The way to enrich your college life

Abstract

The purpose of this text book is to prepare high school students for their college life. Most high school students in Korea spend a great amount of time studying English for college entrance exams; as a result, they do not have many opportunities to learn English in a meaningful way. In response to this need, this textbook will help the target students to explore various aspects of college life which would raise their motivation to learn English through interesting content. According to Street (2006), current English teaching focuses too much on literacy for developing technical skills instead of considering students’ motivation and attitude toward the target language. Furthermore, Street insists that the process of learning English is always embedded in diverse social issues and students often take an interest in such topics. In fact, both factors are important when students learn a foreign language. In this textbook, the topics that are covered in the textbook are likely to be of interests to college students such as traveling, pets, sports, arts, music, and language learning. In addition, various communicative and task-based activities are included to help students to improve their productive and receptive skills. By completing a variety of projects in each unit, students will not only have an opportunity to learn the target language, but they will also have a chance to discover and experience many aspects of college life. The target students are Korean students enrolled at a public high school. The class consists of both male and female students whose ages range from 17 to 19. They are mostly familiar with the Grammar Translation Method, which is the main approach used in the English classroom in Korea. Based on the ACTFL, the students’ proficiency level ranges between intermediate-high to intermediate-low. Specifically, their receptive skills such as listening and reading skills are higher than their productive skills.