한국과 대만 초등학생들의 창의적 영어 학습활동에 관한 인식 비교연구

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the recognition of Korean students of creative English learning activities through questionnaires as compared with Taiwanese students. The reason why this study compared Korean and Taiwanese students was that both countries have many similarities in English education policies, especially focusing on globaliza- tion in political and economic realms and score-oriented English testing. Comparing the two groups, this study tried to suggest relevant alternatives for Korean elementary English education. This reach pointed out an ignorance of creativity in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom due to a widespread belief that EFL learners should acquire English language ability first, followed by creativity. Nonetheless, this research strongly argues in favor of the integration of creativity into the English language classroom at any cost. To attain the objective, the following research questions were proposed: Which English learning activities (nine convergent activities leading to a single “best” answer that is unambiguous or nine divergent activities leading to a variety of answer in situations where more than one answer is acceptable) do students consider as being effective? Which activities do students regard as effective for developing creativity or memorization skills? Which activities do students consider easy or difficult? What are the similarities or differences between the two groups of students? A group of sixty Korean students and fifty Taiwanese students were polled for this survey. In the proceeding data analysis, PASW Statistics 18 version and multidimensional scaling were used. The results of the survey showed that both groups preferred to use convergent English learning activities, but considered divergent activities as being effective for developing creativity. In addition, both groups selected “contradiction” activities as being difficult. However, Korean students selected divergent activities and Taiwanese students selected convergent activities as being easy to use and improving memory skills. Also, Korean students selected the “odd one out” as the most effective activity while Taiwanese students considered it to be the lease effective. Based on the results, this suggested five proposals for Korean elementary English education as follows: 1) the balanced use of convergent and divergent English learning activies; 2) the actively use of yes/no questions and odd one out activities in the early stage of learning English; 3) the positive utilization of scambled sentences, role-playing and list-making activities for developing a retentive power; 4) the sublation of contradiction and either/or question activities in the early stage of learning English; and 5) the classified use based on the result of Multidimensional Scaling.