Abstract

This paper aimed to explain the characteristics of North Korean English textbooks included in the textbook corpus analysis. The analysis mainly focused on the North Korean educational periodicals; 23 volumes of “Teachers’ Propaganda Notebook” and 54 volumes of “People’s Education”. The analytic approach was 1) digitize all the English education-related articles included in the analytic materials, 2) use Nvivo 13 to categorize English education articles and their thematic propagation, and 3) relate the thematic categories to the North Korean leaders’ statements. The findings were: Articles touch upon English education for the advancement of science and technology, the improvement of students’ English skills, the enhancement of revolutionary ideology, and the improvement of English teachers’ teaching and learning methods. These categories were derived from North Korean leaders’ statements on occasions of field inspections, dialogues with newspapers, and conferences.