Teaching Styles of Two Native English Speaking Teachers and One Korean English teacher

Teaching Styles of Two Native English Speaking Teachers and One Korean English teacher

In the hope of boosting students' English communicative competence, during the last decade, every megalopolis and province, in competition, have been hiring native English speaking teachers (NESTs) from English speaking countries. This research, in terms of teaching styles, is intended to cast a light on the gaps between the general preference of students in public elementary schools and the reality of the teaching provided by NESTs in terms of teaching styles, if such gaps exit. The participants were 6th graders from three schools in P City, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea: C, K, and G elementary schools. In C Elementary School, there were 32 participants; in K Elementary School, 39; in G Elementary School, 35. C Elementary School had a male NEST from Canada; K Elementary School, a female from New Zealand; G Elementary School, a male Korean English teacher. The students were asked to answer forty question items (two twenty-item questionnaires) related to their general preferences for English teachers (Type A) and their thoughts on NESTs or the Korean English teacher with regard to their teaching styles (Type B). In each type, five of the twenty items were related to a student-oriented teaching style; five, a subject-oriented teaching style; five, an action-oriented teaching style; five, an institution-oriented teaching style. This study reveals an important conclusion: in subject-oriented teaching style area, only the Korean English teacher meaningfully exceed the students’ general preferences. In other words, in the teaching style, the two NESTs do not satisfy the students’ general preferences. This result might means that the two NESTs have a tendency to treat language forms lightly in the classroom.