities accounted for approximately 50% overall, compared to about 40% for free activities, with no notable differences across the four curriculum periods. Second, for participant organization, whole-class teacher– student interaction occupied about 70–80%, while individual, pair, and group work were relatively low, and again, no notable differences were found among the curricula. Third, regarding content, about 70% of the analyzed classes focused on language functions, with little or no focus on language form, discourse, or sociolinguistics. Fourth, regardless of curriculum period, two or more language skills were integrated in 90–100% of the classes. Finally, concerning materials, aside from the partial use of edutech in recent lessons, similar instructional materials have been consistently used from the past to the present.