The Current Status and Future of Narrative in High School English Education: Implications for English Education and English Literature Education

Abstract

This paper attempts to define ‘narrative in English education’ and examines 30 high school textbooks to lay the foundation for building meaningful narratives for public high English education. This paper defines ‘narrative in English education’ as follows: 1) a series of real or fictional events set in a particular time and space, 2) curriculum designed to improve the reading, listening, writing, and speaking skills of English learners, and 3) an attempt to foster student growth through reconstruction of experiences rather than through general principles or information transfer. Among these three componants, the first describes the processing of knowledge via narrative thinking and narrative knowing. The second centers on meeting the goal of improving English communication skills, and the third identifies the overall educational goals of pursuing student growth, including self-reflection and self-expansion. As a result of reviewing 30 high school English textbooks, it is found that the narrative genre is present in 95 of 205 units. However, the proportion of narrative in the overall writing drops to 28 units, if reclassified by the definition of narrative stipulated by the authors, A useful narrative in English education must meet the basic requirements proposed in this paper. In particular, it is essential to provide more opportunities to learn about story grammar for high school students.