The Korean Association for the Study of English Language and Linguistics

[ Article ]

Korea Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 21, No. 0, pp.1-18

ISSN: 1598-1398 (Print) 2586-7474 (Online)

Print publication date 31 Jan 2021

Received 20 Dec 2020 Revised 03 Jan 2021 Accepted 15 Jan 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.21..202101.1

고등학교 기초교과목군 (국어, 영어, 수학) 선택 현황에 기초한 교육적 논의: 서울 소재 고등학교를 대상으로

이경남

강원대학교 kynalee@kangwon.ac.kr

A pedagogical discussion based on the investigation into students’ selection tendencies in three basic subjects (Korean, English, and Mathematics) of the high school curricula: Centered on general high schools in Seoul

Kyoung-Nam Lee

Professor, Dept. of English Education, Kangwon Nat’l University

© 2021 KASELL All rights reserved
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

This study aims to ascertain any change in the status of “English” in general high schools’ curricula by investigating students’ selection tendencies among the three basic subjects (Korean, English, and Mathematics) within the subject selection system. The other aim is to foster a consciousness for the urgent educational issues under the current educational policies identified in the analysis results of this investigation. The research data was collected in 2020 from second graders and third graders at 75 and 76 high schools in Seoul. The data shows that the number of courses offered and selected in the three subjects strongly differs between the second and third grades. The results from a one-way ANOVA and Tukey post hoc test reveal that there are statistically significant differences among the number of students’ selection of the three subjects, except for the first semester of the second grade. English has the lowest selection numbers in all the analyses while Mathematics has the highest selection numbers among second graders and Korean has the highest among third graders. These findings prove that the absolute evaluation of English in the College Scholastic Achievement Test (CSAT) influences the high school education system. It is the key point of this paper that the weakening position of English in the public education system will negatively impact students’ academic achievements and proficiency in English and hinder their competitiveness in our globalized society.

Keywords:

general high school curricula, subject selection system, students’ selection tendencies, Korean, English, Mathematics, absolute evaluation in CSAT, public education system

Acknowledgments

* This article is based on the author’s presentation in ELLAK International Conference on Dec. 19, 2020.

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