Korean High School Students’ Perceptions about Socio-cultural Interactions in English Classrooms

Korean High School Students’ Perceptions about Socio-cultural Interactions in English Classrooms

  This study is designed to investigate Korean high school students’ perceptions about sociocultural interactions in public school English classrooms. The subjects of this study (N=261) were third year high school students in Busan. Survey data were analyzed to investigate; 1) students’ perceptions about teaching and interaction styles in high school English classrooms (TISIEC), 2) students’ degree of satisfaction with TISIEC, 3) students’ visions of TISIEC in the future, and 4) students’ interests and willingness to participate in the desirable English classrooms. The findings suggest that Korean high school students do not necessarily have negative perceptions about current TISIEC, but they are aware that external factors such as the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) may be a significant barrier to ideal types of interactions in the English classroom. Further studies are recommended to explore how idealistic and satisfactory public classroom environments can be created to increase students’ degree of expectations toward public school English education. Students’ needs and their willingness to participate in new types of interactions may contribute to increasing the needs of sociocultural perspectives in teaching and learning English in Korea.