2007 및 2009 개정 중학교 영어교과서와 국가수준 학업성취도평가의 읽기 지문 분석

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the vocabulary levels and readability of reading passages in middle school English textbooks based on the 2007 and 2009 revised national curriculum and the National Achievement Education Test(NEAT). Through the analysis of reading passages in the textbooks based on the 2007 and 2009 revised version and the 2013, 2014, and 2015 NEATs, this study shows that the degree of difficulty of the textbooks is suitable for NEAT and suggests an alternative plan to help improve the textbooks' efficiency according to the result. The study attempted to address the following questions: (1) What are the vocabulary levels and readability of the 2007 revised middle school English textbooks and 2013 and 2014 NEAT? And (2) what are the vocabulary levels and readability of the 2009 revised middle school English textbooks and 2015 NEAT? Reading passages from eighteen English textbooks and three NEATs were compiled into corpora. They were analyzed using VocabProfile and Readability. The results of this study are as follows: first, the vocabulary levels of the 2007 revised middle school English textbooks A, B, C are lower than those of the 2013 and 2014 NEATs in type-token ratio, K2, K3-k25, AWL. This means that the level of vocabulary used in the two NEATs is more difficult and varied than those of textbooks. Likewise, the average readability of the 2013 and 2014 NEATs was 5.3, whereas the average readability of the 2007 revised textbooks was 3.8. This result shows that the readability level of the NEATs is higher than that of the 2007 textbooks. Second, a comparative analysis of the 2015 NEAT and 2009 revised textbooks revealed that the 2015 NEAT had a higher readability level than the 2009 revised textbooks. While the average readability of the 2015 text was 4.4, the average readability of the 2009 revised textbooks was 3.3. In short, the level of the 2015 NEAT is higher than that of the textbooks in terms of readability and vocabulary. Both the 2007 and 2009 revised textbooks demonstrated a wide gap in readability and vocabulary, as is shown above. It is considered that the students who studied using both the 2007 and 2009 revised textbooks would have difficulty solving the NEAT. Moreover, the vocabulary and readability based on the 2007 and 2009 revised texts were the cyclically established lessons among three grades. However, the lessons found early in the text, for example, lessons 1, 2, and 3 feature very difficult vocabulary related to K3-K25, which makes it difficult for students to study them. These results suggest that the gap between the NEAT and textbooks should be discussed. If the NEAT were more difficult than the textbook, and the lessons found early in the texts featured very difficult vocabulary, students who have only studied the textbook would lose interest. These findings also suggest that the revised textbooks and the NEAT need to be adjusted to the level of the reading passages.