Learning English through Theme-Based Instruction & Communicative Language Teaching for High School Students

Abstract

Though most students in Korea spend a lot of time, money and effort studying English from elementary school to university, their actual English proficiency level is often low and most of them struggle to communicate with one another in English. Since English is a second language in Korea, as a language English itself is almost only used in a school setting. In class, most students study English for test based on grammar-translating and test taking skills. Especially, high school students mainly focus on grammar rules to get higher scores for their midterm and final exams at school. To develop students’ actual English proficiency level, the activities and tasks in this book have been designed based on Communicative Language Teaching, which encourages students to keep interacting and communicating in English with their peers in the classroom. Also, Korean students are more likely to be motivated to get good test scores in order to attend prestigious university. To meet their needs, each topic of the chapters in the book has been chosen based on “ “ and “ “, mandatory courses in the national high school curriculum designed by the Korean Administration of Public Education. Based on the four-skill developed Communicative Language Teaching approach, Theme-Based Instruction is applied to each chapter of the book focusing on the use of English for communication.