A Korean EFL Teacher's Agency and Identity Construction Process: A Discourse Analysis Approach

Date

2023-12

Contributor

Department

Instructor

Depositor

Speaker

Researcher

Consultant

Interviewer

Narrator

Transcriber

Annotator

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Volume

Number/Issue

Starting Page

Ending Page

Alternative Title

Abstract

This paper explores the discursive practices of a South Korean middle school English teacher in light of the growing gap between South Korean education’s social and cultural ideologies and the teacher’s sense-making process under contradicting circumstances. In contrast with the image of South Korea portrayed by foreign media and Western scholarship as one of the leading countries for education in general and English education in particular (Jenks, 2017; Park, 2009; Seth, 2002; Shim & Park, 2008), workers in the field of education in this country appear to be in agony (Kim, 2017; Namgung et al., 2020). To examine such a contradiction, a semi-structured interview with one South Korean English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher was conducted to investigate her work discourses in relation to concepts of teacher agency (Bourdieu, 1977; Tharp & Gallimore, 1988; Wertsch, 1991; Vygotsky, 1978) and teacher identity (Sachs, 2005). Analysis utilized the discourse analytic tools of positioning (Bamberg, 2004) and footing (Goffman, 1981) to better understand the deontic discursive practices that comprise the social practice of claiming the authority to dictate how education should be done in South Korea. The findings show that although there seems to be strong resistance to the impositions and demands by the hostile parties at the workplace, evidence indicates some instances of coping strategies in the same discourses.

Description

Keywords

Citation

Extent

Format

Geographic Location

Time Period

Related To

Related To (URI)

Table of Contents

Rights

Rights Holder

Local Contexts

Email libraryada-l@lists.hawaii.edu if you need this content in ADA-compliant format.