Making Friends

Abstract

For the past 5 years, the trend has been for many Korean middle school students to go abroad to learn English, travel, or experience different cultures for both short and long periods. Even though these students are learning English at both schools and institutes, and are able to participate in everyday conversations, they need to be better prepared to survive and communicate with native speakers with minimal difficulty in certain situations while abroad. This textbook is targeted at seventh and eighth grade students at a private middle school. There are 30 students in each homeroom class and they are divided into 3 groups according to their English proficiency level. This textbook is aimed at the upper A and B group of 10 students, each of whose proficiency levels is Intermediate Mid. The target learners are able to communicate on basic topics related to their lives and express meaning. There are significant limitations, however, on how much vocabulary and grammar structure learners can actually acquire. In this private middle school, students are provided with 6 hours of English instruction a week and they all attend extracurricular English institutes or receive private tutoring after school to support their English learning. In addition, since most learners at private schools went to English kindergarten and have a relatively large amount of English lessons at school, their English proficiency level is high compared to students from most public middle schools. Due to their current educational circumstances and background, many target students go abroad during vacations or already have experiences living in other countries. Thus, learning travel English will be very helpful and motivating enough for target students.