영어 관계대명사 지도 방안: 한국인 고등학생 EFL 학습자를 중심으로

Abstract

The aim of this study is to explain difficulties of Korean high school students' use of English relative pronouns by the error analysis and then provide English teachers with effective ways of teaching them. Learning English relative pronouns is generally considered difficult for Korean EFL students, because Korean language and English language have different modification structures. English has post-modifying structure with relative clauses while Korean doesn't have post-modifying structure and relative clauses. So teachers have to acknowledge difficulties that students have when they learn English relative pronouns, and consider how to teach them more effectively. In order to explain students' difficulties and analyze the reasons for difficulties, some theories on the error analysis are reviewed. And then the characteristics of English relative pronouns from the current high school English textbooks are examined and then analyzed. For this study, 160 first-grade students at S high school in Gwangju were participated in the test that consisted of 37 questions about English relative pronouns. And then, their errors were divided into 3 parts: 1) a grammatically judgement task, 2) a gap-filling task, and 3) a task comparing restrictive with nonrestrictive function. The results of the study are as follows: First, the analysis of grammatically judgement task showed that the Korean EFL students have the most difficulty with the errors of inappropriate relative pronoun omission. Of the total 320 answers, the number of the wrong answers was 217 (67.8%). Students couldn't decide exactly the relationship between a relative pronoun and an antecedent because of the relative pronoun omission. Second, Whose was ranked as the highest error rate and who as the lowest. It indicates that students have the most difficulty with whose. Because whose was used only 2 or 3 times in each high school English textbook so students were not familiar with it. This result showed that the less relative pronouns are used , the more mistake the students make in their use. Third, this study also showed that the hierarchy of difficulties as follows: OS>SS>OO>SO (>: more easy). This finding indicates that Korean EFL learners could consider the SO and OO types of relative clauses more difficult than the SS and OS types of relative clauses. Last, the degree of students' understanding about restrictive relative pronoun was examined by analyzing the number of correct answer. The most participants said that this part was the most difficult even though they had high rate of correct answers (63%). There are various ways to help Korean EFL learners acquire English relative pronoun effectively. One way is the form-focused communicative approach to pay careful attention to the language form. Second, task-based instruction using authentic materials are essential to present language forms and get rid of errors. Third, using interesting game is also efficient because it can reinforce students' motivation. Finally, using audio-visual materials, Internet and electronic bulletin boards can be useful multi-media coursewares. These ways will help teachers teach relative pronouns effectively and students reduce their difficulties. The most important thing is to teach relative pronouns in the meaningful context providing enough opportunities for students to practice them.