This study aimed to categorize grammar items in English textbooks used across Korean elementary, middle, and high schools by specific grade levels. To achieve this, we developed an automated grammar item analyzer using natural language processing techniques, which analyzed 52,964 sentences from the textbooks. We selected 173 grammar items from the 2022 revised national curriculum and classified them according to the methodology used to determine CEFR levels in the English Grammar Profile. The classification results are as follows: 18 items for Grade 3 of elementary school, 6 for Grade 4, 11 for Grade 5, 8 for Grade 6, 29 for the first year of middle school, 43 for the second year, 22 for the third year, 29 for the first year of high school, and 7 for the second year. Based on these findings, this study discusses pedagogical implications, focusing on practical applications such as refining assessment tools, more precisely defining curricular objectives, and developing grade-specific instructional materials.

This study explores ways to enhance pre-service English teachers’ curriculum development competency through collaboration with in-service teachers. To this end, a course was designed to incorporate three key competencies of curriculum development (curriculum literacy, curriculum development competency, and curriculum evaluation competency) while adopting task-based language teaching and collaboration with inservice teachers as teaching methods. The designed course was implemented in a university for validation and revision. Ten pre-service English teachers participated in the course, where they developed English curricula in response to requests from three in-service middle school English teachers. A questionnaire survey conducted at the end of the semester with both pre-service and in-service teachers revealed that the proposed course model adequately worked to improve the three key competencies of English curriculum development among pre-service teachers. Further, collaboration with inservice teachers was found to enhance pre-service teachers’ responsibility and active engagement in curriculum development, while also providing practical assistance and creative teaching ideas to in-service teachers.

The purpose of this study was to explore how English teachers perceive the appropriateness of the quantity and level of content in the 2015 Revised National English Curriculum. In order to evaluate the appropriateness of the modified curriculum, a survey questionnaire was administered to English teachers at elementary and middle schools across Korea. Teachers and university professors were also consulted for guidance regarding the appropriate quantity and level of content. According to the survey results, both elementary and middle school teachers believe that the quantity and level of content are mostly appropriate for students. However, responses related to the appropriateness of achievement standards for reading and writing were less positive than those for listening and speaking for children in elementary school grades 5 and 6 and middle school grades 1 to 3. In general, methods of optimizing reading and writing content in the English curriculum are discussed.

The paper observes that grammatical competence has been interpreted as the ability to judge grammaticality ever since the employment of communicative competence as the core basis of curriculum design in the 6th national English curriculum of Korea. It contends that this interpretation is different from what has been widely accepted in the literature on grammatical competence, that is, the ability to understand and express propositional meaning of utterances. The study suggests that a new and fresh look at grammatical competence needs to be taken in developing and implementing the national English curriculum which is to provide English learners in Korea with more potential opportunities for success in acquiring communicative competence.

This paper reviews the revisions of the National Curriculum of English, featuring the characteristics of each revision on which the government educational policies have been heavily reflected. On the basis of the analysis of a variety of literature on the National Curriculum and of Korea's sociopolitical and educational surroundings, points that need improving plus future directions of Korea's English education are presented in a summarizing manner. It was revealed that education in Korea has been heavily influenced by politics. This was inevitable in some way, but it seems necessary to make every effort to let education come before politics.

The present study is triggered by the implementation of the achievement assessment system and the 2009 revised national curriculum, and the consequential need to help teachers to understand the new version of the curriculum when carrying out the achievement standard-based evaluation at school. The present study focuses on the newly introduced advanced courses of the 2009 revised national curriculum of English and provides an analysis of the hierarchical and interconnected relationship among these courses and the organization of their achievement standards. The study also provides guidelines for teachers on refining and customizing the curriculum-based achievement standards of the advanced English courses, for their own evaluation activities at school. Based on the analysis, the study attempts to suggest directions for the successful implementation of the new assessment system.

The purpose of this study is to establish English as elective subjects for 11~12 grades in Korean high schools. This study was conducted in the form of survey including a total of 1,923 participants, consists of 728 high school English teachers, 984 high school students, and 939 parents. The questionnaire consisted of nine questions, and which were designed to elicitate the participants perception and needs on English as the elective subjects in high schools. The results of the study indicate that 1) we need the subjects that include 4 skills(listening, speaking, reading, and writing), 2) binding listening and speaking skills together will meet the need of students and parents who want to choose conversation-only subjects, 3) on the other hand, binding reading and writing skills together will meet the needs of the students who want to prepare for establishing the academic basis in the future. 4) Various proficiency in English between students requires various level of the elective subjects in high school English. On the basis of these results, this study suggests we need 1) the subjects which deals with 4 skills on the basis of traditional concept, and 2) ‘listening and speaking’ subjects and ‘reading and writing’ subjects. And the subjects should have various levels between the highest level to the lowest level.

This paper is on the design of foundations for English curriculum on the basis of discipline centered curriculum to give academic and pedagogic platforms for curriculum development. For these purposes, this study finds theoretical and pedagogic elements, and inquiries into their natures and relationships. Theoretical foundations should reflect both general education theories and the features of the subject such as English. These foundations can include linguistics, psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics, which interact in both academic and pedagogic contexts. Specifically, linguistics (the nature of language) has some features such as expressiveness, productiveness, semantics, commonness and regularity. The theories of psycholinguistics can be grouped into behaviorism, cognitivism and humanism. Sociolinguistics focuses on key elements such as the language user as a social being, variations of language, social context and social use of language. The pedagogic elements such as content system, learning elements and social context which directly come from the theoretical elements also interact each other indirectly.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate from English teachers' perspectives the secondary school English curriculum of the 7th National Curriculum, which became effective in 2001 for middle schools. With such a goal, the present study analyzes the results of questionnaires collected from middle school teachers of 7th-grade English. The study discusses the realities and problems of the 7th National Curriculum that teachers experience when they teach 7th-grade English classes. The study also discusses-solutions and alternatives proposed by teachers in order to contribute to the improvement of the English curriculum.

The purpose of this study is to find out what characteristics of the communicative functions are presented and how these functions are reflected in the elementary school English textbooks based on the 2015 Revised National Curriculum. For this purpose, 20 elementary school English textbooks(5 different textbooks from the third to sixth grade) are analyzed and compared. For data analysis, 11 upper categories and 77 subcategories of communicative functions presented in the 2015 Revised National Curriculum are used. The results represent that first, no grade contains all 11 upper categories of communicative functions in the textbooks. Second, the communicative functions presented in the textbook have a wide variation in the frequency of presentation among the upper categories and subcategories. Third, there are no textbooks that reflected all 77 subcategories of communicative functions, and the degree of reflection in each textbook differs. This study suggests that more various examples are needed and organized in the textbooks in order to foster learners’ basic communicative competence, and connectivity and continuity of communicative functions among grades should be considered when organizing textbooks.

Hyunsong Chung. 2017. A Diagnostic Review of English Pronunciation Teaching Based on the Analysis of the 2015 Revised English Curriculum and English Textbooks. Studies in Modern Grammar 96, 191-212. In this paper, we discuss the goal of English pronunciation teaching in Korea and how to elaborate the elements of English pronunciation teaching in the national curriculum based on the analysis of the 2015 revised English language curriculum and English textbooks. We suggest that the elements of English pronunciation teaching should be explicitly and properly specified for all the levels in the curriculum including primary and secondary levels. The activities in the classroom should combine task-based controlled practices in pronunciation with communicative activities. Phonetic symbols in the textbooks should pursue IPA conventions and be consistent. It is necessary to continue the discussions and conduct researches on pronunciation teaching in the national curriculum so that the results can be positively reflected in the future revision of the English curriculum.