중학교 영어 교사의 말하기 지도에 대한 인식 연구

Abstract

This study investigated teachers' perceptions of English conversation classes in Korean middle schools. The objective of English conversation classes according to the national curriculum has always been the same: to improve students' communicative competence. However, Korean students' conversational confidence and competence are not high, despite many efforts by the Korean government and Korean teachers of English teachers. This research assumes that the major reason for this situation is related to English teachers’ perceptions and beliefs regarding speaking and conversation. To gain a better understanding of teacher beliefs regarding the nature of speaking English, English teaching pedagogy, and classroom practices, quantitative case studies were conducted with sixty experienced teachers. Data was gathered over a two week period through online and offline data collection. It was then analyzed using SPSS 21. The results of this research on teacher beliefs show that there should be more students' output for speaking English in the classroom. The teachers thought that students do not get enough chances to speak English. In addition, teachers also do not speak enough English during conversation lessons. To improve student conversation skills, teachers should increase the chances for speaking English through communicative interaction. This is because human beings learn speaking through communication. And in order to encourage conversation in English education, many things must be changed in the English education system, such as the number of hours spent learning English, the distribution of teaching the four skills, and the overall style of assessment. The results of the research on teacher perceptions for the practice of English teaching in the classroom showed that English textbooks should be more constructive and suited towards student interests. The results showed that teachers depend on English textbooks and CD-ROMs. However, they do not think the speaking activities in the textbooks attract student interest. To draw students' interest and voluntary participation during class, publishers need to improve the speaking sections of textbooks. Finally, the results of the research on the relationship between teachers’ perceptions and the practice of English teaching show the following findings. Teachers think communicative interaction activities are somewhat more useful than structural pattern drills. Nevertheless, they also think structural pattern drills are still good and actually use structural pattern drills much more than communicative interaction activities. However, according to most research conducted by linguistic scholars, structural pattern drills and communicative interaction activities should be carried out simultaneously to improve communication skills. Therefore, to teach effective conversation, teachers need to comprehend and change their perceptions about teaching speaking. In addition, the ministry of Korean education should constantly study to improve students' communicative competence to support English education in Korea.