Teachers’ Beliefs on English Team Teaching in Korean Elementary Schools

Teachers’ Beliefs on English Team Teaching in Korean Elementary Schools

This study sought to investigate teachers’ beliefs regarding the team teaching through a questionnaire with Korean English Teachers (KETs) and English Language Instructors (ELIs) who are working in the team teaching program at public elementary schools in Korea. The KETs and ELIs believe that team teaching helps students and KETs’ English proficiency especially with speaking, listening and pronunciation. The result showed that the KETs and ELIs are generally involved in managing team teaching. They, however, need to discuss and communicate exclusively to identify each other’s role for effective team teaching. They believe that team teaching helps students experience the diversity of culture. But, cultural differences, between the KETs and ELIs, might be more problematic for the KETs. The KETs and ELIs cited the four positive aspects of team teaching: providing authentic language input for English proficiency, improving the quality of teaching, instruction in two languages, and a non-threatening environment for students to speak with native speakers of English. Clear communication with a partner, undergoing team-teaching without any training and dealing with personal conflicts were the most difficult aspects of team teaching. They commented that the four most important aspects of team teaching: clear communication with a partner, mutual understanding and open-minded attitude for each partner, defining each other’s role in the class, and the KETs’ confidence and willingness. Throughout this study, two important key elements appear to be necessary for a successful team teaching program: (1) ongoing communication including the identification of individual roles and planning classes with mutual understanding to lessen personal conflicts (2) development of ‘teachers training program’ for team teaching to foster compatible team members.