2015 개정 교육과정 중학교 2학년 영어 교과서 읽기 분석

Abstract

The purpose of this study is twofold: First to analyze the reading materials of the second grade English textbooks for Korean middle school students, published based on the 2015 Revised National Curriculum, and second to provide textbook authors and teachers with the results of the study so that the former are able to produce more interesting textbooks for adolescent learners of English and the latter can acquire helpful information so that they can teach L2 reading more effectively. With the aim of achieving this purpose, nine out of thirteen textbooks were selected for comparison with the results of Kang’s (2019) previous study to figure out the extent of the distribution of reading topics, the reading genres, and pre-/post-reading activities presented in the reading sections of those textbooks. The findings of the study are described briefly below. First, the study showed that the most frequently used topic in almost every textbook was ‘individual and family-related reading’, compared with the other three most commonly used reading topics of school, society, and culture. The Ministry of Education suggested the use of reading topics in the English textbooks based on everyday life, and this study suggests the textbooks are in accordance with that recommendation. Second, non-literary text is the most prominent reading genre utilized in the nine textbooks, followed by literary text and authentic-type text. This finding suggests that textbook authors might have thought that second grade learners of English would feel more comfortable with non-literary text than the first grade learners of English would. Finally, the analysis of pre-reading activities has shown that the ‘matching activity’ out of the ‘comprehension-oriented activity middle category’ was counted as the highest portion. With this activity, learners of English could familiarize themselves with the key vocabulary used in the textbooks before reading. The pre-reading activity ‘see-and-discussion’ of the ‘production-oriented activity middle category’ accounts for the highest portion. The learners are able to activate their schematic knowledge about the reading section from this activity. On the other hand, the post-reading ‘selection activity’ of the ‘comprehension oriented activity middle category’ accounts for the highest portion, and the post-reading ‘cloze test activity’ was analyzed as the most frequently used activity in the textbooks. Based on the above results, the following pedagogical implications can be suggested. First, English scripts of Korean movies can be adapted and included into the reading passages of upcoming textbooks as a way of including the topics of patriotism, peace, security, and reunification, which are not used in any of the textbooks this study analyzed. Second, authentic type texts might be included more in upcoming textbooks. Lastly, the present study is limited by only focusing on analyzing textbooks. On that account, more studies highlighting teachers’ as well as learners’ perceptions of the English textbooks used might be carried out in the future.