Comparative analysis of children’s literature in primary school English textbooks in Korea: Focusing on five types of English textbooks for all primary school students(3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th) learning English in school

Abstract

Objectives The purpose of this paper is to compare and analyze all the children's literature books on primary English textbooks that are currently used in primary school English classes in Korea, and to discuss their current status, problems, and improvements. Methods Five types of primary English textbooks for each of 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grades were collected. Children's literature included in each English textbook was compared and analyzed by dividing it into four criteria: type, subject matter, degree of original content modification, and teaching method by referring to previous re-search and related theories. The teaching method was subdivided into language function and learning time for comparative analysis. Results As for the types of children's literature, ‘traditional literature’ was the mainstream in the 3rd & 4th grades while there were many ‘realistic literature books’ in the 5th & 6th grades. For the subject matter, the 3rd & 6th graders introduced ‘personal life’, the 4th graders introduced ‘public morality’, and the 5th graders introduced ‘cultural differences’ the most. In terms of the degree of adaptation of the original content of children's literature, 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders partially adapted the original children's literature work in the form of a script to review the learning goals and communication functions of the learned unit. Most of the 6th children's literature was newly created by the textbook writers so that students can review the lesson of the learned unit. The method of teaching children's literature focuses on speaking, listening, and some simple writing activities in the 3rd grade, and at-tempts were made to integrate speaking, listening, writing, and reading in the 4th, 5th, and 6th grades. Children's literature was organized so that most of the grades were simply taught as a single lesson. Conclusions Since the types of children's literature are limited to a few types in primary English textbooks, it is necessary to introduce more diverse types of children's literature. In addition, children's original literature was adapted so much to review the communication functions of learned lesson, depriving of students’ interest on the literature, so more careful consideration is needed when modifying children's literature. It is also needed to in-crease the lesson time of teaching children’s literature and to provide children's literature guidance with more di-verse and interesting activities.