Teaching is often regarded as a profession with a high probability of job burnout. Research has shown a close relationship between teachers’ motivation and their burnout, but it has not been closely explored among EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers in Chinese contexts. Considering the large number of college English teachers in Chinese universities and recent changes in their role, the study explores the relationship between their motivation and burnout, as well as the factors that affect teacher burnout among Chinese college English teachers. For this purpose, a total of 261 college English teachers from ten Chinese universities participated in the survey. Among them, 68 teachers submitted their narratives on teacher burnout using the narrative frame. The results showed that high mastery and relational goals and a low level of work avoidance goals contributed to higher motivation and less teacher burnout. The demand for research, lack of autonomy, and guanxi-based practices influenced Chinese teachers’ burnout. The results show that teacher burnout is highly context-dependent and affected by the organizational structure and cultural practices. An organizational support needs to be provided for teachers to maintain their mastery goal orientations and increase their autonomy as professional teachers.

This longitudinal study examined how an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) teacher transformed her teacher identity over time. Hinging on the close relationship between teaching and identity construction, this study was grounded on the notion that teaching a language is becoming a person who teaches it (Benson, 2017). Data were collected through six face-to-face interviews and six electronic interviews with the teacher during a four-year period. Findings demonstrate that becoming an ESP teacher is a complex process of constructing and negotiating identities. The teacher started ESP teaching as a scared general English teacher, and then negotiated her identities as a struggling but hardworking collaborator and learner. Later, she positioned herself as a novice ESP teacher, and then finally constructed her identity as a competent, helpful ESP teacher. Significant factors affecting identity transformation include needs analysis, enhanced subject matter knowledge, capacity to develop teaching materials, and teacher agency. Based on these findings, this study suggests implications for ESP teacher education programs.

As Korea has recently become a multicultural society, English teachers acknowledge the need to address anti-racism in the classroom. However, how to raise students’ racial awareness and ways to incorporate racial issues into English language instruction have not been sufficiently studied in the Korean teacher education context. The aims of this study were to provide pre-service English teachers with a guide to implementing antiracist pedagogy in their language teaching and assessing its impact on their racial literacy development and to examine how pre-service English teachers’ racial literacy can be developed through multiple self-reflective practices and microteaching experiences in their teacher education programs. This paper first introduces an anti-racist curriculum for pre-service English teachers intended to raise their multicultural awareness, and then provides multiple educational resources and teaching strategies to help them become culturally responsive language teachers. The paper concludes with some pedagogical implications regarding the necessity of including culturally responsive teaching in teacher education programs.

This study explores the ways in which sociocultural perspectives on English language education can contribute to teacher education the era of artificial intelligence (AI). Three key words that represent the relationship between sociocultural perspectives and English teacher education—context, interaction, and social practice—can each be linked to the key concepts of criticality, multimodality, and action research. Teachers of English need to be ready for the forthcoming changes in the AI era, for which they must be equipped with a critical ability to focus on issues and needs in the Korean context. This ability can be applied in teaching students various types of interactions, especially those involving the use of computers, and will create opportunities for teachers to conduct research of their own and cultivate a professional teacher identity. This study concludes by recommending substantial changes in the current pre-service and in-service English teacher education programs in accordance with these key concepts.

The present study examines Korean high school English teachers’ and university students’ perceptions about the criterion-referenced assessment of English in CSAT. A total of 400 participants (149 teachers and 251 students) answered an online questionnaire. Teachers showed more positive attitudes than students in their perceptions about the reduction of excessive competition among students, more communicative English classes, and the use of Korean and mathematics scores of the CSAT for the admission materials. Students, on the other hand, were more positive than teachers in their perceptions about the effects of the criterion-referenced assessment of English in CSAT on the reduction of private education and more high scorers in the CSAT. Regarding the alternatives to current criterion-referenced assessments of English in CSAT, teachers seem to emphasize the development of new question types for a valid criterion-referenced assessment system while students seem to focus on improving the communication skills through the English test in CSAT, not on the validity of the criterion-referenced assessment.

This study investigated if the difficulty of instructional classroom English in primary teacher-guidebooks of English is adequately manipulated by learner-proficiency. Corpora of classroom English were compiled from 20 guidebooks from five publishers, approved following the 2015 Revised National Curriculum of Korea. Extracted materials from grades three and four were compared with those of grades five and six to observe variations in the difficulty. Coh-Metrix, a software application that computes an extensive range of measures on cohesion and language, was used for analyses. With evidence-based assessments on (psycho)linguistic features and patterns of classroom English, we report results both congruent and incongruent with the prospect that the difficulty should increase as learners become more proficient. Overall, although partial difficulty manipulations between the two levels were noted, inconsistent results and invariances were also observed, disclosing much room for improvement of classroom English in the guidebooks. Some implications toward teacher-guidebook development, particularly in its classroom English, are suggested

For nearly two years, virtual learning has been employed by most Korean university instructors and students in online teaching environment. A major negative result of prior research on this issue has been a feeling of isolation and desire for more interactions by students. Therefore, this study was conducted to elicit student insights and feelings related to their satisfaction, self-ratings, and advantages and disadvantages of online Teacher-led (TL) versus Student-led (SL) team activities in their online learning environment. A total of 53 freshman students in two general English classes took part in four Zoom group meetings. The surveys and reflection essay were analyzed through qualitative methods. Major findings included: students from both the TL and SL groups reported relatively higher satisfaction and self-ratings of English skills through the four team activities. However, the TL group indicated that there was a lack of emphasis on reading skills, and an overreliance on teacher interventions led to a lack of team cooperation. While the SL group reported that a lack of teacher interaction led to confusion, poor time management, increased Korean use, and fewer listening comprehension opportunities. Implications and a discussion of team activity use in general English programs are included.

The English language textbook for classes XI-XII, currently in use nationwide in Bangladesh, has drawn numerous reactions from multiple corners of the country. Bangladeshi teachers, major stakeholders, have been noticeably concerned about the effectiveness of the design of the textbook based on their teaching experiences (Hani & Siddika, 2018). It is important to know their perceptions of the textbook, since their perceptions have a significant influence on students’ learning English through the textbook. The current study, therefore, seeks to provide information about the participant teachers and their teaching contexts in order to judge the value of the textbook design in terms of contents selection and organization. For that research purpose, interviews were conducted with 10 teachers who were, at the time of research, teaching the textbook at different colleges in a district of the country. Based on the data, the study discusses the teachers’ first-hand experience with the textbook, providing a revealing insight into how well it facilitates students’ learning in the classroom. Finally, implications are suggested that are expected to guide the design of the next applicable version of the textbook.

There is a growing research interest in language teachers’ professional identity. Nevertheless, unlike studies involving the identity of native and non-native English-speaking teachers, few studies analyzed Gyopo English teachers’ identity despite a sizeable body of Gyopo teachers in the Korean educational context. Using post-structural perspectives of identity, this case study analyzed the identities of a Gyopo instructor as an English teacher and how such identities were reflected in classroom practice. Data were collected through interviews, classroom observations, and self-reflective reports written by the participant. Findings reveal that the participant constructed multiple professional identities as a teacher with previous language learning experiences, a bridge-builder, a multitasker, and a teacher who is not a native English speaker but an American, and a replaceable person. While experiencing identity conflicts, she constantly negotiated and renegotiated her multiple, contradictory identities to position herself more favorably. Based on these findings, the present study offers pedagogical suggestions.

It is generally believed that teachers are important both to student learning and achievement. Apart from teacher qualification and experience, some studies have shown that teacher gender may relate significantly to student achievement. The purpose of the study was to find out the following- (a) Does teacher gender significantly influence student academic achievement in English Language Arts at the junior secondary school level? (b). Does teacher gender significantly influence student academic achievement in Mathematics at the junior secondary school level? (c) Does teacher gender significantly influence student academic achievement in Biology at the junior secondary school level? Data was obtained from 570 students in seven junior secondary school students in South-East area of Nigeria. An analysis of data showed the following- In the English Language Arts area, and at the junior secondary school level, female students performed significantly higher than male students under a female teacher and male students performed better (but not statistically significant) under male teachers. In the area of Mathematics, female students performed significantly higher under male teachers. Based on the findings, recommendations were made on improving the teaching of English Language Arts, Mathematics and Integrated Science in Nigerian junior secondary schools.

In this paper, we explore how English language teacher education could be envisioned in different ways if one were to adopt a ‘social’ approach toward English language education. More specifically, drawing on our experience, which we gathered as Korean faculty members of two Canadian universities, with the help of reflexive inquiry, we highlighted the importance of fostering critical intercultural competence among language teachers. Focusing on a small-scale case study of Korean teacher candidates who participated in a short-term community-based service learning in Canada, our analysis examines how to train English teachers to develop their own intercultural understanding through experiential learning activities, so they can better develop intercultural competence among their students. We argue that a critical understanding of linguistic and cultural diversity is an essential component of English language teacher education in increasingly diverse EFL classrooms across South Korea in the era of globalization, transnationalism, and multilingual/ multiculturalism.

The purpose of this study is to investigate error patterns in EFL college students’ English writing as well as their change over time, based on the teacher’s feedback. In order to accomplish this purpose, two research questions were constructed; first, what are the characteristics of Korean EFL students’ writing based on the maturity of English sentence by the T-unit analysis? Second, what types of error patterns are produced in Korean EFL students’ writing? Also, how do the error patterns change based on the teacher’s feedback over time? The participants were four Korean EFL college students, and they were asked to pre-write, draft, revise and edit until they completed their final draft. The results of pre- and post-writing test were also analyzed. The major findings are as follows: 1) The mean number of T-unit among participants was 42.25 units, and the mean number of words per T-unit was 10.95 words. 2) The most frequently committed errors were found out as lexical and morphological errors. Moreover, the rate of lexical and sentence structure errors has been dropped, whereas the rate of punctuation errors has increased as the teacher’s feedback progressed over time. Pedagogical and practical suggestions are also made on the effective teaching of English writing in Korean classroom settings.

This qualitative study, grounded in the sociocultural perspective, attempts to explore a Korean English teacher’s identity construction by employing a self-study, through narrative inquiry. As a self-study, the participant, Sofia, will also be the researcher. Data from her teacher life story narrative and reflective journals were analyzed to see how she reconstructs her identity through reflection of her own experiences. The study revealed four major themes showing the identity formation of the participant: (1) identity formation by resisting identity assumptions or stereotypes; (2) identity formation through influence of context; (3) identity formation through previous learning experiences; and (4) identity formation through conceptualizing teacher as professional. Based on these findings, the present study generates implications for teacher education practice and future research.

The study explores the identity construction of non-regular English conversation teachers (non-RECTs) in an elementary and a middle school in Korea. Drawing on positioning theory and the notion of community of practice, the study illustrates how non-RECTs resist, modify, and reconstruct their teacher identity through positioning themselves and others, and different modes of participation in the school contexts. It is a three-year longitudinal study with two female non-RECTs. The primary data gathered through interviews and informal talks, documents, and e-mails were also included for triangulation purposes. The findings suggest that the non-RECTs self-positioned themselves as qualified teachers who can effectively implement communicative language teaching into the classroom, but their positioning was challenged and rejected by regular teachers. The participants resisted their marginalized positions as temporary instructors and claimed their legitimacy by establishing themselves as positive contributors to the communicative curriculum. The findings show the non-RECTs’ identity construction is a struggle between the different views on legitimacy and a negotiation among multiple and conflicting identities.

The current study explores the potential of the collaborative reflection of the teacher, colleagues, and students in promoting teacher expertise. To this effect, the authors first created a principled set of checklists on six domains of teacher expertise by synthesizing relevant literature. Then they developed protocols for collaborative reflection. These tools were applied to a middle school English teacher’s reflective practice, involving the teacher participating in stimulated recall sessions of her own classes, writing reflection journals, and receiving feedback from her colleagues and students. The results show that collaborative reflection has high potentials for mediating the teacher’s cognitive and affective changes, leading to behavioral ones. This suggests that collaborative reflection, when relevant institutional prerequisites are met, can take an instrumental role in promoting teacher expertise.

The contributions of teachers in building foundation of social processes, promoting learners’ agency and engagements have been constantly highlighted. This study explores language socialization of English Language Learners (ELLs) in an elementary school in U.S., focusing on the role of an ESL teacher. It examines how the ESL teacher provides linguistic and cultural scaffolding, and creates a learning environment conducive to ELLs’ socialization into American school academic discourse (Gee, 1999). A prevalent approach for linguistic scaffolding was through using questions. Questions were used for assessment, identifying prior knowledge, current understanding level, and potential level for future development, and to train ELLs to think critically and analytically. Cultural scaffolding was made through classroom scripts, such as whole group and small group activities, individual work with teacher assistance, and working locations in the classrooms. The classroom script projected American values of power functioning, respect for individuals, and freedom of choice. The findings imply that ESL learners need more than linguistic scaffolding and having the knowledge of cultural learning dynamics could be crucial in multicultural students’ socialization into the mainstream American school discourse.

This study investigates 95 articles on English teacher education published in English Teaching for the past 50 years. Remarkable changes have been made in research methodology and research focus. In particular, six themes emerged from the selected articles and were discussed: (1) teacher qualifications and roles, (2) teacher training and professional development, (3) teacher cognition and perceptions, (4) teacher professional identities, (5) teacher talk, (6) teacher evaluation. Finally, pedagogical implications and directions for the future research are suggested.

This study examined the effects of learner-initiated noticing through comparison and teacher-initiated noticing through grammar instruction on EFL middle school learners' English writing process and uptake. For the study, 18 second-year middle school students with intermediate-high English proficiency were divided into three groups. After the first writing composition, one group (Group C) underwent a comparison stage, in which they compared their original writings and reformulated versions. Another group (Group I) received reactive grammar instruction on the four most frequent types of grammar errors, while the other group (Group IC) underwent both stages. All three groups revised their original writings in the next stage. To examine the learners' cognitive processes, think-aloud protocols were analyzed. The results showed that Group IC performed better in uptake than the other two groups, while no major differences were found between Groups I and C. This suggests that a mixture of learner-initiated noticing and teacher-initiated noticing influenced the learners' uptake.

The present study aims to compare teacher talk and the course book used as a source of vocabulary input. For the research purpose, part of Yenny Corpus (Kwon, 2013) was used to analyze the vocabulary content of the two input sources. Yenny Corpus consists of a total of 247,398 words collected from EFL classes of four native and five non-native university lecturers. In this study, however, the data of 1,416 words by the native teachers and 1,651 words by the non-native teachers with their course book scripts were used. To analyze the quantity and quality of the vocabulary use (e.g., level, diversity) of the two input sources, some representative word lists such as BNC-COCA 25,000 word family list topped on Range Program (Heatley & Nation, 2002) were applied. The results show that the teachers (including both native and non-native teachers) orally provide 8,090 word types while their course books introduce 4,713. The non-native teachers provide a little more vocabulary input compared with the native teachers’ talk. In addition, the level of the vocabulary provided by the non-native teachers seems more appropriate for their students’ vocabulary ability. Nevertheless, in order to generalize the findings further research is needed in different settings.