중학교 영어 문화교육 연구 : 학습자와 교과서 분석 중심으로

Culture Teaching in Secondary English Education with a Focus on Learners and Textbooks

Previous studies on teaching cultural aspects in secondary English education in Korea have focused on either analyzing English textbooks or surveying teachers' opinions. They, however, failed to examine what the learners themselves think of the importance of culture in language learning and how they perceive the present culture learning practices. In order to fill this gap, the present study aims to examine the current practices of culture teaching in Korean middle school English classrooms from a learner's perspective and to make some suggestions to improve them. The study administered a survey on 139 middle school students for their opinions about culture learning. The learner survey findings show that although a majority of the students were aware of the importance of culture in language learning, they were far trom being satisfied with current methods of culture learning (i.e., culture learning through textbooks). Based on the survey findings, the present study identified the three most widely used middle school English textbook publishers and analyzed them (grade 7th-9th) in terms of their presentations of cultural aspects. The study also offered suggestions for teaching cultural aspects in secondary English education.