This study investigates the historical development of English education in South Korea regarding the fourth and fifth National Curriculum Period. By analyzing the newspaper articles in five major newspapers in Korea, we focused on the characteristics of English education in each period. The research questions are: 1) what are the characteristics of the fourth National Curriculum? 2) what are the characteristics of the fifth National Curriculum?, and 3) what is the implication of these previous curricula on the current English education in South Korea? During the fourth National Curriculum Period, after the successful hosting of the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, the importance of communication skills in English spread throughout the country. Accordingly, the need for early English education emerged. In the fifth curriculum, various social factors, including the liberalization of overseas travel, led positive washback effects on English education. In elementary schools, English instructions were conducted as a special activity. In secondary schools, various changes in the educational environment were involved, including the introduction of listening tests and recruitment of native English teachers, which still affects English education in 2020. This paper concludes with educational implications and future research directions.

This study examined how teaching and learning activities in primary English textbooks include the components of creativity and character building. Three third and fourth grade level textbooks based on the 2015 revised curriculum were analyzed in order to find the proportions of the components of creativity and character building, and the types of learning activities that embody those components were analyzed by examining the teachers’ guides. The analysis revealed that all of the textbooks examined included diverse components that were intented to increase creativity, among which components stimulating divergent thinking and originality were a high proportion, while convergent thinking and dispositional aspects appeared less frequently. Among character building components, care-forgiveness and responsibility were two of the more popular components, while honesty and moral judgment were few and far between. From these findings, this study suggests that the components of creativity and character building should be more evenly distributed across textbook activities since they should be of equal importance in education.