Participation in and Opposition to the Ideology of English in South Korea: Insights from Personal Narratives
Participation in and Opposition to the Ideology of English in South Korea: Insights from Personal Narratives
Keywords: South Korea, EFL, language ideology, intercultural communication
Elizabeth Root
Oregon State University, USA
Bio Data
Elizabeth Root is an assistant professor of intercultural communication at Oregon State University in Speech Communication. Before beginning her doctoral program, she taught EFL/ESL for many years in the USA, China, and South Korea.
The purpose of this study is to investigate how the ideology of English influences English language classroom interactions in South Korea. The ideology of English is a set of beliefs about the necessity of English language skills, particularly the ability to converse in English. In order to explore how Korean students and their native-English-speaking teachers (NESTs) enact this ideology of English, personal narratives of experience were collected from 26 Korean university students, from two different universities, and 27 NESTs, teaching at several different institutions in Seoul. Through ideological analysis, six acts of participation in and seven acts of opposition to the ideology of English were identified with regard to Korean students. For NESTs, six acts of participation in and five acts of awareness of the ideology of English were identified. Critical reflection on how these acts influence classroom interactions is necessary to better understand the intercultural relationships between Korean students and NESTs.
Category: Main Editions, Volume 13 Issue 4
