영어동화를 활용한 어휘 지도

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate a solution to the drawbacks of traditional vocabulary learning and teaching methods and to check out the usefulness of utilizing English stories as vocabulary teaching material. When using the traditional vocabulary learning method, students tend to learn words by rote not knowing about their usages. Meaningful learning is necessary for the learners not only to possess relevant knowledge, but also to use that knowledge to solve problems and understand new concepts. In light of this, English stories could be adequate for meaningful learning because they are authentic, interesting and relevant to the learners. To verify the usefulness of utilizing English stories for teaching and learning vocabulary, two surveys were carried out. 68 elementary school students took part in the 1st surveys that investigated the actual state of their vocabulary learning and teaching. Not only did the students agree with the necessity of the vocabulary learning and teaching, but they wanted the vocabulary material to be authentic, interesting and relevant to them. In order to plan the vocabulary class based on the survey, ‘Robinson Crusoe' was chosen since it was well-known to the students and they could have been exposed to the issues in the Korean version that they previously read. Moreover, several methods were adopted for the effective vocabulary teaching: presenting the target words in chunks, activating the learners' prior knowledge to guess easily the meanings of the words. After the vocabulary class in which 20 students participated in five times a week for seven weeks, information on the effective use of English stories as vocabulary material was collected through the follow-up surveys. The results of these surveys are as follows: First, the responses showed that the learners' prior knowledge contributed to increasing their interest, and made them active participants in the class. As mentioned above, the prior knowledge of the story could ease the learning anxiety of the students and help them to acquire the target words easily. Second, teaching vocabulary through English story has brought positive changes into the vocabulary competence of the learners. Compared to vocabulary textbooks, the interesting story can improve the students' vocabulary competence easily due to the authentic words, and a variety of context clues. Last, the improved vocabulary competence of the students enhanced their reading ability. Most of them know that there is an interrelationship between vocabulary competence and reading ability. That is to say, the more vocabulary they know, the better they improve their reading ability. Considering these results, English stories can be regarded adequate for English learning as well as vocabulary learning and teaching. I suggest that a variety of studies using English stories should be carried out so teachers can adopt them into their classes.