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The Korean Association for the Study of English Language and Linguistics
[ Article ]
Korea Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 23, No. 0, pp.554-570
ISSN: 1598-1398 (Print) 2586-7474 (Online)
Print publication date 30 Jan 2023
Received 27 May 2023 Revised 06 Jul 2023 Accepted 12 Jul 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.23..202307.554

Elite English Education in North Korea: A Multifaceted Corpus-based Comparative Analysis of English Textbooks

Younghee Cheri Lee ; Tae-Young Kim
(1st author) Teaching Professor, Dasan University College, Ajou Univ. Tel: 031-219-3053 Email: cheriberry@ajou.ac.kr
(corresponding author) Professor, Dept. of English Education, Chung-Ang Univ. Tel: 02-820-5392 Email: tykim@cau.ac.kr


© 2023 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 offers a systematic investigation into the attributes of English language instruction in North Korea’s elite high schools, utilizing a comprehensive, corpus-based method. We scrutinize various linguistic features—lexical coverage, lexical variety, lexical complexity, and syntactic complexity—that define the privileged education imparted under Kim Jong-un’s regime. The findings unearth unique traits that distinguish English education in North Korean elite schools from general high school English education in South Korea. The study exposes a limited lexical coverage and a diminished lexical variety in North Korean instructional materials. Intriguingly, North Korean resources exhibit low lexical complexity despite a pronounced focus on scientific texts. Additionally, the mean sentence length, indicative of syntactic complexity, was markedly shorter than in South Korean curricula. These findings hint at potential constraints in providing North Korean gifted students adequate exposure to intricate syntactic structures, which may, in turn, limit their proficiency in engaging with advanced English texts in future academic or professional contexts. The paper culminates with examining the implications of these results, speculating on the factors contributing to such phenomena in the context of North Korean elite education compared to South Korean regular high schools. It advocates for including a more diverse set of lexical items and sentence structures in the curriculum to enrich the learning experience of North Korea’s advanced students.

Keywords:

North Korea, elite education, gifted education, English education, English textbook, corpus

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2021S1A5A2A01061744).

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