In the Korean elementary school curriculum, third-grade students do not study written English. Just from the fourth grades, they start learning the alphabet. They have already been exposed to written English through private tutoring or the Internet, s...
In the Korean elementary school curriculum, third-grade students do not study written English. Just from the fourth grades, they start learning the alphabet. They have already been exposed to written English through private tutoring or the Internet, so they get lots of information through written language. The purpose of this study is concerned with the effect of teaching written language in the first stage of English learning in elementary school.
There are two positions about teaching written language in the first stage of learning English, positive and negative. The first section of this study explored the theories concerning the pros and cons of teaching written language. The first aim of this study is to show how influential teaching spoken and written language at the same time is on improving communicative ability. The second aim is to show how influential teaching spoken and written language simultaneously is on students' interests and attitudes to English learning.
This study also investigated the thoughts (ideas) of teachers of third graders about the seventh curriculum and their experiences. The classes were divided into two groups: the spoken language group was taught speaking and listening; and the written language group was taught speaking, listening, reading, and writing simultaneously. This study investigated learners' interests and attitudes of learning English between the two groups before and after the experiment.
According to the teachers' thoughts prior to the experiment, it was necessary to include written language in the recent curriculum for third graders. To investigate speaking and listening ability for each group, a special test was given after four months. The results of the experiment showed that there is a difference in interests and attitudes between the two groups. The written group had more interests and positive attitude compared to the spoken group. In addition, the results showed that the written group had more competence with regard to pronunciation and inquisitiveness in English. The result of the listening and speaking evaluation showed that the written group achieved a statistically significant higher score than the spoken group.
This study illustrated that teaching written language to third graders in the first stage of learning English did not hinder students' development of oral language skills; therefore, teaching written language is effective in improving the skills of speaking and listening.
The research findings propose the following suggestions:
1. It is necessary to teach the four skills to third graders simultaneously, so the national curriculum should be reorganized.
2. It is important to improve communicative ability with appropriate materials developed by the government.
3. It is necessary that the teacher give students the opportunity to be purposely shown English letters in EFL situations.