This qualitative study investigates how three experienced Native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) in Korea’s private education sector (hagwons) construct and negotiate their professional identities. Grounded in Wenger’s (1998) social theory of identity, the study explores (1) how NESTs navigate their roles across institutional, cultural, and global communities of practice, and (2) how their learning trajectories influence identity development over time. Data were collected through group discussions, reflective journals, and in-depth interviews. Findings reveal that NESTs’ identities are dynamic and continually reshaped through interactions with Korean English Teachers (KETs), students, and institutional contexts. While native-speaker status affords symbolic capital and instructional autonomy, it can also result in marginalization within Korea’s exam-oriented, hierarchical education system. The study highlights how sustained engagement, intercultural adaptation, and reflective practice foster more agentive and contextually grounded professional identities. It calls for institutional policies and teacher education programs that support long-term development, promote equitable team-teaching, and provide localized training responsive to the specific demands of Korean English classrooms.

Many studies claimed that teachers are influential in classroom from the perspective; the human beings present in the classroom interact in a complex context to which students are susceptible in many aspects of learning. Especially in language classrooms, teachers are assumed to be more important and influential, which means that a teacher can play a greater part in helping the students to learn the language. Thus, it is worthwhile to focus on teachers in the classroom. The purpose of this study is to explore what two effective ESL teachers do in the classroom. Three different qualitative techniques were used and some salient findings emerging were used as themes. For data, the teachers" teaching was observed in class and they were interviewed outside of class. Students" responses to the teachers" behavior through written diaries and interviews were gathered to triangulate the data, which helped to yield more valid and comprehensive viewpoints. This in-depth examination of the two teachers allows us to better understand teacher roles in terms of encouraging students" better learning behavior in the classroom. It was found that, besides the two teachers" technical attention to teaching purposefulness, their attention to affective factor seems to be also effective.

The present research combines two important factors, cultural influence on SLA and wait-time. The research investigates how multi-ethnic students react differently to extended wait-time as an instructional strategy in the ESL classroom. Some research has been conducted on production as influenced by manipulated wait-time. However, no research has attempted to investigate the comparison of production after manipulated wait-time by ethnicity of students in the ESL classroom. It was hypothesized that when given extended wait-time, all students would increase students’ oral production. Especially, Asian students would increase the number of words to a higher degree than Non-Asians do. A multi-ethnic ESL classes were observed for quantitative findings, and their students and teachers were interviewed for qualitative one. It was found that oral production increased when the wait-time was increased. Unexpectedly, however, non-Asians produced more words to a higher degree than Asians did, as wait-time increased. It was interesting to find from the interview that there was a difference in students’ attitude towards wait-time. Some thought wait-time could cause more anxiety rather than comfort. This research will be significant in that the result could contribute to the improvement of teaching English in multi-ethnic classrooms.