중학교 1학년 영어 교과서 문화 내용 분석

Abstract

ABSTRACT

An Analysis of the Cultural Contents in Middle School English Textbooks

Kim So-mi Advisor : Prof. Gyu-eul Yom, Ph. D. Major in English Education Graduate School of Education, Chosun University

The ultimate goal of English education in Korea is to improve communicative competence and to understand culture. According to Brooks(1964) language cannot be separated from the culture. Therefore, language and culture education must be presented in a integrated way. However, previous studies show that most English textbooks did not contain enough cultural content. The purpose of this study is to analyze the cultural content in 12 middle school English textbooks newly published in 2008 and the cultural content of the reading material out of each unit according to 19 topics suggested in the national curriculum, cultural type and background. The importance of teaching culture was focused in the revised national curriculum and 19 topics of cultural materials are presented by adding culture to one of the subcategories of the language materials. The results from this study are as follows : First, in analyzing cultural contents suggested in the curriculum, the distribution of the language materials was not balanced. Especially, the 4 cultural topics focused in the curriculum, from number 8 to number 11, is 27.3%. Among them, number 9 which is related to lifestyle, school life belongs to other culture, showed the highest ratio of 12.8%. Second, cultural background was not balanced because universal cultural background showed the highest ratio of 46.4%, while English-American cultural background showed to be 9.9%. It is demanded to present lower ratio of universal cultural background and higher ratio of English-American and contrastive cultural background. Third, in an analysis of cultural contents based on the type of culture which is composed of behavioral, material and spiritual cultures, behavioral culture accounts for the largest portion with 52.8%, spiritual culture 31.7%, material culture 15.5%. These results seem to be desirable considering students' in intellectual level. In conclusion, textbooks are very important material to learn culture and teachers have a responsibility to teach well with variety of teaching method. They have to continue studying culture education through taking many training systems or inspecting classes. Students as well as teachers should have a positive attitude toward culture education to accept the variety and differences among many cultures.