Teaching American Culture to Improve English Skills

영어 학습 능력 향상을 위한 문화지도

The purpose of this study was to analyze the improvement of students' interest and general proficiency of English through cultural understanding. To achieve this purpose, two classes of the 2nd grade in the informational high school were divided into the experimental class and the control class. The Grammar-Translation Method was used for the control class and a cultural learning - compare and contrast Korean culture and American culture - was taken for the experimental. After various cultural differences were studied, surveys of students' attitude and reading and listening test were taken. The results from this study were as follows: Firstly, students' interest in English was improved through learning the American culture that was related to the content of each lesson. Secondly, English reading and communicative skills were improved by learning about cultural aspects. Therefore, it can be said that teaching culture stimulates students' interest and motivation for learning English and helps students retain such affective attitudes. And English communicative skills were improved as well.