The multimodal construal of English as a global language in Korean EFL textbooks for primary school children

The continued rise of English as a global language has led to English as a Foreign Language(EFL) becoming a compulsory primary school subject across many non-English speaking countries.This trend has been accompanied by investment in the development of EFL teaching materials for young learners. Such materials rely heavily on images, with relatively sparse writing in English and the children's first language. While it is commonly acknowledged that teaching concerns not only presenting particular content (e.g. English vocabulary) but also legitimating particular ways of valuing it (e.g. the significance of learning English), little is known about the role that images play in promoting English as a global language in EFL textbooks for children.This study aims to expand existing knowledge in this area by examining EFL textbooks for the year EFL is first introduced as a compulsory primary school subject in South Korea. Specifically,the study analyses multimodal resources to explore the ways in which five EFL textbooks approved by the government for use in Grade 3 address South Korea's primary EFL curriculum requirement to present English as an important bridge connecting different countries. The analysis is based on Kressand van Leeuwen's (2006) grammar of visual design, while Kachru's (1992) three circles model of World Englishes provides a framework for interpreting the findings.A key finding of this study is that images do have the potential to convey ideologies related to the teaching of English as a global language. The present study contributes to an understanding of the ways in which the notion of English as a global language is constructed and produced in multimodal textbook discourse.