언어 습득 과정에서 이야기 학습의 의미

The Significance of Learning Narrative Texts in the Process of Language Acquisition

This study argues that the difficulty of literary texts for Korean students comes from their lack of being exposed to narrative texts and of learning story structure. By comparing and contrasting the characteristics of narrative texts with those of expository ones, the study attempts to prove how narrative texts are connected to language acquisition. An instruction model based on story structure is provided for teaching and learning narrative texts. Korean students tend to consider narrative writings to be more difficult than expository ones. They are familiar to the vocabulary and structural patterns of expository writings that are organized to convey information and facts, while they are not used to the style of narrative texts that describes events based on story structure. This is completely odd to native speakers who think the spoken style of narratives to be much easier than the written style of expositions. The national English education is responsible for this ironic situation since it makes too much of expository texts in textbooks and national tests. We need to understand that stories play an important role in the process of language acquisition. In fact, what preschoolers and elementary students read in daily life is fairy tales, fables, and myths. They acquire language in the process of listening and speaking these stories. Considering that language acquisition is linked with the cognitive development of human beings, exposure to narratives is critical for children in this period of time. Since Korean students lack this kind of exposure to stories and story structure, we need to provide them with opportunities where they are exposed to stories. The instruction model developed by this study basically follows the cognitive tradition of Rumelhart but with more enhancements. The model simplifies the model of Rumelhart and enhances familiarity by using literary terms, such as conflicts and climax. Also, by shortening the schema general questions, the model makes students feel easy to use them in the actual English classroom. Also, the model emphasizes the transfer of story schema to increase comprehension of expository prose by linking the 5Ws and 1H principle to story grammar. Finally, the model is more effective in that it is based on characters rather than plot.