영어책 읽기교육을 위한 초등학교 교육과정 운영의 사례 연구

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this study is to explore a desirable model for promoting English proficiency for elementary school students through reading in a reading-friendly environment. A reading class was conducted by the classroom teacher for one extra hour per week from the regular school curriculum. The study, which was based on two case studies, was carried out over 4 years. Participants for the first case study were 490 students in grades 1 to 6, 18 teachers, and 414 parents in BS Elementary School, and those for the second case study consisted of 660 students in grades 3 to 6, 36 teachers, and 612 parents in YJ Elementary School, located in Busan. In the second case study, teachers were divided into two groups: English mentor and non-mentor instructors as a teacher variable. A survey relating to the affective variables and an English standardized test provided by the Busan Metropolitan City Office of Education and YJ Elementary School English mentor-teacher team were administered to the students and the parents in the first year of this study. An English achievement test was given at the end of the test. To analyze the data, f values, Tukey and t tests were used by SPSS 11.5. The significance level was fixed at 0.05. The result from case study 1 showed students' interest and confidence towards English had improved at the significance level of 0.01 before and after the comparison. And teachers' needs and confidence in English reading guides reported high scores. Teachers' confidence in reading English fairy tales showed improvement with the significance level of p<.01, which indicated significant differences. Teachers' needs with regard to reading English fairy tales also showed improvement. Moreover, from the teacher's point of view, students' interest toward English fairy tales before and after the comparison showed a significant improvement. The results of the English achievement test also show positive outcomes for students who require more English study, given that it demonstrates the effectiveness of reading English fairy tales. With regard to the second case study, the results of an English standardized test provided by the Busan Metropolitan City Office of Education showed that there was a statistically significant improvement in the English proficiency of the third and sixth graders. Interaction between mentor and non-mentor teachers was also shown to be effective. For the fourth graders, the effectiveness of the treatment was barely perceptible due to the ceiling effect of the pre-test. They had obtained considerably high scores for the pre-standardized test. In terms of the students' satisfaction, the third and fourth graders showed a higher degree of satisfaction than the fifth and sixth grade students in the hands-on reading experience. The results of the English standardized test provided by the YJ Elementary School English mentor-teacher team showed that there was an improvement in the English proficiency of third and sixth graders that was statistically significant. The result of this study suggests that English education in elementary schools should not only be administered by full-time English teachers and native teachers, but also by the classroom teachers with whom the students come into contact during a normal school day. Thus, future research is required to ascertain an appropriate method of implementing this model in an effective way so that it can be applied to a real classroom context, with its effectiveness assessed a year later. Given the importance of elementary school education, we need to continue exploring various ways of maintaining students' interest.