Title
The Usefulness of Decision-Forcing Case Studies in Helping to Prepare New and Experienced English as Foreign Language Teachers

Keywords: No Keywords

Author
Brent W. Crofton
Concordia University Portland

An Action Research Report Presented to
The Graduate Program in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Masters in Education

Abstract
The objective of this action research project was to find the usefulness of decision-forcing case studies in helping to prepare new and experienced English as foreign language teachers (EFL) taking place in Western Chungnam province of South Korea. Nine decision-forcing cases were written for two Korean English Teachers (KETs) and two Native English Speakers (NESs) with one of each experienced or new to EFL teaching. Following the cases, participants were interviewed and, after assessing the cases, a follow-up by the participants that ranked the decision-forcing cases either one or three. An average of five cases were determined to be decision-forcing for the four participants. Answers to the decision-forcing cases revealed thoughts, feelings, and actions that participants believed they would experience in each scenario. This study concluded that decision-forcing cases are helpful to KETs and NESs because the situations may happen in any classroom or anywhere in Korea, and, thus, they provide information about cross-cultural communication issues, culture, English pragmatics, language, lessons that fail, and racism.