초등학교 저학년 영어교육에 관한 학생과 학부모의 인식 연구

Abstract

This study investigates how students and their parents perceive issues related to teaching English to primary school first and second graders. The participants were 163 primary school students and 119 parents from three regions in Korea: Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Incheon. They responded respectively to the survey questions provided in slightly differentiated types, one for students and the other for parents. Nearly 80% of the students had English learning experience before entering the primary school and about 55% of them experienced English learning through the regular curriculum at their kindergarten or day care center. About 48% of the students and 44% of the parents agreed with teaching English to the lower grades at primary school. More than half of the students disagreed that learning English would interfere with learning Korean. Both students and parents preferred the Creative Exercise class as a way for offering early English education. Slightly more than 70% of the students preferred their homeroom teacher as an English teacher. Based on these results, implications are discussed and a few suggestions are made for policy making regarding teaching English to the lower grade classes at primary schools in Korea.