Curriculum Research: Integrating 'Currere' into Teaching of Culture in the Korean EFL Class

摘要

This research articulates the amalgamation of "Currere" into teaching of culture in the Korean EFL educational setting. As many scholars argue, culture is inseparable from language so that teaching culture must be included in a foreign language class. Nonetheless, teaching culture is seldom easy to instruct due to both its peculiarity, which is diffuse, difficult to grasp and translate into instructional goals, and the traditional language curriculum that requires cultural materials later after mastering basic grammar and vocabulary focusing on the form. For the effective teaching of culture, this research suggests the imperativeness of currere-applied FL class. Currere is an infinitive form of the word curriculum and it focuses more on the experience of running the racecourse than the organization of the course itself (Doll, 1995). This view is supported by Kincheloe (1995) who clarifies that Currere accentuates the meaning of curriculum as the running of the race course, while the institutional meaning of a curriculum has traditionally defined the word as a noun, the track itself. This article will reflect on the major themes of currere and will highlight three aspects for the teaching of culture in Korean EFL education: (1) lived experience; (2) socio-political confrontations; and (3) the identity formation of individual human beings. In regards to the implications for Korean EFL education, this research provides (1) cultural awareness through comparing / contrasting two cultural events rather than "fact-only delivery" of the target culture; (2) sharing of native speakers' and nonnative learners' cultural similarities and differences; and (3) cross-cultural understanding through authentic materials such as TV and newspaper commercial ads.