The aim of this study is to suggest less ambiguous and more rational criteria of choosing storybooks for learner-centered English education in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) environment. Many countries including Korea provide the regulations to teach English in the elementary stage of public education system because English, as international language, becomes more and more important. However, in Korea, English education in elementary school has a lot of difficulty due to unprepared proper curriculum, course book and teacher.
In this situation, indeed, I realized the need of research about how to educate English efficiently in EFL environment of Korea. Theoretically based on 'Whole Language Approach', I also become interested in the positive educational effects of reading storybooks with various interesting pictures, as one of the way to efficient English education in elementary school.
However, even if applying storybook to learner-centered English education has a lot of advantages, not every storybook is educationally beneficial. Choosing the best available storybook must be progressed in the proper process with rational criteria. Thorough analysis of the learning/teaching situation in which the storybook will be used must be preceded. Through this analysis, the proper criteria can be prepared.
The procedure of this study is like this.
Firstly, analyze theoretical backgrounds and previous studies about existing matters, and criteria to be attended to choose storybook and suggesting importance and educational effect of storybook in learner-centered English education at elementary stage.
Secondly, investigate about elementary learners' English learning experiences.
The third is to suggest detailed rational criteria for choosing storybook. The superior criteria to choose the storybook are 'vocabulary', 'form of sentence', 'contents', and 'organization'. The detailed inferior items of 'vocabulary' are 'rate of practical application of suggested 'vocabulary' and 'word difficulty'. The criterion 'form of sentence' has two subordinate category 'length' and 'repetitiveness of sentence pattern'. The lower category of criterion 'contents' are 'familiarity of concepts', 'reflectivity of target culture', and 'rate of interest'. 'Effectiveness of pictures' and 'magnitude of letters' are the subordinate items of criterion 'organization'.
After selecting storybooks for the study, the last phases of this study are including two tasks. One is the storybook analysis according to the recommended criteria, and the other is the post survey to determine whether the criteria recommended in this study are suitable to choose the best available storybooks for elementary learner-centered English education.