Oh, Shinyu, & Kim, Tae-Young. (2020). A comparison of high school English textbooks between pre and post-2013 Revised Curriculum in North Korea. Modern English Education, 20(1), 43-55
This paper aims to investigate the recent changes in English education in North Korea and compare the differences in pre- and post-2013 Revised Curricula in high school English textbooks. To this end, three post-2013 Revised Curriculum high school textbooks are compared with three pre-2013 Revised Curriculum textbooks. By using contents analysis, particularly relying on Coh-Metrix, these textbooks are compared considering three categories: physical characteristics and chapter/content organizations, topics, and readability in each school year. First, along with listening materials, a renewed emphasis on English verbal communication was found in the revised textbooks. Second, revised textbooks included more practical topics such as science, technology, and everyday life, whereas pre-revision textbooks comprised of more communist ideology, idolizing the Kim family, and promoting patriotism. Third, in terms of readability of textbooks, the analysis of Coh-Metrix revealed that the burden of learners increased due to the exponentially increased volume of new vocabulary in the post-2013 English textbook. However, in the case of pre-2013 textbooks, the difficulty level of reading sections in each year fluctuated, whereas that of the post-2013 textbooks presents a steady increase as students advance in their school grade.
[North Korean 2013 Revised Curriculum/ North Korean English textbooks/ Textbook analysis, 북한 2013 개정 교육과정/ 북한 영어 교과서/교과서 분석]
5.MEESO_21-1_오신유김태영.pdf