Because high school English curriculum revised in 2009 focuses on communication ability, and classroom instruction is performed mostly for college entrance examination preparation, accuracy is neglected in English education. However, for ultimate improvement of English ability, grammatic accuracy should be considered first. Among many grammar elements, relative pronouns, which do not exist in Korean grammar, are complicated and frequently appear in long sentences, so many Korean students find them very difficult. To understand English sentences more effectively and accurately with the ability of using grammar, students need understand the usage and sentence structures of relative pronouns. Therefore, this study aims to research the use of relative pronouns by Korean high school students, and to suggest effective instruction direction about relative pronouns by comparing the degree of understanding and acquiring relative pronouns to College Scholastic Ability Test.
In this study, students' recognition about relative pronouns was researched through survey along with test to diagnose effective English teaching and learning. After extracting sentences that have relative pronouns from the recent 3 years of College Scholastic Ability Test, the appearance rate per kind and function was examined. The three results were compared and the correlation was analyzed. Based on this, the effect of College Scholastic Ability Test that has on high school grammar education was considered. Besides, how much classroom English instruction focuses on acquisition of relative pronouns was considered. The result of this study is as follows.
First, high school students in Korea considered relative pronouns as an important grammar element, and they recognized it as an essential element for College Scholastic Ability Test. They also thought that there was high correlation between relative pronouns and College Scholastic Ability Test. The easiest part to understand the usage and function was 'who', and the difficult part was 'of which'. The reasons that they feel difficult toward relative pronouns were difficulty of distinguishing the function of relative pronoun clause from that of conjunction clause and difficulty of nominative relative pronoun and be-verb combined.
Second, the relative pronoun test result showed high rate of correct answers in the part that superior students feel difficult. In case of meddle level students, the more difficult they think, the lower the correct answer rate was.
Third, the relative pronoun 'that' appeared the most in the recent 3 years of College Scholastic Ability Test followed by ommission of nominative relative pronoun and be-verb combined. When compared with students' survey, the elements that students consider difficult accounted for high portion in the texts of College Scholastic Ability Test, and students' acquisition level was low for low portion of relative pronoun sentences in College Scholastic Ability Test.
Through the above result, the following conclusions were drawn. How much students study about relative pronouns was different depending on the frequency of students' access to English texts of textbooks or other education materials and the frequency of questions in College Scholastic Ability Test. Overall, students did not study relative pronouns with even distribution of the whole parts, but instead, they focused on specific elements for exams. Especially, students of middle level had hard time understanding relative pronoun sentences due to lack of understanding sentence structures. Considering this fact, it is necessary to teach relative pronouns with even distribution of the whole parts rather than focusing on specific grammar elements for test. It might be more important for students of middle level to practice locating the area of relative pronoun clause in the sentence instead of understanding specific usage.
Teachers need to research various methods to teach students with the ultimate goal of improving students' English ability based on accurate understanding of relative pronouns rather than instruction only for tests. In addition, they need to make efforts to study more effective teaching methods and apply the methods, so that students can acquire English education focusing on comprehensive communication that can develop accuracy and fluency.