Metrical Comparison of English Textbooks in East Asian Countries, the U.S.A. and U.K.

In 2000, the economy of Asia made a V-character type recovery from the currency and financial crisis in 1997. The increase in exports is assumed to be one of the causes. To negotiate with foreign countries, English must be indispensable in many cases. In this study, we investigated how English education is performed in East Asian countries while focusing on English textbooks. We metrically analyzed some textbooks used junior high schools and high school in Japan and Korea, and elementary schools in China and Singapore to compare them with U.S.A and U.K textbook. We investigated some characteristics of character-and word-appearance of English textbook using an exponential function. Moreover we derived the degree of difficulty far each material through the variety of words and their frequency on the basis of the required English vocabulary in Japanese junior high schools. As a result we could show at which level of U.S.A. or U.K the English textbooks used in East Asian countries are.