Let’s Have Fun with Lexis

Abstract

Due to the advent of globalization, English speaking proficiency in Korea is becoming more important in school, at work, for travel, and in social situations. For several decades, however, the main goal of English education in Korea has been to help students pass the college entrance exam. Thus, most of the teachers and students were only obsessed with test scores. This gave rise to many side effects in the Korean EFL (English as a Foreign Language) situation. Even though students have much knowledge of vocabulary, they cannot use it in real life. More specifically, they memorized a great number of vocabulary in school but they do not know how to use it when they speak. What is worse is that when they hear those expressions in everyday conversation, they cannot understand what they mean in context. By considering the huge discrepancy between their knowledge and communicative realities, this textbook will deal with real spoken English through reading a journal based on Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules written by Kinney (2009). Language in this original book is alive and all spoken, and has a great many chunks of words. It also has many funny and cute characters, and stories. Thus, the goal of this textbook is to give learners much pleasure in reading spoken English, to provide a chance to get used to many colloquial expressions, and finally to enable learners to use them in daily life. The target group for this textbook is 12 Korean college students who are freshmen or sophomores in their early twenties and whose level is between Intermediate Mid and Intermediate High in ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages). The target students' learning situation is studying English in a private institution. Since they do not have any experience living abroad, they seem to need more exposure to English learning through this extracurricular program to improve their English overall, including the study of practical colloquial expressions.