Case Study of a Professional Development Program for Korean EFL Teacher

Abstract

Focus groups are underused method of knowledge production in applied linguistics. When focus groups are chosen, the standard reason for doing so is that participants interact with other experts on the focal topic. Yet, so far the analyses of focus group data have typically summarized topical content rather than examining how the ‘content’ is produced through interaction (Puchta & Potter, 2004). Using Conversation Analysis (CA), this dissertation aims to (a) re-specify focus group interaction as locus for participants’ locally and jointly accomplished actions, stances, and identities, and (b) better inform the evaluation questions framing the research. The focus groups were conducted within a program evaluation context with seven groups of Korean EFL teachers participating in a study-abroad teacher development program in the United States. All groups, conducted in Korean, addressed (a) recruitment process, (b) teachers’ needs, goals, and expectations for the program, (c) how these were met, and (d) teachers’ suggestions for change. The first analysis chapter examines sequential features of focus groups particularly outlining the openings and turn allocations distributed among participants. The second chapter focuses on the ways topics are constructed and distributed by participants, specifically focusing on how participants formulate responses to the focus group protocol by constructing collaborated talk, constructing the response together as a group, and through disagreement sequences. The final analysis chapter informs participants’ orientation to focus groups as a social activity, first by examining how participants explicitly display their understanding of the ongoing institutional interaction, and second, by highlighting participants’ talk construction as experts, through epistemic primacy claims and story construction. The findings contribute to an understanding of the focus group interaction, as well as participants’ perspectives of the teacher development workshop. These contributions lend important implications: (a) methodological in re-specifying focus groups as a research method; and (b) language policy-related on the program and national level concerning teaching and learning English in South Korea. It is hoped that this study provides further evidence of the exigency for detailed and comprehensive analyses of focus group interactions, which enables a more nuanced, complex, and grounded view of the research concerns that animate them in the first place.