Abstract:Via globalization, an increasing number of young English language learners have gone to English-speaking countries to acquire English skills as early as possible. As a result, quite a number of learners have returned to their countries of origin with new sets of skills and competencies. Focusing on this new group of English learners, this study examined English language teachers' perspectives on these study abroad returnees with respect to their English skills and classroom participation. Fourteen English teac… Show more
“…The following excerpts emphasize that among returnees there was a lack of English skills desirable for school curriculum and assessment (Song, , p. 211).Since the high school curriculum focuses primarily on students' mastery of English reading and writing, you [returnees] cannot have a good grade only with fluency. Thus, their study abroad experiences do not guarantee them a good grade [in English].…”
Section: Teacher Emotions and Conflicting Storiesmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…This ESA phenomenon is considered to be a middle-class Korean families' strategy to secure English as global linguistic capital for their children's competitiveness and belongingness in the global market (Park & Lo, 2012;Shin, 2014;Song, 2012). Upon returning to Korea, these ESA students bring new competences, practices, and perspectives to the local classroom, which generates more tension and anxiety among families and English professionals (Cho, 2012;Lee, 2015;Park & Abelmann, 2004;Song, 2016).…”
Section: Globalization and English Teaching In South Koreamentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The following excerpts emphasize that among returnees there was a lack of English skills desirable for school curriculum and assessment (Song, 2016, p. 211 Here, both teachers in Song (2016) considered that returnees lacked "desirable" language skills for the Korean context by referring to school curriculum and assessment. Using the school curriculum that focuses on accuracy and grammar skills, these teachers evaluated returnees' language as low and avoided discussing returnees' fluent language skills.…”
Section: Teacher Emotions and Conflicting Storiesmentioning
This study discusses how the shifting teaching context via globalization generates new demands for English language teachers, and how teachers' emotional responses to this shift affect their identity and practice. Based on interviews with five secondary English teachers in South Korea, the study presents these teachers' conflicted stories such as cover and secret stories regarding study abroad returnee students in their classrooms. These stories were analyzed in relation to teachers' emotional experiences of “vulnerability” (Lasky, 2005) to examine how vulnerability affects teachers' orientations to their ongoing professional development—contributing to or preventing their pedagogical and self‐transformation. Teachers who experienced the protective dimension evinced conflicted stories about returnee students, which is grounded in those teachers' own anxiety about their competence and the “sacred story” about the teacher as all‐knowing. The open vulnerability of other teachers, together with their confidence in personal language skills and practice, encouraged attentiveness to individual students and a curriculum of lived experience for both teachers and students. The emotional experiences described in this study allow the subjectivity of language teachers to be traced to its social and institutional contexts.
“…The following excerpts emphasize that among returnees there was a lack of English skills desirable for school curriculum and assessment (Song, , p. 211).Since the high school curriculum focuses primarily on students' mastery of English reading and writing, you [returnees] cannot have a good grade only with fluency. Thus, their study abroad experiences do not guarantee them a good grade [in English].…”
Section: Teacher Emotions and Conflicting Storiesmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…This ESA phenomenon is considered to be a middle-class Korean families' strategy to secure English as global linguistic capital for their children's competitiveness and belongingness in the global market (Park & Lo, 2012;Shin, 2014;Song, 2012). Upon returning to Korea, these ESA students bring new competences, practices, and perspectives to the local classroom, which generates more tension and anxiety among families and English professionals (Cho, 2012;Lee, 2015;Park & Abelmann, 2004;Song, 2016).…”
Section: Globalization and English Teaching In South Koreamentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The following excerpts emphasize that among returnees there was a lack of English skills desirable for school curriculum and assessment (Song, 2016, p. 211 Here, both teachers in Song (2016) considered that returnees lacked "desirable" language skills for the Korean context by referring to school curriculum and assessment. Using the school curriculum that focuses on accuracy and grammar skills, these teachers evaluated returnees' language as low and avoided discussing returnees' fluent language skills.…”
Section: Teacher Emotions and Conflicting Storiesmentioning
This study discusses how the shifting teaching context via globalization generates new demands for English language teachers, and how teachers' emotional responses to this shift affect their identity and practice. Based on interviews with five secondary English teachers in South Korea, the study presents these teachers' conflicted stories such as cover and secret stories regarding study abroad returnee students in their classrooms. These stories were analyzed in relation to teachers' emotional experiences of “vulnerability” (Lasky, 2005) to examine how vulnerability affects teachers' orientations to their ongoing professional development—contributing to or preventing their pedagogical and self‐transformation. Teachers who experienced the protective dimension evinced conflicted stories about returnee students, which is grounded in those teachers' own anxiety about their competence and the “sacred story” about the teacher as all‐knowing. The open vulnerability of other teachers, together with their confidence in personal language skills and practice, encouraged attentiveness to individual students and a curriculum of lived experience for both teachers and students. The emotional experiences described in this study allow the subjectivity of language teachers to be traced to its social and institutional contexts.
“…It appears as though the examination holds not only students but also secondary English teachers in the mechanism of objectification (Foucault, 2012). Moreover, these examinations favour the cultural capital of academically successful social groups so teachers become part of the reinforcing mechanisms of cultural capital (Song, 2016).…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Educational policies in South Korea have long sought to globalise and develop an educational system that produces an efficient workforce able to meet the demands of an industrialised high-tech society (Kang, 2002;Synott, 2007) and English has been considered the most important foreign language for a variety of historical and sociocultural reasons. Both the government and individuals endorse globalisation and English education through top-down and bottom-up efforts (Song, 2016). The Korean administration implemented a policy of so-called "English Village" where students can experience English-dominant culture all around the environment to satisfy Korean people's aspiration for learning English.…”
This qualitative study examines the professional agency of secondary English teachers in Midwestern South Korea. Specifically, it investigates how secondary English teachers in South Korea understand their professional agency and what mediates their professional agency. The ecological approach in this study recognises that agency encompasses both individual and environmental dimensions and is formed through the constant interplay between the individual and the environment. The dataset for this study comprises 15 semi-structured interviews with secondary English teachers in South Korea. The thematic analysis highlights a significant gap between Korean English teachers' espoused agency and realisable agency, as well as three levels of legitimation that teachers have to negotiate. These levels are individual, collegial and sociocultural. The findings from this study suggest that the participating teachers censored their own pedagogical behaviours due to their own sense of inadequacy and in response to structural requirements as well as the external evaluation of parents and high-stakes test scores. This study concludes with implications for English teachers in South Korea, theorisation on teacher agency and future research.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
