"Although we still have a long way to go, I don't think we will ever stop." A grassroots EFL teacher development group in South Korea

Abstract

Recent years have seen an increased interest in teacher-initiated and teacher-led groups (e.g., Cramer, Hurst, & Wilson, 1996; Fishbaugh & Hecimovic, 1994; Holbein & Jackson, 1999; Meyer & Larson, 1998; Rogers & Babinski, 2002). Despite the proliferation of discussion regarding teacher development (TD) groups, few authors have examined how such TD groups are formed, what they focus on, and how they are sustained. Moreover, while a limited amount of empirical research on TD groups has been conducted, this topic has primarily been examined in North American school contexts (e.g., Birchak, Connor, Crawford, Kahn, Kaser, Turner, & Short, 1998; Clair, 1998). Relatively little attention has been paid, either theoretically or empirically, to TD groups in other social and cultural contexts. Also, there has been a significant lack of attention to sociopolitical issues involving the development of TD groups. In order to bridge this gap, it is necessary to illuminate the sociopolitical as well as pedagogical nature of a TD group in a non-Western country context, such as in South Korea. This paper describes an interpretive qualitative investigation of the potential and problems of the current KETG as a grassroots TD group, set within the sociopolitical reality of the promotion of global English and Western cultural values (Canagarajah, 1999; Pennycook, 1994; 2001).