Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Second Handbook of English Language Teaching pp 73–90Cite as

“English Divide” and ELT in Korea: Towards Critical ELT Policy and Practices

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: Springer International Handbooks of Education ((SIHE))

Abstract

This chapter presents a critical examination of current issues and controversies in English language teaching in South Korea (henceforth Korea), focusing on the crucial role of English in social reproduction as represented in the term “English Divide,” referring to a widening social polarization based on English competence. The chapter situates the discussion in the context of the global political economy and explores how neoliberal celebration of English has led to exacerbating inequalities among social classes in relation to rapid neoliberal globalization of the Korean society. Emphasis is placed on the emergence of communicative English as new symbolic capital regarding neoliberal construction of language learning as an entrepreneurial self-development project to boost the individual’s competitiveness in the job market. Highlighting differential access to “good” English by “Early Study Abroad” students and “English Abandoners (or English Underachievers),” the analysis examines how a series of ELT policy initiatives designed to enhance communicative English language teaching and intended to address the “English Divide” contributed to further exacerbating widening English achievement gap along social class lines. The chapter concludes with suggestions for critical ELT policy and practices needed for more inclusive education for Korea and other parts of the globe.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   449.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD   649.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

References

  • Baek BB (2011) 수준별 하반 편성과 특별 보충 수업이 중학교 학습부진학생들의 교과목 효능감에 끼치는 영향 (Effects of low ability grouping and special supplemental instruction for self-efficacy of middle school underachievers). Korea Educ Rev 17(2):47–72

    Google Scholar 

  • Bernstein K, Hellmich E, Katznelson N, Shin J, Vinall K (eds) (2015) Critical perspectives on neoliberalism in language education. L2 J 7(3):3

    Google Scholar 

  • Block D (2014) Social class in applied linguistics. Routledge, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Block D (2017) Political economy in applied linguistics research. Lang Teach 50(1):32–64

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Block D, Gray J (2016) ‘Just go away and do it and you get marks’: the degradation of language teaching in neoliberal times. J Multiling Multicult Dev 35(5):481–494

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Block D, Gray J, Holborow M (2012) Neoliberalism and applied linguistics. Routledge, London/New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu P (1984) Distinction: a social critique of the judgement of taste. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu P (1998) The essence of neoliberalism. Le Monde Diplomatique. Retrieved from http://mondediplo.com/1998/12/08bourdieu

  • Byean H (2017) Tracked identities, resistance, and cultural production of Yeongpoja: critical ethnography of tracked english classes in a Korean Middle School. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of British Columbia, Vancouver

    Google Scholar 

  • Cameron D (2000) Good to talk?: living and working in a communication culture. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Choi T, Andon N (2013) Can a teacher certification scheme change ELT classroom practice? ELT J 68(1):12–21

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chun CW (2009) Contesting neoliberal discourses in EAP: critical praxis in an IEP classroom. J Engl Acad Purp 8(2):111–120

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Darvin R, Norton B (2015) Identity and a model of investment in applied linguistics. Ann Rev Appl Linguis 35:64–84

    Google Scholar 

  • De Costa P, Park JS-Y, Wee L (2016) Language learning as linguistic entrepreneurship: implications for language education. Asia Pac Educ Res 25(5–6):695–702

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eum S, Kim J (2014) Gukjego, Oego Gajaetdago? Gyoyukbi Hwakin hae buat deo ni (Going to international or special high schools? I checked the cost of education at those schools). Retrieved 1 June 2018, http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/society/schooling/627715.html

  • Gamoran A (2010) Tracking and inequality: new directions for research and practice. In: Apples MW, Ball SJ, Gaudin L (eds) The Routledge international handbook of the sociology of education. Routledge, London/New York, pp 213–228

    Google Scholar 

  • Gao A (2014) Social-class identity and English learning: studies of Chinese learners. J Lang Identity Educ 13(2):92–98

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harvey D (2005) A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Heller M (2010) The commodification of language. Annu Rev Anthropol 39:101–114

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holborow M (2015) Language and neoliberalism. Routledge, London

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hwang Y (2014) Effects of ability grouping on middle school students’ affective outcomes. In: Park H, Kim K (eds) Korean education in changing economic and demographic contexts, vol 23. Springer, Singapore, pp 127–149

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Hyslop-Margison EJ, Sears AM (2006) Neo-liberalism, globalization, and human capital learning: reclaiming education for democratic citizenship. Springer, Dordrecht

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Irvine JT (1989) When talk isn’t cheap: language and political economy. Am Ethnol 16(2):248–267

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Irvine JT, Gal S (2000) Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In: Kroskrity PV (ed) Regimes of language: ideologies, polities, and identities. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe, pp 35–84

    Google Scholar 

  • Jang IC (2018) Legitimating the Philippines as a language learning space: transnational Korean youth’s experiences and evaluations. J Socioling 22(2):216–232

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jeon M (2012) English immersion and educational inequality in South Korea. J Multiling Multicult Dev 33(4):395–408

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jung S, Norton B (2002) Language planning in Korea: the new elementary English program. In: Tollefson J (ed) Language policies in education: critical issues. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, pp 245–265

    Google Scholar 

  • Kanno Y (2008) Language and education in Japan: unequal access to bilingualism. Palgrave Macmillan, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kanno Y, Vandrick S (eds) (2014) Social class in language learning and teaching. J Lang Identity Educ 13(2):85–134

    Google Scholar 

  • Kim D, Yoon E, Nam J (2012) The analyses on variables affecting English private tutoring expenditure in Korea. Foreign Lang Educ 19(3):285–313

    Google Scholar 

  • Kim E-G (2011) English educational policies of the U.S. Army military government in Korea from 1945 to 1948 and their effects on the development of English language teaching in Korea. Lang Policy 10(3):193–220

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim H (2006) Sujunbyeol Idong Sueop eun shilshi doe eo ya handa (Tracking should be conducted). Retrieved 2 June 2018, from http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2006/01/01/2006010170241.html

  • Kim JW (2004) Education reform policies and classroom teaching in South Korea. Int Stud Sociol Educ 14(2):125–146

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim-Rivera E-G (2002) English language education in Korea under Japanese colonial rule. Lang Policy 1(3):261–281

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kubota R (2011) Questioning linguistic instrumentalism: english, neoliberalism, and language tests in Japan. Linguist Educ 22(3):248–260

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kwon O (2000) Korea’s English education policy changes in the 1990s: innovations to gear the nation for the 21st century. Engl Teach 55(1):47–91

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, B. (2018). Chotunghakkyo cehaknyen mich iphak cen atonguy pangkwahu yengekyoyuk phyeycilul tulessan cyokiyengekyoyuk cintankwa tayan [A diagnosis and alternatives of early English education surrounding the abolition of after-school English education programs at the lower grades of elementary school and preschools]. Kyoyuk piphyeng, 41, 10–49.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee KS (2014) The politics of teaching English in south Korean schools: language ideologies and language policy. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania

    Google Scholar 

  • Lin AMY, Man EYF (2010) Bilingual education: Southeast Asian perspectives. Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong

    Google Scholar 

  • Lo A, Abelmann N, Kwon SA, Okazaki S (eds) (2015) South Korea’s education exodus: the life and times of study abroad. University of Washington Press, Seattle

    Google Scholar 

  • Oakes J (1985) Keeping track: how schools structure inequality. Yale University Press, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Park J. S-Y (2009) The local construction of a global language: ideologies of English in South Korea. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Park J. S-Y (2010) Naturalization of competence and the neoliberal subject: success stories of English language learning in the Korean conservative press. J Linguis Anthropol 20(1):22–38

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Park J. S-Y (2011) The promise of English: linguistic capital and the neoliberal worker in the south Korean job market. Int J Biling Educ Biling 14(4):443–455

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Park J. S-Y, Bae S (2009) Language ideologies in educational migration: Korean jogi yuhak families in Singapore. Linguist Educ 20(4):366–377

    Google Scholar 

  • Park J. S-Y, Lo A (2012) Transnational South Korea as a site for a sociolinguistics of globalization: markets, timescales, neoliberalism. J Socioling 16(2):147–164

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Park S-J, Abelmann N (2004) Class and cosmopolitan striving: mothers’ management of English education in South Korea. Anthropol Q 77:645–672

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Piller I, Cho J (2013) Neoliberalism as language policy. Lang Soc 42(1):23–44

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Price G (2014) English for all? Neoliberalism, globalization, and language policy in Taiwan. Lang Soc 43(5):567–589

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shin H (2006) Rethinking TESOL from a SOL’s perspective: Indigenous epistemology and decolonizing TESOL praxis. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 3(2&3):147–167

    Google Scholar 

  • Shin H (2007) ELT in Korea: Toward globalization or glocalization? In J. Cummins & C. Davison (Eds.), International handbook of English Language Teaching, Vol. 1 (pp. 75–86). Norwell, MA: Springer

    Google Scholar 

  • Shin H (2012) From FOB to COOL: Transnational migrant students in Toronto and the styling of global linguistic capital. J Socioling 16(2):184–200

    Google Scholar 

  • Shin H (2013) Ambivalent calculations in Toronto: Negotiating the meaning of success among early Study Abroad high school students. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 22(4):527–546

    Google Scholar 

  • Shin H (2014) Social Class, Habitus, and Language Learning: The Case of Korean Early Study-Abroad Students. J Lang Identity Educ 13(2):99–103

    Google Scholar 

  • Shin H (2016) Language “skills” and the neoliberal English education industry. J Multiling Multicult Dev 37(5):509–522

    Google Scholar 

  • Shin D (2018) Gulobul injaewa yeongeoe gwanhan damronjeok silcheongua shinjayujuwi jucheoseonge yihae [Understanding discursive practice and neoliberal subjectivities of global talents and their English language competence]. Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics 18(3):349–380. https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.18.3.201809.349

  • Shin H, Park JS (2016) Researching Language and neoliberalism. J Multiling Multicult Dev 37(5):443–452

    Google Scholar 

  • Song J (2009) South Koreans in the debt crisis: the creation of a neoliberal welfare society. Duke University Press, Durham

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sung K-W (2002) Critical theory and pedagogy: remapping English teaching in Korea. Engl Teach 57(2):65–89

    Google Scholar 

  • Tan PKW, Rubdy R (eds) (2008) Language as commodity: global structures, local marketplaces. Continuum, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Tollefson J (1991) Planning language, planning inequality: language policy in the community. Longman, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Urciuoli B (2008) Skills and selves in the new workplace. Am Ethnol 35(2):211–228

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Urciuoli B (2010) Neoliberal education: preparing the student for the new workplace. In: Greenhouse CJ (ed) Ethnographies of neoliberalism. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, pp 162–176

    Google Scholar 

  • Wee L (2008) Linguistic instrumentalism in Singapore. In: Rubdy R, Tan PKW (eds) Language as commodity: global structures, local marketplaces. Continuum, New York, pp 31–43

    Google Scholar 

  • Woolard KA (1998) Introduction: language ideology as a field of inquiry. In: Schieffelin BB, Woolard KA, Kroskrity PV (eds) Language ideologies: practice and theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 3–47

    Google Scholar 

  • Yang J-S (2018) English education and social reproduction: an ethnography of adolescents in a Korean Public School. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto, Toronto

    Google Scholar 

  • Yoo E (2013, October 8) 수준별 이동수업 교사 현황 (Teacher assignments by tracks). Retrieved 21 May 2015, from http://news.eduhope.net/sub_read.html?uid=15459

  • Yoo J, Park E (2011, May 11) Bokji gukga reul malhada (Talking about the Welfare State) Part 1–2: Gua buha geolin Hanguk ui Gajok (Korean family overloaded). Retrieved 1 June 2018, from http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?artid=201105112139085&code=940702&s_code=as071

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Curriculum Studies, College of Education, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada

    Hyunjung Shin

  2. Department of English Language Education, College of Education, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

    Byungmin Lee

Authors
  1. Hyunjung Shin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Byungmin Lee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hyunjung Shin .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Xuesong Gao

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Shin, H., Lee, B. (2019). “English Divide” and ELT in Korea: Towards Critical ELT Policy and Practices. In: Gao, X. (eds) Second Handbook of English Language Teaching. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02899-2_5

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation