A Critical Analysis of Current Discursive Practices in ELT in Korea

A Critical Analysis of Current Discursive Practices in ELT in Korea

  This paper investigates key discursive practices constructed in English language teaching (ELT) in Korea and calls for the necessity of ‘criticality’ in theorizing, researching, and pedagogical practices. Utilizing a new qualitative research orientation of ‘bricolage’ (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005; Kincheloe, 2004) and critical discourse analysis (CDA; Fairclough, 1995), this paper engages in multi-methods of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting the data. More specifically, some current issues related to ELT in Korea are juxtaposed critically with various historical, political, sociocultural, and economical factors. This is to investigate how these factors influence the formation of discursive practices regarding the NS-NNS dichotomy and ownership of English, teaching English for practicality, relationships between language, culture, and power, and neutralizing and depoliticizing key concepts in ELT. This paper suggests that ELT in Korea is a site in which multiple discourses are contesting to delineate particular ways of teaching and learning. Accordingly, this paper argues that ELT practitioners should be aware of the role of English as symbolic power and understand what is implicated in current discursive practices in ELT in order to possibly engage in more progressive pedagogy in line with Freirian consciousness-raising or problematizing practices for Korean learners of English.