Language Learning as a Struggle for Distinction in Today’s Corporate Recruitment Culture: An Ethnographic Study of English Study Abroad Practices among South Korean Undergraduates

Consecutive Bilingual Instruction: Balancing NNESTs’ Language Use to Benefit EFL Learners in Korea’s Higher Education

“…Another challenge is that Korea's higher education has separated NNESTs from English-speaking teachers, reserving them mostly for grammar and test-prep courses. This institutionalized practice has shaped NNESTs' identity, making them feel limited when communicating in English with students, and students turn to NESTs for their communicative needs to be fulfilled (Choi, 2008;Jang, 2015).…”

“…A closer look into the website's lecture contents shows that the courses are divided into English test-prep and grammar classes taught by Korean instructors and English conversation classes by native English-speaking teachers (NESTs). This division has created a "mismatch between test scores and English proficiency," causing students to study English for tests separately, which results in their communicative needs not being fulfilled in the NNEST-instructed classes (Choi, 2008, p. 39;Jang 2015). This context raises a need to seek ways to increase the use of English in NNESTs' instruction to meet students' communicative needs.…”

The Ecology of Study Abroad for Language Learning: Synthesis and Interdisciplinary Insights

“…Research so far has focused on macro-level discourses in which sojourners are embedded before going abroad (e.g., globalization, American exceptionalism, Confucianism, Buddhism, feminism, nationalism). These discourses are composed and communicated to sojourners (often implicitly) by many actors, including governments, businesses (Jang, 2015), and professional organizations that influence or prescribe standards for language learning; educational institutions that influence and implement policy through curriculum; families and peers who interact most often and closely with would-be sojourners; and a myriad of other groups and individuals who interact with the would-be sojourner through service encounters or informally by being nearby.…”

“…Upon deeper reflection, Vol. 13, Issue 1 (2021) 25 they may realize that the value of learning the L2 comes through professional qualification (Jang, 2015), fulfilment of academic requirements, cultural curiosity (Bird, 2021), or societal advancement. In other words, it is an oversimplification to classify sojourners as merely language learners.…”