Feature Articles

Korean Parental Beliefs AboutELT From the Perspective

of Teachers

CAROLINE LINSEQueenrsquos University Belfast

In South Korea as in many other parts of the world childrenbegin learning English when they are very young Koreanparents want their children to learn English as quickly aspossible and often make heavy financial and other investmentsin their childrenrsquos English language education English languageteachers of school-age learners in Korea often feel pressure and insome cases criticism from parents regarding English languageinstruction This article reports the results of a study designed tobegin examining the perceptions that Korean parents holdregarding English language instruction It illustrates how someof their beliefs reflect the latest language teaching researchwhereas others are more indicative of traditional Korean beliefsystems educational approaches and methodologiesdoi 105054tj2011269752

Throughout Asia English is being taught in public schoolsto learners at younger and younger ages (Cameron 2003 Nunan2003) Teaching English to young learners has its own distinctchallenges ranging from the actual curricula that must be tailoredto childrenrsquos needs to the training and selection of teachers whodeliver the instruction (Cameron 2003) Many aspects of teachingEnglish to elementary school students in South Korea have yet to beinvestigated in spite of major policy decisions (Kang 2008) Withinthe English as a foreign language (EFL) context of Korea specificchallenges related to sociocultural factors have led to the imple-mentation of mandatory English language study for primary schoolstudents (Butler 2005)

In the case of Korea families invest large sums of money andmothers often make large personal investments in their childrenrsquos

TESOL Journal 24 December 2011 473

English language education (Park amp Abelmann 2004) Althoughthere is a commitment on the part of parents toward Englishlanguage education in Korea English teachers are not shown howto interact and collaborate with parents who want their children toacquire English language skills In addition in English languageteaching (ELT) preparation programs for teachers of young learn-ers adequate attention is not paid to how to work effectively withthe parents of pupils (Linse 2005)

Many educators recognize the multifaceted impact that parentshave both directly and indirectly upon their childrenrsquos education(Eccles amp Harold 1996) Parents and other citizensrsquo attitudes towardeducation in general and toward specific educational domains suchas language arts usually reflect complex cultural and societal beliefsystems (Dewey 1938) In addition accurate and inaccurate beliefsabout language acquisition and development can positively ornegatively impact English language instruction (Brown 1995)

Educators including educational researchers in the UnitedStates have examined the relationships between schools and homesof learners representing different cultural and linguistic traditionsAlthough the research cited here is not specific to Korea itnevertheless highlights issues that educators who want to havepositive homendashschool relationships may want to considerLawrence-Lightfoot (2003) stresses the importance of dialoguebetween educators and parents and the need for teachers to listen toparents Parental input can have strong positive or negative ramifi-cations for classroom educators and the school community at large(Epstein 2001) Parents of school-age learners also can be viewed ascustomers and it is important for educators to take the time toknow their customers and ascertain what they want for theirchildren (Davis 1995) The wisdom that parents have with regard totheir own childrenrsquos education is finally being recognized in partbecause parentsrsquo ratings of schools often mirror how experts rate thesame schools (Bast amp Walberg 2003)

KOREAN CONTEXTConfucian thought including the beliefs that education is pivotal tosuccess in life and that learners must both listen to and obey theirteachers has heavily influenced Korea According to the Confucian

474 TESOL Journal

worldview one of the best ways to improve onersquos childrenrsquos stancein life is through education In Korea educational achievement is anessential component of social class (K S Lee amp Carrasquillo 2006)South Korea has been able to emerge as a country that places a hugepremium on educational attainment in part because of the enduringinfluence of humanistic Confucianism as well as how education fitsinto the modern society (Sorenson 1994) For example an excellentscore on the English language portion of the Korean entrance examis an important part of the college admission criteria and isconsidered essential for students wishing to attend top-rankeduniversities

Korean teachers of English working with school-age learners inKorea have complained in my professional preparation classes thatthey are often under a great deal of pressure from parents In one ofmy MATESOL classes in Seoul a secondary school teacher said thatstudentsrsquo parents complained because she was using too muchEnglish in class A primary school teacher taking the same coursesaid that one studentrsquos mother pointed out that the childrsquos privatetutor did a wonderful job of teaching English and did not useKorean when teaching English Both of these teachers working withdifferent age groups felt burdened by parents even though therewas considerable variation in what the parents believed to be theteachersrsquo shortcomings

Parents especially mothers can be viewed as the impetussupporting English language study in Korea (Park amp Abelmann2004) Children do not wake up clamoring to attend English classInstead parents make a decision that their children will benefit fromstudying English Parents are the ones who select the privatelanguage schools their children attend vote for legislators whosupport or oppose English language programs and voice com-plaints when their children do not do as well as expected inlearning English or do not learn in the manner that parents believeshould be utilized

PURPOSE OF THIS STUDYThe purpose of this study was to initiate an investigation of theperceptions that Korean teachers think parents have about Englishlanguage education This is an area of inquiry neglected in the past

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 475

in part because research into foreign language education for younglearners is not well developed and the role of parents in foreignlanguage education has only recently been formally acknowledgedThis study strove to begin the process of determining parentsrsquobeliefs about learning English and what they perceive is necessaryin order to learn English

The primary aim was to investigate what teachers believeparents think about English language study in order to enableteachers to be more empathetic when engaging in dialogue withparents Korean teachers were chosen as research participantsbecause they were the ones who had voiced concerns about havingto deal with parents specifically addressing complaints voiced byparents

The study also sought to determine the extent to which parentperceptions about language teaching are consistent with key ELTissues that a group of Korean teacher researchers had identifiedThe teacher researchers were informed by important findingsincluding those of Blachowicz Fisher Ogle and Watts-Taffe (2006)and Carlo et al (2005) who emphasize the importance of vocabu-lary development as well as of the work of Vardell Hadaway andYoung (2006) who emphasize the role that reading can play inlearning English as a new language The results are reported andaligned with current thinking related to the language teachingtopics identified by the Korean teacher researchers It is hoped thatthe results of this study will help teachers reflect more on thecomments that parents make regarding their childrenrsquos Englishlanguage education and the role that parents play in their childrenrsquosEFL education It is also hoped that the study will cast a light on theimportance of conversations with parents concerning Englishlanguage education for their young children

METHODOLOGYQualitative and quantitative methods were selected as means toinvestigate teachersrsquo perceptions of parents for both theoretical andpragmatic reasons Mixed methods that integrate stories and num-bers when attempting to explain a phenomenon can provide aricher picture than either a qualitative or quantitative data approachalone (Sherman amp Strang 2004) Qualitative methods are especially

476 TESOL Journal

appropriate when the research is in a new area of inquiry (Maxwell1996) In addition grounded theory is used when one of the aimsis to develop a theory based on the data rather than to test apreexisting theory (Glaser amp Strauss 1967) This study focused onthe data that emerged from the research instruments and did notassess a preexisting theory because a theory related to teachersrsquoperceptions of parentsrsquo beliefs regarding childrenrsquos development ofEnglish as a foreign language did not exist

RESEARCH CONTEXTThe research was conducted in Seoul and data were gathered fromtwo groups of English language teachers Teachers instead ofparents were chosen as participants because teachers have workedwith many parents and have witnessed parents expressing a widerange of sentiments regarding English language instruction Teach-ers are acutely aware of the demands that parents make regardingEnglish language instruction

EFL is taught to school-age pupils in the public as well as privatesectors in large part because parents demand it The Koreangovernment including the Ministry of Education view knowledgeof English as an imperative skill if the country is to be successful onthe global economic stage (Jo 2008) Private English languageinstitutes and English language kindergartens flourish throughoutKorea and provide school-age learners with English languageinstruction that supplements what takes place in classrooms underthe Ministry of Education

PARTICIPANTSThere were two groups of Korean teacher participants the teacherresearcher group and the survey participant group Teachers inboth groups possessed at least an intermediate level of Englishlanguage proficiency Both groups of study participants also hadexperience teaching English to school-age learners and workingwith the parents of these learners

The teacher researcher group consisted of 13 teachers enrolled ina Korean universityrsquos MATESOL program and who had firsthandexperience addressing the needs of parents Twelve of theseparticipants were experienced teachers the remaining ones were

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 477

teachers at a novice level The teacher researcher group collectivelyhad more than 180 years9 experience of teaching Englishpredominantly to Korean school-age learners

The survey participant group consisted of 120 teachers who alsohad experience working with school-age learners in both the publicand private sectors This group completed the survey as part of ELTcourses or workshops conducted for teachers of school-age learnersin Seoul

PROCEDURES

Data Collection and Data Analysis

This study used qualitative and quantitative methods Qualitativemethods were used to generate the initial data that formed the basisof the survey

The teacher researcher group was asked to write about thebeliefs that Korean parents have regarding children learningEnglish as a foreign language All of the members of the teacherresearcher group most of whom have dealt with parental com-plaints on a regular basis wrote a list of beliefs as expressed to themby parents They then went through their list of items and coded thedata into categories with recurrent themes Next they createdLikert-style items based on the recurrent themes that emerged fromcoding the data

The Likert-based survey was administered to the 120 membersof the survey participant group These were teachers attendinggraduate-level EFL methodology classes or workshops intended tohelp them be better prepared to work with kindergarten and school-age learners The numerical data from the survey were tabulatedand the frequency counts were analyzed to determine significanttrends within the data sets

In order to further triangulate the data the results from thesurveys were then presented to the teacher researcher group whohad created the initial qualitative data This group was queried todetermine whether the data generated from the survey participantgroup and the description of the results appeared to be accurate Theteacher researcher group stated that the results reflected the beliefsystem that is operational among Korean parents of school-age

478 TESOL Journal

and preschool-age children in Korea The group was quite pleasedwith the results because they felt that they confirmed their ownthinking with regard to this issue

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONA number of significant themes emerged from the data The themesreflect the pressure that families feel and their desire for theirchildren to learn English The themes also reflect the overall contextof education in Korea There were some consistencies between thebeliefs expressed and the latest findings in research on EFL teach-ing The first set of results dealt with vocabulary learning The nextaddressed where children should be taught who should teachthem and the role that testing plays in childrenrsquos English languageeducation This leads into the results concerning when to learnEnglish the role of reading and the role of pronunciation

Vocabulary Learning

As seen in Table 1 94 of survey participants said that parentsbelieve memorizing vocabulary items is important The teacherresearchers who generated the items for the Likert scale used theword memorize because they felt that it reflected the way parentsperceive how vocabulary items should be learned Almost unan-imously survey participants agreed with the item The way that itwas phrased is somewhat understandable considering that educa-tion in Korea has historically relied on rote learning However thisfinding is a little surprising because it is not uncommon for Koreanswho learned English in Korea to lament that memorizing voca-bulary items was ineffective in their English language learningprocess

To a limited degree the survey responses are consistent with thelatest vocabulary research that supports the notion that vocabularydevelopment is a cornerstone for academic development in onersquosown language and is pivotal when developing skills in English asa second or foreign language However research in the area ofvocabulary development does not support the notion that memo-rizing vocabulary items is an effective way to expand childrenrsquosvocabularies According to Beck McKeown and Kucan (2002)school-age learners learning in their home language need

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 479

vocabulary instruction that is comprehensive and multifaceted (alsoknown as robust) and need to make personal and cognitiveconnections with the words Effective vocabulary teaching forchildren learning English as a home language or as a second lan-guage is a multifaceted process and occurs over time rather than allat once (Blachowicz et al 2006) Children learning English as asecond language particularly benefit from a comprehensive ap-proach to vocabulary development (Carlo et al 2005)

TABLE 1 Results

Stronglyagree Agree Neutral Disagree

Stronglydisagree

Memorizingvocabulary items isvery important

62 32 4 1 1

Learners learn best bygoing abroad

21 54 20 5 0

Native speakerteachers are betterEnglish teachersthan nonnative-speaking teachers

23 39 21 14 4

A test score is anexcellent indicatorof English languagecompetency andproficiency

25 40 18 17 0

The earlier childrenlearn English thebetter

38 46 12 0 2

Children need to readbooks in English

26 60 11 2 1

Reading novels andreading othermaterials in Englishis very important

28 58 11 2 1

Native-like Englishpronunciation isone of the mostimportant things forstudents to achieve

24 57 11 8 0

480 TESOL Journal

Vocabulary teaching is an important aspect of overall instructionfor children learning English as their home language or as a secondor foreign language To be successful academically children need tohave a rich vocabulary and it must be noted that knowing wordsand definitions in isolation is not a hallmark of a rich vocabularyThe challenge is to help Korean parents who themselves come froma culture that puts a high premium on rote learning understand thenecessity of providing students with robust vocabulary instructionthat enables students to make connections beyond simple memo-rization of the vocabulary items

Where to Learn English

As shown in Table 1 only 5 of survey participants disagreed withthe statement that the best way to learn English is to travel to anEnglish-speaking country Seventy-five percent agreed or stronglyagreed and 20 were neutral neither agreeing nor disagreeingThe word best is important because it suggests that going abroad tolearn English is superior to staying in Korea to learn English Thisfinding is consistent with the large sums that families invest in theirchildrenrsquos English language education overseas for camps or evenestablishing children on their own in English-speaking countriesAccording to Onishi (2008) it is estimated that some 40000 childrenhave gone abroad in part to learn English and in part because offrustration with the Korean education system

Going abroad to study English is not without consequences anddrawbacks According to Chiang-Hom (2004) one of the reasonsthat parents from Asian families send their teenagers to English-speaking countries often without parental supervision is so thatthey can be immersed in an English language environment andimprove their English language skills Study abroad programs alsoare a not a simple panacea and research on such programs hasshown that although it is true that students initially learn the targetlanguage much more quickly in a locale where it is spoken theirskills plateau over time in the target language environment (Rees ampKlapper 2007)

This is an important but not necessarily comforting result forall teachers of English who are working in Korea It suggests thatteachers delivering English instruction in Korea will always be at a

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 481

disadvantage because they are not educating children in an overallEnglish-speaking context Parents may not necessarily weigh thepros and cons of English study abroad when considering this optionfor their children

Who Should Teach English

The teacher researcher group created an item that asked surveyparticipants if parents felt that native English speakers were betterEnglish teachers than nonnative English speakers Table 1 illustratesthat 62 either agreed or strongly agreed that parents believed thisto be true 21 neither agreed nor disagreed and 18 eitherdisagreed or strongly disagreed These results seemed quitesurprising at first because within Korean society on the surfacethere appears to be an overwhelming overt preference for native-English-speaking (NES) teachers in both public and private insti-tutions for school-age learners These teachers are imported toKorea to teach students and are often compensated and treatedbetter than nonnative-English-speaking (NNES) teachers

NES teachers are favored in private English language kinder-gartens and private language schools for primary school studentsand adults However they do not teach secondary school studentsbecause only Korean teachers of English are able to prepare Koreanstudents for the English language section of the Korean universityentrance examination the Korean Scholastic Aptitude Test (KSAT)

The distinction between NES and NNES teachers of English isone that is not always helpful even though the distinction is madebetween teachers and students (Braine 1999) It is important toremember that numerous factors determine a teacherrsquos abilitybeyond whether he or she is a native speaker of English and is ableto deliver English language instruction (Samimy amp Brutt-Griffler1999) However the results obtained from this item help to bring acertain segment of ELT in Korea to the forefront specificallyuniversity entrance examination test preparation for high schoolstudents

The KSAT is written by Korean high school teachers andprofessors many of whom do not have any language testing skillsbut who nevertheless are literally locked away to create this crucialexamination (Choi 2008) Some of the items on the test are written

482 TESOL Journal

in Korean and few native English speakers possess the Koreanlanguage and cultural skills necessary to fully comprehend andprepare students for this high-stakes exam Consequently onlyKoreans are entrusted with preparing learners for this examAccording to M Lee and Larson (2000) within the context ofKorean society the inordinate amount of pressure to perform wellon university entrance examinations is so great that many studentsexperience enormous anxiety It is thus understandable that onlyKorean speakers are the ones trusted to prepare students for anexam that is viewed as pivotal to a learnerrsquos overall success in life

Members of the teacher researcher group were asked specificallyif they agreed with the idea that the reason some participants feltthat NES teachers were not always better was because they cannotprepare students for the KSAT The teacher researchers expressedgenuine pride in their ability to prepare students for the KSATThey also felt strongly that this question touched on the issue thatin some cases monolingual NES teachers are not as capable ofdelivering the same instruction that NNES teachers can deliverThis is significant because it illustrates an area in which NNESteachers have an advantage over native speakers of English NNESteachers too often are viewed in a negative light so it is useful tobalance this perception by highlighting a function that Koreanspeakers can perform better than native English speakers Thisfinding adds a new dimension to the argument that NNES teacherspossess skills that NES teachers lack

Test Scores

The members of the teacher researcher group were acutely aware ofthe role that English language test scores play in Korean society sothey designed an item that specifically addressed how test scoresare perceived Table 1 illustrates how parents view test scores as anexcellent indicator of language competency and proficiency

Doing well on examinations is important for Korean family honorand reflects Confucian values (Paik 2004) Further the emphasis onMinistry of Education multiple-choice tests is pandemic in Korea andmay very well prevent teachers from providing learners with oppor-tunities to develop true communicative skills Thus it is understandablethat parents may equate a good test score with language competency

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 483

and proficiency which in turn indicates that parents may possessmisconceptions about the development of English language skills Thisfinding may be a result of the focus in Korean Society on the KSATwhich is written in Korean by a Korean team

When to Learn English

Survey participants were asked to comment on whether parentsbelieve that the earlier a child learns English the better Table 1shows that 84 either agreed or strongly agreed that earlier wasbetter Only 12 neither agreed nor disagreed or disagreed and 2strongly disagreed

A lsquolsquomagicrsquorsquo time during which a learner can or cannot acquire asecond or new language does not exist and the notion that there isclearly a critical or fixed period for second language acquisitionis false (Hakuta Bialystok amp Wiley 2003 Singleton 2005) Theprocess of becoming bilingual is quite complex due to severalfactors including cognitive environmental political and socialfactors that come into play (Bialystok 2001) Parents may intuitivelyunderstand that there are advantages to their children studyingEnglish at early ages And although there isnrsquot a magic year or timeperiod for learning a second or foreign language there is a declinein learnersrsquo ability to learn a new language that corresponds withaging (Hakuta et al 2003)

The survey points to a clear belief that children will have anadvantage if they start learning English at an early age From acommonsense point of view children are in a better position tolearn a new language than adults simply because they have moretime to devote to the task In addition English is part of thelandscape for children in Korea with English language kinder-gartens and private English language schools in large cities such asSeoul as well as in smaller communities throughout the countryThe government has even set up programs in public schools toteach English to children after school hours as well as Englishlanguage camps

Parents in Korea view knowledge of English as a way to enhancetheir childrenrsquos chances for success and gain elite status in societylater on in life (Park amp Abelmann 2004) Korean parents want theirchildren to embark on the path to English language success as early

484 TESOL Journal

as possible Within the overall context of Korean society parentsbelieve that there are advantages to getting a head start on Englishlanguage study when children are very young

Reading

Several survey items addressed reading because the teacherresearcher group felt this was an issue that needed to be givenpriority when using an inter-item reliability check Two teacherresearchers explained that parents are spending more and moremoney on English language books for their children Eighty-sixpercent of survey participants agreed or strongly agreed thatchildren need to read books in English 3 disagreed or stronglydisagreed and 11 were neutral

Survey participants were also asked if they thought that readingnovels and other materials in English was very important Eighty-six percent felt that this type of reading was very importantwhereas 11 had no opinion and only 3 felt that it was notimportant

These findings are consistent with the trend in Korea for parentsto either purchase childrenrsquos books through large bookstores suchas the major Kyobo bookstores or go through book clubs like theones run by Scholastic to purchase books in English for theirchildren Parents also bring back books from English-speakingcountries when they travel abroad

Reading personally selected books and not merely textbookscan help foreign language learners Mason and Krashen (1997) pointout that extensive reading in a foreign language can be an effectiveway to improve language skills even when learners are in differentsettings and situations A variety of books including fiction andnonfiction can help children as they embark on their journey tolearn English as a new language (Vardell et al 2006) Learnersbenefit from being exposed to easy materials that they themselveshave selected (Day amp Bamford 2002)

Although it is clear from the data that reading English languagebooks is considered to be important it is not clear what types ofbook experiences parents advocate for their children Within thecontext of Korean society and culture the extensive reading expe-rience that parents advocate may differ greatly from the types of

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 485

extensive reading programs cited in the academic literature Afurther area of inquiry would be to examine the types of bookexperiences parents feel are optimal for their children in order toimprove their English language skills

Pronunciation

The teacher researcher group felt that parents put an extremely highpremium on the teaching of pronunciation so they crafted an itemabout whether parents felt that native-like pronunciation was one ofthe most important things for students to achieve The group wascareful to include the phrase lsquolsquoone of the mostrsquorsquo to indicate theimportance that they believe parents place on native-like pronun-ciation As shown in Table 1 81 of survey respondents agreed orstrongly agreed and only 8 disagreed

This finding reflects the emphasis that is placed on phonicspronunciation instruction in Korea Pronunciation could be viewedas a status symbol with more native-like pronunciation being givenhigher status than pronunciation that does not sound as native-likeAlthough phonics and pronunciation are different some teachersand parents may confuse the two concepts because both deal withsounds associated with letters (Linse 2005) Korean parents oftenenroll children from preschool and kindergarten through elemen-tary school in phonics classes as a strategy for helping them developnative-like pronunciation

Korean English language teachers working in the countryrsquospublic primary schools often do not feel satisfied with their ownEnglish pronunciation and feel that it is not what they hoped itwould be (Butler 2004) Although they may not feel comfortablewith their own pronunciation Korean speakers are often the ones inprivate language schools who provide children with initial phonicsinstruction so that they can point out to Korean-speaking childrenhow to articulate English language sounds with native-like pro-nunciation The importance of pronunciation may also be whynative English speakers are frequently employed in Englishlanguage kindergartens and private language schools alongsideKorean teachers

486 TESOL Journal

Limitations

The sample consisted of teachers who may not be completelycognizant of parental perceptions even though they share the samecultural background as the parents However it is important to takeinto account what teachers perceive to be parental beliefs inreference to English language development and to directly andindirectly address these perceptions The teachers in the study wereKorean and represent the Korean cultural belief systems and wereable to begin to identify issues that parents see as prominent This isan important first step in initiating conversations between parentsand teachers about the process of learning English as a foreignlanguage

CONCLUSIONThe purpose of this article was to begin to examine what teachersbelieve to be Korean parentsrsquo perceptions with regard to the processof their children learning English as a foreign language The articleidentified perceptions so that English language teachers will be in abetter position to begin the process of forming partnerships withparents of school-age and preschool or kindergarten learners inKorea

The results clearly illustrate how the Korean culture impactsperceptions about learning English and the importance of framinginformation about ELT in the local cultural context Participantsexpressed the view that parents believe in the importance ofmemorizing vocabulary as well as reading in the quest for childrento learn English This clearly reflects the overall context of Koreaneducation that emphasizes literacy and in the case of vocabularyrote learning There were also perceptions about when Englishshould be taught to young learners where and by whom It wassurprising to note that native English speakers were not alwaysidentified as the best people to teach English because they generallydo not possess the cultural and linguistic capital to prepare learnersfor the KSAT

When parents make comments about English language edu-cation it is important to consider the cultural context related toEnglish education and to education in general For example it is tooeasy to say that parents are wrong in their belief that memorization

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 487

is the best way to learn vocabulary Instead it is better to questionwhy parents make such a remark By framing parentsrsquo remarks inthe local context it will be easier to engage in a dialogue rather thanan argument Teachers need help learning how to reflect on andconsider what parents say

Parents are such important stakeholders that teachers of youngEFL learners should be cognizant of them in virtually every culturalsetting This research underscores the important role that the cul-tural context plays in the English language education of school-ageand preschool-age learners Further the cultural context should betaken into account when considering parentsrsquo expectations ofEnglish language instructional programs for young learners

THE AUTHORCaroline Linse is a senior lecturer at Queenrsquos University Belfastwhere she teaches in both the masterrsquos and doctoral programs inTESOL She has extensive experience teaching English to younglearners in a wide range of international contexts and is the authorof a variety of materials for learners as well as their teachers Inaddition she has lived and worked in South Korea with teachersserving learners of all ages

REFERENCESBast J L amp Walberg H J (2004) Can parents choose the best

schools for their children Economics of Education Review 23 431ndash440 doi101016jeconedurev200308003

Beck I L McKeown M G amp Kucan L (2004) Bringing words tolife Robust vocabulary instruction New York NY Guilford Press

Bialystok E (2001) Bilingualism in development Language literacyand cognition Cambridge England Cambridge University Press

Blachowicz C L Z Fisher P J L Ogle D amp Watts-Taffe S(2006) Vocabulary Questions from the classroom ReadingResearch Quarterly 41 524ndash539 doi101598RRQ4145

Braine G (1999) Non-native educators in English language teachingMahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Brown H D (1995) Principles of language learning and teaching (3rded) Englewood Cliffs NJ Prentice Hall Regents

488 TESOL Journal

English language education (Park amp Abelmann 2004) Althoughthere is a commitment on the part of parents toward Englishlanguage education in Korea English teachers are not shown howto interact and collaborate with parents who want their children toacquire English language skills In addition in English languageteaching (ELT) preparation programs for teachers of young learn-ers adequate attention is not paid to how to work effectively withthe parents of pupils (Linse 2005)

Many educators recognize the multifaceted impact that parentshave both directly and indirectly upon their childrenrsquos education(Eccles amp Harold 1996) Parents and other citizensrsquo attitudes towardeducation in general and toward specific educational domains suchas language arts usually reflect complex cultural and societal beliefsystems (Dewey 1938) In addition accurate and inaccurate beliefsabout language acquisition and development can positively ornegatively impact English language instruction (Brown 1995)

Educators including educational researchers in the UnitedStates have examined the relationships between schools and homesof learners representing different cultural and linguistic traditionsAlthough the research cited here is not specific to Korea itnevertheless highlights issues that educators who want to havepositive homendashschool relationships may want to considerLawrence-Lightfoot (2003) stresses the importance of dialoguebetween educators and parents and the need for teachers to listen toparents Parental input can have strong positive or negative ramifi-cations for classroom educators and the school community at large(Epstein 2001) Parents of school-age learners also can be viewed ascustomers and it is important for educators to take the time toknow their customers and ascertain what they want for theirchildren (Davis 1995) The wisdom that parents have with regard totheir own childrenrsquos education is finally being recognized in partbecause parentsrsquo ratings of schools often mirror how experts rate thesame schools (Bast amp Walberg 2003)

KOREAN CONTEXTConfucian thought including the beliefs that education is pivotal tosuccess in life and that learners must both listen to and obey theirteachers has heavily influenced Korea According to the Confucian

474 TESOL Journal

worldview one of the best ways to improve onersquos childrenrsquos stancein life is through education In Korea educational achievement is anessential component of social class (K S Lee amp Carrasquillo 2006)South Korea has been able to emerge as a country that places a hugepremium on educational attainment in part because of the enduringinfluence of humanistic Confucianism as well as how education fitsinto the modern society (Sorenson 1994) For example an excellentscore on the English language portion of the Korean entrance examis an important part of the college admission criteria and isconsidered essential for students wishing to attend top-rankeduniversities

Korean teachers of English working with school-age learners inKorea have complained in my professional preparation classes thatthey are often under a great deal of pressure from parents In one ofmy MATESOL classes in Seoul a secondary school teacher said thatstudentsrsquo parents complained because she was using too muchEnglish in class A primary school teacher taking the same coursesaid that one studentrsquos mother pointed out that the childrsquos privatetutor did a wonderful job of teaching English and did not useKorean when teaching English Both of these teachers working withdifferent age groups felt burdened by parents even though therewas considerable variation in what the parents believed to be theteachersrsquo shortcomings

Parents especially mothers can be viewed as the impetussupporting English language study in Korea (Park amp Abelmann2004) Children do not wake up clamoring to attend English classInstead parents make a decision that their children will benefit fromstudying English Parents are the ones who select the privatelanguage schools their children attend vote for legislators whosupport or oppose English language programs and voice com-plaints when their children do not do as well as expected inlearning English or do not learn in the manner that parents believeshould be utilized

PURPOSE OF THIS STUDYThe purpose of this study was to initiate an investigation of theperceptions that Korean teachers think parents have about Englishlanguage education This is an area of inquiry neglected in the past

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 475

in part because research into foreign language education for younglearners is not well developed and the role of parents in foreignlanguage education has only recently been formally acknowledgedThis study strove to begin the process of determining parentsrsquobeliefs about learning English and what they perceive is necessaryin order to learn English

The primary aim was to investigate what teachers believeparents think about English language study in order to enableteachers to be more empathetic when engaging in dialogue withparents Korean teachers were chosen as research participantsbecause they were the ones who had voiced concerns about havingto deal with parents specifically addressing complaints voiced byparents

The study also sought to determine the extent to which parentperceptions about language teaching are consistent with key ELTissues that a group of Korean teacher researchers had identifiedThe teacher researchers were informed by important findingsincluding those of Blachowicz Fisher Ogle and Watts-Taffe (2006)and Carlo et al (2005) who emphasize the importance of vocabu-lary development as well as of the work of Vardell Hadaway andYoung (2006) who emphasize the role that reading can play inlearning English as a new language The results are reported andaligned with current thinking related to the language teachingtopics identified by the Korean teacher researchers It is hoped thatthe results of this study will help teachers reflect more on thecomments that parents make regarding their childrenrsquos Englishlanguage education and the role that parents play in their childrenrsquosEFL education It is also hoped that the study will cast a light on theimportance of conversations with parents concerning Englishlanguage education for their young children

METHODOLOGYQualitative and quantitative methods were selected as means toinvestigate teachersrsquo perceptions of parents for both theoretical andpragmatic reasons Mixed methods that integrate stories and num-bers when attempting to explain a phenomenon can provide aricher picture than either a qualitative or quantitative data approachalone (Sherman amp Strang 2004) Qualitative methods are especially

476 TESOL Journal

appropriate when the research is in a new area of inquiry (Maxwell1996) In addition grounded theory is used when one of the aimsis to develop a theory based on the data rather than to test apreexisting theory (Glaser amp Strauss 1967) This study focused onthe data that emerged from the research instruments and did notassess a preexisting theory because a theory related to teachersrsquoperceptions of parentsrsquo beliefs regarding childrenrsquos development ofEnglish as a foreign language did not exist

RESEARCH CONTEXTThe research was conducted in Seoul and data were gathered fromtwo groups of English language teachers Teachers instead ofparents were chosen as participants because teachers have workedwith many parents and have witnessed parents expressing a widerange of sentiments regarding English language instruction Teach-ers are acutely aware of the demands that parents make regardingEnglish language instruction

EFL is taught to school-age pupils in the public as well as privatesectors in large part because parents demand it The Koreangovernment including the Ministry of Education view knowledgeof English as an imperative skill if the country is to be successful onthe global economic stage (Jo 2008) Private English languageinstitutes and English language kindergartens flourish throughoutKorea and provide school-age learners with English languageinstruction that supplements what takes place in classrooms underthe Ministry of Education

PARTICIPANTSThere were two groups of Korean teacher participants the teacherresearcher group and the survey participant group Teachers inboth groups possessed at least an intermediate level of Englishlanguage proficiency Both groups of study participants also hadexperience teaching English to school-age learners and workingwith the parents of these learners

The teacher researcher group consisted of 13 teachers enrolled ina Korean universityrsquos MATESOL program and who had firsthandexperience addressing the needs of parents Twelve of theseparticipants were experienced teachers the remaining ones were

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 477

teachers at a novice level The teacher researcher group collectivelyhad more than 180 years9 experience of teaching Englishpredominantly to Korean school-age learners

The survey participant group consisted of 120 teachers who alsohad experience working with school-age learners in both the publicand private sectors This group completed the survey as part of ELTcourses or workshops conducted for teachers of school-age learnersin Seoul

PROCEDURES

Data Collection and Data Analysis

This study used qualitative and quantitative methods Qualitativemethods were used to generate the initial data that formed the basisof the survey

The teacher researcher group was asked to write about thebeliefs that Korean parents have regarding children learningEnglish as a foreign language All of the members of the teacherresearcher group most of whom have dealt with parental com-plaints on a regular basis wrote a list of beliefs as expressed to themby parents They then went through their list of items and coded thedata into categories with recurrent themes Next they createdLikert-style items based on the recurrent themes that emerged fromcoding the data

The Likert-based survey was administered to the 120 membersof the survey participant group These were teachers attendinggraduate-level EFL methodology classes or workshops intended tohelp them be better prepared to work with kindergarten and school-age learners The numerical data from the survey were tabulatedand the frequency counts were analyzed to determine significanttrends within the data sets

In order to further triangulate the data the results from thesurveys were then presented to the teacher researcher group whohad created the initial qualitative data This group was queried todetermine whether the data generated from the survey participantgroup and the description of the results appeared to be accurate Theteacher researcher group stated that the results reflected the beliefsystem that is operational among Korean parents of school-age

478 TESOL Journal

and preschool-age children in Korea The group was quite pleasedwith the results because they felt that they confirmed their ownthinking with regard to this issue

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONA number of significant themes emerged from the data The themesreflect the pressure that families feel and their desire for theirchildren to learn English The themes also reflect the overall contextof education in Korea There were some consistencies between thebeliefs expressed and the latest findings in research on EFL teach-ing The first set of results dealt with vocabulary learning The nextaddressed where children should be taught who should teachthem and the role that testing plays in childrenrsquos English languageeducation This leads into the results concerning when to learnEnglish the role of reading and the role of pronunciation

Vocabulary Learning

As seen in Table 1 94 of survey participants said that parentsbelieve memorizing vocabulary items is important The teacherresearchers who generated the items for the Likert scale used theword memorize because they felt that it reflected the way parentsperceive how vocabulary items should be learned Almost unan-imously survey participants agreed with the item The way that itwas phrased is somewhat understandable considering that educa-tion in Korea has historically relied on rote learning However thisfinding is a little surprising because it is not uncommon for Koreanswho learned English in Korea to lament that memorizing voca-bulary items was ineffective in their English language learningprocess

To a limited degree the survey responses are consistent with thelatest vocabulary research that supports the notion that vocabularydevelopment is a cornerstone for academic development in onersquosown language and is pivotal when developing skills in English asa second or foreign language However research in the area ofvocabulary development does not support the notion that memo-rizing vocabulary items is an effective way to expand childrenrsquosvocabularies According to Beck McKeown and Kucan (2002)school-age learners learning in their home language need

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 479

vocabulary instruction that is comprehensive and multifaceted (alsoknown as robust) and need to make personal and cognitiveconnections with the words Effective vocabulary teaching forchildren learning English as a home language or as a second lan-guage is a multifaceted process and occurs over time rather than allat once (Blachowicz et al 2006) Children learning English as asecond language particularly benefit from a comprehensive ap-proach to vocabulary development (Carlo et al 2005)

TABLE 1 Results

Stronglyagree Agree Neutral Disagree

Stronglydisagree

Memorizingvocabulary items isvery important

62 32 4 1 1

Learners learn best bygoing abroad

21 54 20 5 0

Native speakerteachers are betterEnglish teachersthan nonnative-speaking teachers

23 39 21 14 4

A test score is anexcellent indicatorof English languagecompetency andproficiency

25 40 18 17 0

The earlier childrenlearn English thebetter

38 46 12 0 2

Children need to readbooks in English

26 60 11 2 1

Reading novels andreading othermaterials in Englishis very important

28 58 11 2 1

Native-like Englishpronunciation isone of the mostimportant things forstudents to achieve

24 57 11 8 0

480 TESOL Journal

Vocabulary teaching is an important aspect of overall instructionfor children learning English as their home language or as a secondor foreign language To be successful academically children need tohave a rich vocabulary and it must be noted that knowing wordsand definitions in isolation is not a hallmark of a rich vocabularyThe challenge is to help Korean parents who themselves come froma culture that puts a high premium on rote learning understand thenecessity of providing students with robust vocabulary instructionthat enables students to make connections beyond simple memo-rization of the vocabulary items

Where to Learn English

As shown in Table 1 only 5 of survey participants disagreed withthe statement that the best way to learn English is to travel to anEnglish-speaking country Seventy-five percent agreed or stronglyagreed and 20 were neutral neither agreeing nor disagreeingThe word best is important because it suggests that going abroad tolearn English is superior to staying in Korea to learn English Thisfinding is consistent with the large sums that families invest in theirchildrenrsquos English language education overseas for camps or evenestablishing children on their own in English-speaking countriesAccording to Onishi (2008) it is estimated that some 40000 childrenhave gone abroad in part to learn English and in part because offrustration with the Korean education system

Going abroad to study English is not without consequences anddrawbacks According to Chiang-Hom (2004) one of the reasonsthat parents from Asian families send their teenagers to English-speaking countries often without parental supervision is so thatthey can be immersed in an English language environment andimprove their English language skills Study abroad programs alsoare a not a simple panacea and research on such programs hasshown that although it is true that students initially learn the targetlanguage much more quickly in a locale where it is spoken theirskills plateau over time in the target language environment (Rees ampKlapper 2007)

This is an important but not necessarily comforting result forall teachers of English who are working in Korea It suggests thatteachers delivering English instruction in Korea will always be at a

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 481

disadvantage because they are not educating children in an overallEnglish-speaking context Parents may not necessarily weigh thepros and cons of English study abroad when considering this optionfor their children

Who Should Teach English

The teacher researcher group created an item that asked surveyparticipants if parents felt that native English speakers were betterEnglish teachers than nonnative English speakers Table 1 illustratesthat 62 either agreed or strongly agreed that parents believed thisto be true 21 neither agreed nor disagreed and 18 eitherdisagreed or strongly disagreed These results seemed quitesurprising at first because within Korean society on the surfacethere appears to be an overwhelming overt preference for native-English-speaking (NES) teachers in both public and private insti-tutions for school-age learners These teachers are imported toKorea to teach students and are often compensated and treatedbetter than nonnative-English-speaking (NNES) teachers

NES teachers are favored in private English language kinder-gartens and private language schools for primary school studentsand adults However they do not teach secondary school studentsbecause only Korean teachers of English are able to prepare Koreanstudents for the English language section of the Korean universityentrance examination the Korean Scholastic Aptitude Test (KSAT)

The distinction between NES and NNES teachers of English isone that is not always helpful even though the distinction is madebetween teachers and students (Braine 1999) It is important toremember that numerous factors determine a teacherrsquos abilitybeyond whether he or she is a native speaker of English and is ableto deliver English language instruction (Samimy amp Brutt-Griffler1999) However the results obtained from this item help to bring acertain segment of ELT in Korea to the forefront specificallyuniversity entrance examination test preparation for high schoolstudents

The KSAT is written by Korean high school teachers andprofessors many of whom do not have any language testing skillsbut who nevertheless are literally locked away to create this crucialexamination (Choi 2008) Some of the items on the test are written

482 TESOL Journal

in Korean and few native English speakers possess the Koreanlanguage and cultural skills necessary to fully comprehend andprepare students for this high-stakes exam Consequently onlyKoreans are entrusted with preparing learners for this examAccording to M Lee and Larson (2000) within the context ofKorean society the inordinate amount of pressure to perform wellon university entrance examinations is so great that many studentsexperience enormous anxiety It is thus understandable that onlyKorean speakers are the ones trusted to prepare students for anexam that is viewed as pivotal to a learnerrsquos overall success in life

Members of the teacher researcher group were asked specificallyif they agreed with the idea that the reason some participants feltthat NES teachers were not always better was because they cannotprepare students for the KSAT The teacher researchers expressedgenuine pride in their ability to prepare students for the KSATThey also felt strongly that this question touched on the issue thatin some cases monolingual NES teachers are not as capable ofdelivering the same instruction that NNES teachers can deliverThis is significant because it illustrates an area in which NNESteachers have an advantage over native speakers of English NNESteachers too often are viewed in a negative light so it is useful tobalance this perception by highlighting a function that Koreanspeakers can perform better than native English speakers Thisfinding adds a new dimension to the argument that NNES teacherspossess skills that NES teachers lack

Test Scores

The members of the teacher researcher group were acutely aware ofthe role that English language test scores play in Korean society sothey designed an item that specifically addressed how test scoresare perceived Table 1 illustrates how parents view test scores as anexcellent indicator of language competency and proficiency

Doing well on examinations is important for Korean family honorand reflects Confucian values (Paik 2004) Further the emphasis onMinistry of Education multiple-choice tests is pandemic in Korea andmay very well prevent teachers from providing learners with oppor-tunities to develop true communicative skills Thus it is understandablethat parents may equate a good test score with language competency

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 483

and proficiency which in turn indicates that parents may possessmisconceptions about the development of English language skills Thisfinding may be a result of the focus in Korean Society on the KSATwhich is written in Korean by a Korean team

When to Learn English

Survey participants were asked to comment on whether parentsbelieve that the earlier a child learns English the better Table 1shows that 84 either agreed or strongly agreed that earlier wasbetter Only 12 neither agreed nor disagreed or disagreed and 2strongly disagreed

A lsquolsquomagicrsquorsquo time during which a learner can or cannot acquire asecond or new language does not exist and the notion that there isclearly a critical or fixed period for second language acquisitionis false (Hakuta Bialystok amp Wiley 2003 Singleton 2005) Theprocess of becoming bilingual is quite complex due to severalfactors including cognitive environmental political and socialfactors that come into play (Bialystok 2001) Parents may intuitivelyunderstand that there are advantages to their children studyingEnglish at early ages And although there isnrsquot a magic year or timeperiod for learning a second or foreign language there is a declinein learnersrsquo ability to learn a new language that corresponds withaging (Hakuta et al 2003)

The survey points to a clear belief that children will have anadvantage if they start learning English at an early age From acommonsense point of view children are in a better position tolearn a new language than adults simply because they have moretime to devote to the task In addition English is part of thelandscape for children in Korea with English language kinder-gartens and private English language schools in large cities such asSeoul as well as in smaller communities throughout the countryThe government has even set up programs in public schools toteach English to children after school hours as well as Englishlanguage camps

Parents in Korea view knowledge of English as a way to enhancetheir childrenrsquos chances for success and gain elite status in societylater on in life (Park amp Abelmann 2004) Korean parents want theirchildren to embark on the path to English language success as early

484 TESOL Journal

as possible Within the overall context of Korean society parentsbelieve that there are advantages to getting a head start on Englishlanguage study when children are very young

Reading

Several survey items addressed reading because the teacherresearcher group felt this was an issue that needed to be givenpriority when using an inter-item reliability check Two teacherresearchers explained that parents are spending more and moremoney on English language books for their children Eighty-sixpercent of survey participants agreed or strongly agreed thatchildren need to read books in English 3 disagreed or stronglydisagreed and 11 were neutral

Survey participants were also asked if they thought that readingnovels and other materials in English was very important Eighty-six percent felt that this type of reading was very importantwhereas 11 had no opinion and only 3 felt that it was notimportant

These findings are consistent with the trend in Korea for parentsto either purchase childrenrsquos books through large bookstores suchas the major Kyobo bookstores or go through book clubs like theones run by Scholastic to purchase books in English for theirchildren Parents also bring back books from English-speakingcountries when they travel abroad

Reading personally selected books and not merely textbookscan help foreign language learners Mason and Krashen (1997) pointout that extensive reading in a foreign language can be an effectiveway to improve language skills even when learners are in differentsettings and situations A variety of books including fiction andnonfiction can help children as they embark on their journey tolearn English as a new language (Vardell et al 2006) Learnersbenefit from being exposed to easy materials that they themselveshave selected (Day amp Bamford 2002)

Although it is clear from the data that reading English languagebooks is considered to be important it is not clear what types ofbook experiences parents advocate for their children Within thecontext of Korean society and culture the extensive reading expe-rience that parents advocate may differ greatly from the types of

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 485

extensive reading programs cited in the academic literature Afurther area of inquiry would be to examine the types of bookexperiences parents feel are optimal for their children in order toimprove their English language skills

Pronunciation

The teacher researcher group felt that parents put an extremely highpremium on the teaching of pronunciation so they crafted an itemabout whether parents felt that native-like pronunciation was one ofthe most important things for students to achieve The group wascareful to include the phrase lsquolsquoone of the mostrsquorsquo to indicate theimportance that they believe parents place on native-like pronun-ciation As shown in Table 1 81 of survey respondents agreed orstrongly agreed and only 8 disagreed

This finding reflects the emphasis that is placed on phonicspronunciation instruction in Korea Pronunciation could be viewedas a status symbol with more native-like pronunciation being givenhigher status than pronunciation that does not sound as native-likeAlthough phonics and pronunciation are different some teachersand parents may confuse the two concepts because both deal withsounds associated with letters (Linse 2005) Korean parents oftenenroll children from preschool and kindergarten through elemen-tary school in phonics classes as a strategy for helping them developnative-like pronunciation

Korean English language teachers working in the countryrsquospublic primary schools often do not feel satisfied with their ownEnglish pronunciation and feel that it is not what they hoped itwould be (Butler 2004) Although they may not feel comfortablewith their own pronunciation Korean speakers are often the ones inprivate language schools who provide children with initial phonicsinstruction so that they can point out to Korean-speaking childrenhow to articulate English language sounds with native-like pro-nunciation The importance of pronunciation may also be whynative English speakers are frequently employed in Englishlanguage kindergartens and private language schools alongsideKorean teachers

486 TESOL Journal

Limitations

The sample consisted of teachers who may not be completelycognizant of parental perceptions even though they share the samecultural background as the parents However it is important to takeinto account what teachers perceive to be parental beliefs inreference to English language development and to directly andindirectly address these perceptions The teachers in the study wereKorean and represent the Korean cultural belief systems and wereable to begin to identify issues that parents see as prominent This isan important first step in initiating conversations between parentsand teachers about the process of learning English as a foreignlanguage

CONCLUSIONThe purpose of this article was to begin to examine what teachersbelieve to be Korean parentsrsquo perceptions with regard to the processof their children learning English as a foreign language The articleidentified perceptions so that English language teachers will be in abetter position to begin the process of forming partnerships withparents of school-age and preschool or kindergarten learners inKorea

The results clearly illustrate how the Korean culture impactsperceptions about learning English and the importance of framinginformation about ELT in the local cultural context Participantsexpressed the view that parents believe in the importance ofmemorizing vocabulary as well as reading in the quest for childrento learn English This clearly reflects the overall context of Koreaneducation that emphasizes literacy and in the case of vocabularyrote learning There were also perceptions about when Englishshould be taught to young learners where and by whom It wassurprising to note that native English speakers were not alwaysidentified as the best people to teach English because they generallydo not possess the cultural and linguistic capital to prepare learnersfor the KSAT

When parents make comments about English language edu-cation it is important to consider the cultural context related toEnglish education and to education in general For example it is tooeasy to say that parents are wrong in their belief that memorization

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 487

is the best way to learn vocabulary Instead it is better to questionwhy parents make such a remark By framing parentsrsquo remarks inthe local context it will be easier to engage in a dialogue rather thanan argument Teachers need help learning how to reflect on andconsider what parents say

Parents are such important stakeholders that teachers of youngEFL learners should be cognizant of them in virtually every culturalsetting This research underscores the important role that the cul-tural context plays in the English language education of school-ageand preschool-age learners Further the cultural context should betaken into account when considering parentsrsquo expectations ofEnglish language instructional programs for young learners

THE AUTHORCaroline Linse is a senior lecturer at Queenrsquos University Belfastwhere she teaches in both the masterrsquos and doctoral programs inTESOL She has extensive experience teaching English to younglearners in a wide range of international contexts and is the authorof a variety of materials for learners as well as their teachers Inaddition she has lived and worked in South Korea with teachersserving learners of all ages

REFERENCESBast J L amp Walberg H J (2004) Can parents choose the best

schools for their children Economics of Education Review 23 431ndash440 doi101016jeconedurev200308003

Beck I L McKeown M G amp Kucan L (2004) Bringing words tolife Robust vocabulary instruction New York NY Guilford Press

Bialystok E (2001) Bilingualism in development Language literacyand cognition Cambridge England Cambridge University Press

Blachowicz C L Z Fisher P J L Ogle D amp Watts-Taffe S(2006) Vocabulary Questions from the classroom ReadingResearch Quarterly 41 524ndash539 doi101598RRQ4145

Braine G (1999) Non-native educators in English language teachingMahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Brown H D (1995) Principles of language learning and teaching (3rded) Englewood Cliffs NJ Prentice Hall Regents

488 TESOL Journal

worldview one of the best ways to improve onersquos childrenrsquos stancein life is through education In Korea educational achievement is anessential component of social class (K S Lee amp Carrasquillo 2006)South Korea has been able to emerge as a country that places a hugepremium on educational attainment in part because of the enduringinfluence of humanistic Confucianism as well as how education fitsinto the modern society (Sorenson 1994) For example an excellentscore on the English language portion of the Korean entrance examis an important part of the college admission criteria and isconsidered essential for students wishing to attend top-rankeduniversities

Korean teachers of English working with school-age learners inKorea have complained in my professional preparation classes thatthey are often under a great deal of pressure from parents In one ofmy MATESOL classes in Seoul a secondary school teacher said thatstudentsrsquo parents complained because she was using too muchEnglish in class A primary school teacher taking the same coursesaid that one studentrsquos mother pointed out that the childrsquos privatetutor did a wonderful job of teaching English and did not useKorean when teaching English Both of these teachers working withdifferent age groups felt burdened by parents even though therewas considerable variation in what the parents believed to be theteachersrsquo shortcomings

Parents especially mothers can be viewed as the impetussupporting English language study in Korea (Park amp Abelmann2004) Children do not wake up clamoring to attend English classInstead parents make a decision that their children will benefit fromstudying English Parents are the ones who select the privatelanguage schools their children attend vote for legislators whosupport or oppose English language programs and voice com-plaints when their children do not do as well as expected inlearning English or do not learn in the manner that parents believeshould be utilized

PURPOSE OF THIS STUDYThe purpose of this study was to initiate an investigation of theperceptions that Korean teachers think parents have about Englishlanguage education This is an area of inquiry neglected in the past

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 475

in part because research into foreign language education for younglearners is not well developed and the role of parents in foreignlanguage education has only recently been formally acknowledgedThis study strove to begin the process of determining parentsrsquobeliefs about learning English and what they perceive is necessaryin order to learn English

The primary aim was to investigate what teachers believeparents think about English language study in order to enableteachers to be more empathetic when engaging in dialogue withparents Korean teachers were chosen as research participantsbecause they were the ones who had voiced concerns about havingto deal with parents specifically addressing complaints voiced byparents

The study also sought to determine the extent to which parentperceptions about language teaching are consistent with key ELTissues that a group of Korean teacher researchers had identifiedThe teacher researchers were informed by important findingsincluding those of Blachowicz Fisher Ogle and Watts-Taffe (2006)and Carlo et al (2005) who emphasize the importance of vocabu-lary development as well as of the work of Vardell Hadaway andYoung (2006) who emphasize the role that reading can play inlearning English as a new language The results are reported andaligned with current thinking related to the language teachingtopics identified by the Korean teacher researchers It is hoped thatthe results of this study will help teachers reflect more on thecomments that parents make regarding their childrenrsquos Englishlanguage education and the role that parents play in their childrenrsquosEFL education It is also hoped that the study will cast a light on theimportance of conversations with parents concerning Englishlanguage education for their young children

METHODOLOGYQualitative and quantitative methods were selected as means toinvestigate teachersrsquo perceptions of parents for both theoretical andpragmatic reasons Mixed methods that integrate stories and num-bers when attempting to explain a phenomenon can provide aricher picture than either a qualitative or quantitative data approachalone (Sherman amp Strang 2004) Qualitative methods are especially

476 TESOL Journal

appropriate when the research is in a new area of inquiry (Maxwell1996) In addition grounded theory is used when one of the aimsis to develop a theory based on the data rather than to test apreexisting theory (Glaser amp Strauss 1967) This study focused onthe data that emerged from the research instruments and did notassess a preexisting theory because a theory related to teachersrsquoperceptions of parentsrsquo beliefs regarding childrenrsquos development ofEnglish as a foreign language did not exist

RESEARCH CONTEXTThe research was conducted in Seoul and data were gathered fromtwo groups of English language teachers Teachers instead ofparents were chosen as participants because teachers have workedwith many parents and have witnessed parents expressing a widerange of sentiments regarding English language instruction Teach-ers are acutely aware of the demands that parents make regardingEnglish language instruction

EFL is taught to school-age pupils in the public as well as privatesectors in large part because parents demand it The Koreangovernment including the Ministry of Education view knowledgeof English as an imperative skill if the country is to be successful onthe global economic stage (Jo 2008) Private English languageinstitutes and English language kindergartens flourish throughoutKorea and provide school-age learners with English languageinstruction that supplements what takes place in classrooms underthe Ministry of Education

PARTICIPANTSThere were two groups of Korean teacher participants the teacherresearcher group and the survey participant group Teachers inboth groups possessed at least an intermediate level of Englishlanguage proficiency Both groups of study participants also hadexperience teaching English to school-age learners and workingwith the parents of these learners

The teacher researcher group consisted of 13 teachers enrolled ina Korean universityrsquos MATESOL program and who had firsthandexperience addressing the needs of parents Twelve of theseparticipants were experienced teachers the remaining ones were

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 477

teachers at a novice level The teacher researcher group collectivelyhad more than 180 years9 experience of teaching Englishpredominantly to Korean school-age learners

The survey participant group consisted of 120 teachers who alsohad experience working with school-age learners in both the publicand private sectors This group completed the survey as part of ELTcourses or workshops conducted for teachers of school-age learnersin Seoul

PROCEDURES

Data Collection and Data Analysis

This study used qualitative and quantitative methods Qualitativemethods were used to generate the initial data that formed the basisof the survey

The teacher researcher group was asked to write about thebeliefs that Korean parents have regarding children learningEnglish as a foreign language All of the members of the teacherresearcher group most of whom have dealt with parental com-plaints on a regular basis wrote a list of beliefs as expressed to themby parents They then went through their list of items and coded thedata into categories with recurrent themes Next they createdLikert-style items based on the recurrent themes that emerged fromcoding the data

The Likert-based survey was administered to the 120 membersof the survey participant group These were teachers attendinggraduate-level EFL methodology classes or workshops intended tohelp them be better prepared to work with kindergarten and school-age learners The numerical data from the survey were tabulatedand the frequency counts were analyzed to determine significanttrends within the data sets

In order to further triangulate the data the results from thesurveys were then presented to the teacher researcher group whohad created the initial qualitative data This group was queried todetermine whether the data generated from the survey participantgroup and the description of the results appeared to be accurate Theteacher researcher group stated that the results reflected the beliefsystem that is operational among Korean parents of school-age

478 TESOL Journal

and preschool-age children in Korea The group was quite pleasedwith the results because they felt that they confirmed their ownthinking with regard to this issue

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONA number of significant themes emerged from the data The themesreflect the pressure that families feel and their desire for theirchildren to learn English The themes also reflect the overall contextof education in Korea There were some consistencies between thebeliefs expressed and the latest findings in research on EFL teach-ing The first set of results dealt with vocabulary learning The nextaddressed where children should be taught who should teachthem and the role that testing plays in childrenrsquos English languageeducation This leads into the results concerning when to learnEnglish the role of reading and the role of pronunciation

Vocabulary Learning

As seen in Table 1 94 of survey participants said that parentsbelieve memorizing vocabulary items is important The teacherresearchers who generated the items for the Likert scale used theword memorize because they felt that it reflected the way parentsperceive how vocabulary items should be learned Almost unan-imously survey participants agreed with the item The way that itwas phrased is somewhat understandable considering that educa-tion in Korea has historically relied on rote learning However thisfinding is a little surprising because it is not uncommon for Koreanswho learned English in Korea to lament that memorizing voca-bulary items was ineffective in their English language learningprocess

To a limited degree the survey responses are consistent with thelatest vocabulary research that supports the notion that vocabularydevelopment is a cornerstone for academic development in onersquosown language and is pivotal when developing skills in English asa second or foreign language However research in the area ofvocabulary development does not support the notion that memo-rizing vocabulary items is an effective way to expand childrenrsquosvocabularies According to Beck McKeown and Kucan (2002)school-age learners learning in their home language need

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 479

vocabulary instruction that is comprehensive and multifaceted (alsoknown as robust) and need to make personal and cognitiveconnections with the words Effective vocabulary teaching forchildren learning English as a home language or as a second lan-guage is a multifaceted process and occurs over time rather than allat once (Blachowicz et al 2006) Children learning English as asecond language particularly benefit from a comprehensive ap-proach to vocabulary development (Carlo et al 2005)

TABLE 1 Results

Stronglyagree Agree Neutral Disagree

Stronglydisagree

Memorizingvocabulary items isvery important

62 32 4 1 1

Learners learn best bygoing abroad

21 54 20 5 0

Native speakerteachers are betterEnglish teachersthan nonnative-speaking teachers

23 39 21 14 4

A test score is anexcellent indicatorof English languagecompetency andproficiency

25 40 18 17 0

The earlier childrenlearn English thebetter

38 46 12 0 2

Children need to readbooks in English

26 60 11 2 1

Reading novels andreading othermaterials in Englishis very important

28 58 11 2 1

Native-like Englishpronunciation isone of the mostimportant things forstudents to achieve

24 57 11 8 0

480 TESOL Journal

Vocabulary teaching is an important aspect of overall instructionfor children learning English as their home language or as a secondor foreign language To be successful academically children need tohave a rich vocabulary and it must be noted that knowing wordsand definitions in isolation is not a hallmark of a rich vocabularyThe challenge is to help Korean parents who themselves come froma culture that puts a high premium on rote learning understand thenecessity of providing students with robust vocabulary instructionthat enables students to make connections beyond simple memo-rization of the vocabulary items

Where to Learn English

As shown in Table 1 only 5 of survey participants disagreed withthe statement that the best way to learn English is to travel to anEnglish-speaking country Seventy-five percent agreed or stronglyagreed and 20 were neutral neither agreeing nor disagreeingThe word best is important because it suggests that going abroad tolearn English is superior to staying in Korea to learn English Thisfinding is consistent with the large sums that families invest in theirchildrenrsquos English language education overseas for camps or evenestablishing children on their own in English-speaking countriesAccording to Onishi (2008) it is estimated that some 40000 childrenhave gone abroad in part to learn English and in part because offrustration with the Korean education system

Going abroad to study English is not without consequences anddrawbacks According to Chiang-Hom (2004) one of the reasonsthat parents from Asian families send their teenagers to English-speaking countries often without parental supervision is so thatthey can be immersed in an English language environment andimprove their English language skills Study abroad programs alsoare a not a simple panacea and research on such programs hasshown that although it is true that students initially learn the targetlanguage much more quickly in a locale where it is spoken theirskills plateau over time in the target language environment (Rees ampKlapper 2007)

This is an important but not necessarily comforting result forall teachers of English who are working in Korea It suggests thatteachers delivering English instruction in Korea will always be at a

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 481

disadvantage because they are not educating children in an overallEnglish-speaking context Parents may not necessarily weigh thepros and cons of English study abroad when considering this optionfor their children

Who Should Teach English

The teacher researcher group created an item that asked surveyparticipants if parents felt that native English speakers were betterEnglish teachers than nonnative English speakers Table 1 illustratesthat 62 either agreed or strongly agreed that parents believed thisto be true 21 neither agreed nor disagreed and 18 eitherdisagreed or strongly disagreed These results seemed quitesurprising at first because within Korean society on the surfacethere appears to be an overwhelming overt preference for native-English-speaking (NES) teachers in both public and private insti-tutions for school-age learners These teachers are imported toKorea to teach students and are often compensated and treatedbetter than nonnative-English-speaking (NNES) teachers

NES teachers are favored in private English language kinder-gartens and private language schools for primary school studentsand adults However they do not teach secondary school studentsbecause only Korean teachers of English are able to prepare Koreanstudents for the English language section of the Korean universityentrance examination the Korean Scholastic Aptitude Test (KSAT)

The distinction between NES and NNES teachers of English isone that is not always helpful even though the distinction is madebetween teachers and students (Braine 1999) It is important toremember that numerous factors determine a teacherrsquos abilitybeyond whether he or she is a native speaker of English and is ableto deliver English language instruction (Samimy amp Brutt-Griffler1999) However the results obtained from this item help to bring acertain segment of ELT in Korea to the forefront specificallyuniversity entrance examination test preparation for high schoolstudents

The KSAT is written by Korean high school teachers andprofessors many of whom do not have any language testing skillsbut who nevertheless are literally locked away to create this crucialexamination (Choi 2008) Some of the items on the test are written

482 TESOL Journal

in Korean and few native English speakers possess the Koreanlanguage and cultural skills necessary to fully comprehend andprepare students for this high-stakes exam Consequently onlyKoreans are entrusted with preparing learners for this examAccording to M Lee and Larson (2000) within the context ofKorean society the inordinate amount of pressure to perform wellon university entrance examinations is so great that many studentsexperience enormous anxiety It is thus understandable that onlyKorean speakers are the ones trusted to prepare students for anexam that is viewed as pivotal to a learnerrsquos overall success in life

Members of the teacher researcher group were asked specificallyif they agreed with the idea that the reason some participants feltthat NES teachers were not always better was because they cannotprepare students for the KSAT The teacher researchers expressedgenuine pride in their ability to prepare students for the KSATThey also felt strongly that this question touched on the issue thatin some cases monolingual NES teachers are not as capable ofdelivering the same instruction that NNES teachers can deliverThis is significant because it illustrates an area in which NNESteachers have an advantage over native speakers of English NNESteachers too often are viewed in a negative light so it is useful tobalance this perception by highlighting a function that Koreanspeakers can perform better than native English speakers Thisfinding adds a new dimension to the argument that NNES teacherspossess skills that NES teachers lack

Test Scores

The members of the teacher researcher group were acutely aware ofthe role that English language test scores play in Korean society sothey designed an item that specifically addressed how test scoresare perceived Table 1 illustrates how parents view test scores as anexcellent indicator of language competency and proficiency

Doing well on examinations is important for Korean family honorand reflects Confucian values (Paik 2004) Further the emphasis onMinistry of Education multiple-choice tests is pandemic in Korea andmay very well prevent teachers from providing learners with oppor-tunities to develop true communicative skills Thus it is understandablethat parents may equate a good test score with language competency

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 483

and proficiency which in turn indicates that parents may possessmisconceptions about the development of English language skills Thisfinding may be a result of the focus in Korean Society on the KSATwhich is written in Korean by a Korean team

When to Learn English

Survey participants were asked to comment on whether parentsbelieve that the earlier a child learns English the better Table 1shows that 84 either agreed or strongly agreed that earlier wasbetter Only 12 neither agreed nor disagreed or disagreed and 2strongly disagreed

A lsquolsquomagicrsquorsquo time during which a learner can or cannot acquire asecond or new language does not exist and the notion that there isclearly a critical or fixed period for second language acquisitionis false (Hakuta Bialystok amp Wiley 2003 Singleton 2005) Theprocess of becoming bilingual is quite complex due to severalfactors including cognitive environmental political and socialfactors that come into play (Bialystok 2001) Parents may intuitivelyunderstand that there are advantages to their children studyingEnglish at early ages And although there isnrsquot a magic year or timeperiod for learning a second or foreign language there is a declinein learnersrsquo ability to learn a new language that corresponds withaging (Hakuta et al 2003)

The survey points to a clear belief that children will have anadvantage if they start learning English at an early age From acommonsense point of view children are in a better position tolearn a new language than adults simply because they have moretime to devote to the task In addition English is part of thelandscape for children in Korea with English language kinder-gartens and private English language schools in large cities such asSeoul as well as in smaller communities throughout the countryThe government has even set up programs in public schools toteach English to children after school hours as well as Englishlanguage camps

Parents in Korea view knowledge of English as a way to enhancetheir childrenrsquos chances for success and gain elite status in societylater on in life (Park amp Abelmann 2004) Korean parents want theirchildren to embark on the path to English language success as early

484 TESOL Journal

as possible Within the overall context of Korean society parentsbelieve that there are advantages to getting a head start on Englishlanguage study when children are very young

Reading

Several survey items addressed reading because the teacherresearcher group felt this was an issue that needed to be givenpriority when using an inter-item reliability check Two teacherresearchers explained that parents are spending more and moremoney on English language books for their children Eighty-sixpercent of survey participants agreed or strongly agreed thatchildren need to read books in English 3 disagreed or stronglydisagreed and 11 were neutral

Survey participants were also asked if they thought that readingnovels and other materials in English was very important Eighty-six percent felt that this type of reading was very importantwhereas 11 had no opinion and only 3 felt that it was notimportant

These findings are consistent with the trend in Korea for parentsto either purchase childrenrsquos books through large bookstores suchas the major Kyobo bookstores or go through book clubs like theones run by Scholastic to purchase books in English for theirchildren Parents also bring back books from English-speakingcountries when they travel abroad

Reading personally selected books and not merely textbookscan help foreign language learners Mason and Krashen (1997) pointout that extensive reading in a foreign language can be an effectiveway to improve language skills even when learners are in differentsettings and situations A variety of books including fiction andnonfiction can help children as they embark on their journey tolearn English as a new language (Vardell et al 2006) Learnersbenefit from being exposed to easy materials that they themselveshave selected (Day amp Bamford 2002)

Although it is clear from the data that reading English languagebooks is considered to be important it is not clear what types ofbook experiences parents advocate for their children Within thecontext of Korean society and culture the extensive reading expe-rience that parents advocate may differ greatly from the types of

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 485

extensive reading programs cited in the academic literature Afurther area of inquiry would be to examine the types of bookexperiences parents feel are optimal for their children in order toimprove their English language skills

Pronunciation

The teacher researcher group felt that parents put an extremely highpremium on the teaching of pronunciation so they crafted an itemabout whether parents felt that native-like pronunciation was one ofthe most important things for students to achieve The group wascareful to include the phrase lsquolsquoone of the mostrsquorsquo to indicate theimportance that they believe parents place on native-like pronun-ciation As shown in Table 1 81 of survey respondents agreed orstrongly agreed and only 8 disagreed

This finding reflects the emphasis that is placed on phonicspronunciation instruction in Korea Pronunciation could be viewedas a status symbol with more native-like pronunciation being givenhigher status than pronunciation that does not sound as native-likeAlthough phonics and pronunciation are different some teachersand parents may confuse the two concepts because both deal withsounds associated with letters (Linse 2005) Korean parents oftenenroll children from preschool and kindergarten through elemen-tary school in phonics classes as a strategy for helping them developnative-like pronunciation

Korean English language teachers working in the countryrsquospublic primary schools often do not feel satisfied with their ownEnglish pronunciation and feel that it is not what they hoped itwould be (Butler 2004) Although they may not feel comfortablewith their own pronunciation Korean speakers are often the ones inprivate language schools who provide children with initial phonicsinstruction so that they can point out to Korean-speaking childrenhow to articulate English language sounds with native-like pro-nunciation The importance of pronunciation may also be whynative English speakers are frequently employed in Englishlanguage kindergartens and private language schools alongsideKorean teachers

486 TESOL Journal

Limitations

The sample consisted of teachers who may not be completelycognizant of parental perceptions even though they share the samecultural background as the parents However it is important to takeinto account what teachers perceive to be parental beliefs inreference to English language development and to directly andindirectly address these perceptions The teachers in the study wereKorean and represent the Korean cultural belief systems and wereable to begin to identify issues that parents see as prominent This isan important first step in initiating conversations between parentsand teachers about the process of learning English as a foreignlanguage

CONCLUSIONThe purpose of this article was to begin to examine what teachersbelieve to be Korean parentsrsquo perceptions with regard to the processof their children learning English as a foreign language The articleidentified perceptions so that English language teachers will be in abetter position to begin the process of forming partnerships withparents of school-age and preschool or kindergarten learners inKorea

The results clearly illustrate how the Korean culture impactsperceptions about learning English and the importance of framinginformation about ELT in the local cultural context Participantsexpressed the view that parents believe in the importance ofmemorizing vocabulary as well as reading in the quest for childrento learn English This clearly reflects the overall context of Koreaneducation that emphasizes literacy and in the case of vocabularyrote learning There were also perceptions about when Englishshould be taught to young learners where and by whom It wassurprising to note that native English speakers were not alwaysidentified as the best people to teach English because they generallydo not possess the cultural and linguistic capital to prepare learnersfor the KSAT

When parents make comments about English language edu-cation it is important to consider the cultural context related toEnglish education and to education in general For example it is tooeasy to say that parents are wrong in their belief that memorization

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 487

is the best way to learn vocabulary Instead it is better to questionwhy parents make such a remark By framing parentsrsquo remarks inthe local context it will be easier to engage in a dialogue rather thanan argument Teachers need help learning how to reflect on andconsider what parents say

Parents are such important stakeholders that teachers of youngEFL learners should be cognizant of them in virtually every culturalsetting This research underscores the important role that the cul-tural context plays in the English language education of school-ageand preschool-age learners Further the cultural context should betaken into account when considering parentsrsquo expectations ofEnglish language instructional programs for young learners

THE AUTHORCaroline Linse is a senior lecturer at Queenrsquos University Belfastwhere she teaches in both the masterrsquos and doctoral programs inTESOL She has extensive experience teaching English to younglearners in a wide range of international contexts and is the authorof a variety of materials for learners as well as their teachers Inaddition she has lived and worked in South Korea with teachersserving learners of all ages

REFERENCESBast J L amp Walberg H J (2004) Can parents choose the best

schools for their children Economics of Education Review 23 431ndash440 doi101016jeconedurev200308003

Beck I L McKeown M G amp Kucan L (2004) Bringing words tolife Robust vocabulary instruction New York NY Guilford Press

Bialystok E (2001) Bilingualism in development Language literacyand cognition Cambridge England Cambridge University Press

Blachowicz C L Z Fisher P J L Ogle D amp Watts-Taffe S(2006) Vocabulary Questions from the classroom ReadingResearch Quarterly 41 524ndash539 doi101598RRQ4145

Braine G (1999) Non-native educators in English language teachingMahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Brown H D (1995) Principles of language learning and teaching (3rded) Englewood Cliffs NJ Prentice Hall Regents

488 TESOL Journal

in part because research into foreign language education for younglearners is not well developed and the role of parents in foreignlanguage education has only recently been formally acknowledgedThis study strove to begin the process of determining parentsrsquobeliefs about learning English and what they perceive is necessaryin order to learn English

The primary aim was to investigate what teachers believeparents think about English language study in order to enableteachers to be more empathetic when engaging in dialogue withparents Korean teachers were chosen as research participantsbecause they were the ones who had voiced concerns about havingto deal with parents specifically addressing complaints voiced byparents

The study also sought to determine the extent to which parentperceptions about language teaching are consistent with key ELTissues that a group of Korean teacher researchers had identifiedThe teacher researchers were informed by important findingsincluding those of Blachowicz Fisher Ogle and Watts-Taffe (2006)and Carlo et al (2005) who emphasize the importance of vocabu-lary development as well as of the work of Vardell Hadaway andYoung (2006) who emphasize the role that reading can play inlearning English as a new language The results are reported andaligned with current thinking related to the language teachingtopics identified by the Korean teacher researchers It is hoped thatthe results of this study will help teachers reflect more on thecomments that parents make regarding their childrenrsquos Englishlanguage education and the role that parents play in their childrenrsquosEFL education It is also hoped that the study will cast a light on theimportance of conversations with parents concerning Englishlanguage education for their young children

METHODOLOGYQualitative and quantitative methods were selected as means toinvestigate teachersrsquo perceptions of parents for both theoretical andpragmatic reasons Mixed methods that integrate stories and num-bers when attempting to explain a phenomenon can provide aricher picture than either a qualitative or quantitative data approachalone (Sherman amp Strang 2004) Qualitative methods are especially

476 TESOL Journal

appropriate when the research is in a new area of inquiry (Maxwell1996) In addition grounded theory is used when one of the aimsis to develop a theory based on the data rather than to test apreexisting theory (Glaser amp Strauss 1967) This study focused onthe data that emerged from the research instruments and did notassess a preexisting theory because a theory related to teachersrsquoperceptions of parentsrsquo beliefs regarding childrenrsquos development ofEnglish as a foreign language did not exist

RESEARCH CONTEXTThe research was conducted in Seoul and data were gathered fromtwo groups of English language teachers Teachers instead ofparents were chosen as participants because teachers have workedwith many parents and have witnessed parents expressing a widerange of sentiments regarding English language instruction Teach-ers are acutely aware of the demands that parents make regardingEnglish language instruction

EFL is taught to school-age pupils in the public as well as privatesectors in large part because parents demand it The Koreangovernment including the Ministry of Education view knowledgeof English as an imperative skill if the country is to be successful onthe global economic stage (Jo 2008) Private English languageinstitutes and English language kindergartens flourish throughoutKorea and provide school-age learners with English languageinstruction that supplements what takes place in classrooms underthe Ministry of Education

PARTICIPANTSThere were two groups of Korean teacher participants the teacherresearcher group and the survey participant group Teachers inboth groups possessed at least an intermediate level of Englishlanguage proficiency Both groups of study participants also hadexperience teaching English to school-age learners and workingwith the parents of these learners

The teacher researcher group consisted of 13 teachers enrolled ina Korean universityrsquos MATESOL program and who had firsthandexperience addressing the needs of parents Twelve of theseparticipants were experienced teachers the remaining ones were

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 477

teachers at a novice level The teacher researcher group collectivelyhad more than 180 years9 experience of teaching Englishpredominantly to Korean school-age learners

The survey participant group consisted of 120 teachers who alsohad experience working with school-age learners in both the publicand private sectors This group completed the survey as part of ELTcourses or workshops conducted for teachers of school-age learnersin Seoul

PROCEDURES

Data Collection and Data Analysis

This study used qualitative and quantitative methods Qualitativemethods were used to generate the initial data that formed the basisof the survey

The teacher researcher group was asked to write about thebeliefs that Korean parents have regarding children learningEnglish as a foreign language All of the members of the teacherresearcher group most of whom have dealt with parental com-plaints on a regular basis wrote a list of beliefs as expressed to themby parents They then went through their list of items and coded thedata into categories with recurrent themes Next they createdLikert-style items based on the recurrent themes that emerged fromcoding the data

The Likert-based survey was administered to the 120 membersof the survey participant group These were teachers attendinggraduate-level EFL methodology classes or workshops intended tohelp them be better prepared to work with kindergarten and school-age learners The numerical data from the survey were tabulatedand the frequency counts were analyzed to determine significanttrends within the data sets

In order to further triangulate the data the results from thesurveys were then presented to the teacher researcher group whohad created the initial qualitative data This group was queried todetermine whether the data generated from the survey participantgroup and the description of the results appeared to be accurate Theteacher researcher group stated that the results reflected the beliefsystem that is operational among Korean parents of school-age

478 TESOL Journal

and preschool-age children in Korea The group was quite pleasedwith the results because they felt that they confirmed their ownthinking with regard to this issue

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONA number of significant themes emerged from the data The themesreflect the pressure that families feel and their desire for theirchildren to learn English The themes also reflect the overall contextof education in Korea There were some consistencies between thebeliefs expressed and the latest findings in research on EFL teach-ing The first set of results dealt with vocabulary learning The nextaddressed where children should be taught who should teachthem and the role that testing plays in childrenrsquos English languageeducation This leads into the results concerning when to learnEnglish the role of reading and the role of pronunciation

Vocabulary Learning

As seen in Table 1 94 of survey participants said that parentsbelieve memorizing vocabulary items is important The teacherresearchers who generated the items for the Likert scale used theword memorize because they felt that it reflected the way parentsperceive how vocabulary items should be learned Almost unan-imously survey participants agreed with the item The way that itwas phrased is somewhat understandable considering that educa-tion in Korea has historically relied on rote learning However thisfinding is a little surprising because it is not uncommon for Koreanswho learned English in Korea to lament that memorizing voca-bulary items was ineffective in their English language learningprocess

To a limited degree the survey responses are consistent with thelatest vocabulary research that supports the notion that vocabularydevelopment is a cornerstone for academic development in onersquosown language and is pivotal when developing skills in English asa second or foreign language However research in the area ofvocabulary development does not support the notion that memo-rizing vocabulary items is an effective way to expand childrenrsquosvocabularies According to Beck McKeown and Kucan (2002)school-age learners learning in their home language need

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 479

vocabulary instruction that is comprehensive and multifaceted (alsoknown as robust) and need to make personal and cognitiveconnections with the words Effective vocabulary teaching forchildren learning English as a home language or as a second lan-guage is a multifaceted process and occurs over time rather than allat once (Blachowicz et al 2006) Children learning English as asecond language particularly benefit from a comprehensive ap-proach to vocabulary development (Carlo et al 2005)

TABLE 1 Results

Stronglyagree Agree Neutral Disagree

Stronglydisagree

Memorizingvocabulary items isvery important

62 32 4 1 1

Learners learn best bygoing abroad

21 54 20 5 0

Native speakerteachers are betterEnglish teachersthan nonnative-speaking teachers

23 39 21 14 4

A test score is anexcellent indicatorof English languagecompetency andproficiency

25 40 18 17 0

The earlier childrenlearn English thebetter

38 46 12 0 2

Children need to readbooks in English

26 60 11 2 1

Reading novels andreading othermaterials in Englishis very important

28 58 11 2 1

Native-like Englishpronunciation isone of the mostimportant things forstudents to achieve

24 57 11 8 0

480 TESOL Journal

Vocabulary teaching is an important aspect of overall instructionfor children learning English as their home language or as a secondor foreign language To be successful academically children need tohave a rich vocabulary and it must be noted that knowing wordsand definitions in isolation is not a hallmark of a rich vocabularyThe challenge is to help Korean parents who themselves come froma culture that puts a high premium on rote learning understand thenecessity of providing students with robust vocabulary instructionthat enables students to make connections beyond simple memo-rization of the vocabulary items

Where to Learn English

As shown in Table 1 only 5 of survey participants disagreed withthe statement that the best way to learn English is to travel to anEnglish-speaking country Seventy-five percent agreed or stronglyagreed and 20 were neutral neither agreeing nor disagreeingThe word best is important because it suggests that going abroad tolearn English is superior to staying in Korea to learn English Thisfinding is consistent with the large sums that families invest in theirchildrenrsquos English language education overseas for camps or evenestablishing children on their own in English-speaking countriesAccording to Onishi (2008) it is estimated that some 40000 childrenhave gone abroad in part to learn English and in part because offrustration with the Korean education system

Going abroad to study English is not without consequences anddrawbacks According to Chiang-Hom (2004) one of the reasonsthat parents from Asian families send their teenagers to English-speaking countries often without parental supervision is so thatthey can be immersed in an English language environment andimprove their English language skills Study abroad programs alsoare a not a simple panacea and research on such programs hasshown that although it is true that students initially learn the targetlanguage much more quickly in a locale where it is spoken theirskills plateau over time in the target language environment (Rees ampKlapper 2007)

This is an important but not necessarily comforting result forall teachers of English who are working in Korea It suggests thatteachers delivering English instruction in Korea will always be at a

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 481

disadvantage because they are not educating children in an overallEnglish-speaking context Parents may not necessarily weigh thepros and cons of English study abroad when considering this optionfor their children

Who Should Teach English

The teacher researcher group created an item that asked surveyparticipants if parents felt that native English speakers were betterEnglish teachers than nonnative English speakers Table 1 illustratesthat 62 either agreed or strongly agreed that parents believed thisto be true 21 neither agreed nor disagreed and 18 eitherdisagreed or strongly disagreed These results seemed quitesurprising at first because within Korean society on the surfacethere appears to be an overwhelming overt preference for native-English-speaking (NES) teachers in both public and private insti-tutions for school-age learners These teachers are imported toKorea to teach students and are often compensated and treatedbetter than nonnative-English-speaking (NNES) teachers

NES teachers are favored in private English language kinder-gartens and private language schools for primary school studentsand adults However they do not teach secondary school studentsbecause only Korean teachers of English are able to prepare Koreanstudents for the English language section of the Korean universityentrance examination the Korean Scholastic Aptitude Test (KSAT)

The distinction between NES and NNES teachers of English isone that is not always helpful even though the distinction is madebetween teachers and students (Braine 1999) It is important toremember that numerous factors determine a teacherrsquos abilitybeyond whether he or she is a native speaker of English and is ableto deliver English language instruction (Samimy amp Brutt-Griffler1999) However the results obtained from this item help to bring acertain segment of ELT in Korea to the forefront specificallyuniversity entrance examination test preparation for high schoolstudents

The KSAT is written by Korean high school teachers andprofessors many of whom do not have any language testing skillsbut who nevertheless are literally locked away to create this crucialexamination (Choi 2008) Some of the items on the test are written

482 TESOL Journal

in Korean and few native English speakers possess the Koreanlanguage and cultural skills necessary to fully comprehend andprepare students for this high-stakes exam Consequently onlyKoreans are entrusted with preparing learners for this examAccording to M Lee and Larson (2000) within the context ofKorean society the inordinate amount of pressure to perform wellon university entrance examinations is so great that many studentsexperience enormous anxiety It is thus understandable that onlyKorean speakers are the ones trusted to prepare students for anexam that is viewed as pivotal to a learnerrsquos overall success in life

Members of the teacher researcher group were asked specificallyif they agreed with the idea that the reason some participants feltthat NES teachers were not always better was because they cannotprepare students for the KSAT The teacher researchers expressedgenuine pride in their ability to prepare students for the KSATThey also felt strongly that this question touched on the issue thatin some cases monolingual NES teachers are not as capable ofdelivering the same instruction that NNES teachers can deliverThis is significant because it illustrates an area in which NNESteachers have an advantage over native speakers of English NNESteachers too often are viewed in a negative light so it is useful tobalance this perception by highlighting a function that Koreanspeakers can perform better than native English speakers Thisfinding adds a new dimension to the argument that NNES teacherspossess skills that NES teachers lack

Test Scores

The members of the teacher researcher group were acutely aware ofthe role that English language test scores play in Korean society sothey designed an item that specifically addressed how test scoresare perceived Table 1 illustrates how parents view test scores as anexcellent indicator of language competency and proficiency

Doing well on examinations is important for Korean family honorand reflects Confucian values (Paik 2004) Further the emphasis onMinistry of Education multiple-choice tests is pandemic in Korea andmay very well prevent teachers from providing learners with oppor-tunities to develop true communicative skills Thus it is understandablethat parents may equate a good test score with language competency

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 483

and proficiency which in turn indicates that parents may possessmisconceptions about the development of English language skills Thisfinding may be a result of the focus in Korean Society on the KSATwhich is written in Korean by a Korean team

When to Learn English

Survey participants were asked to comment on whether parentsbelieve that the earlier a child learns English the better Table 1shows that 84 either agreed or strongly agreed that earlier wasbetter Only 12 neither agreed nor disagreed or disagreed and 2strongly disagreed

A lsquolsquomagicrsquorsquo time during which a learner can or cannot acquire asecond or new language does not exist and the notion that there isclearly a critical or fixed period for second language acquisitionis false (Hakuta Bialystok amp Wiley 2003 Singleton 2005) Theprocess of becoming bilingual is quite complex due to severalfactors including cognitive environmental political and socialfactors that come into play (Bialystok 2001) Parents may intuitivelyunderstand that there are advantages to their children studyingEnglish at early ages And although there isnrsquot a magic year or timeperiod for learning a second or foreign language there is a declinein learnersrsquo ability to learn a new language that corresponds withaging (Hakuta et al 2003)

The survey points to a clear belief that children will have anadvantage if they start learning English at an early age From acommonsense point of view children are in a better position tolearn a new language than adults simply because they have moretime to devote to the task In addition English is part of thelandscape for children in Korea with English language kinder-gartens and private English language schools in large cities such asSeoul as well as in smaller communities throughout the countryThe government has even set up programs in public schools toteach English to children after school hours as well as Englishlanguage camps

Parents in Korea view knowledge of English as a way to enhancetheir childrenrsquos chances for success and gain elite status in societylater on in life (Park amp Abelmann 2004) Korean parents want theirchildren to embark on the path to English language success as early

484 TESOL Journal

as possible Within the overall context of Korean society parentsbelieve that there are advantages to getting a head start on Englishlanguage study when children are very young

Reading

Several survey items addressed reading because the teacherresearcher group felt this was an issue that needed to be givenpriority when using an inter-item reliability check Two teacherresearchers explained that parents are spending more and moremoney on English language books for their children Eighty-sixpercent of survey participants agreed or strongly agreed thatchildren need to read books in English 3 disagreed or stronglydisagreed and 11 were neutral

Survey participants were also asked if they thought that readingnovels and other materials in English was very important Eighty-six percent felt that this type of reading was very importantwhereas 11 had no opinion and only 3 felt that it was notimportant

These findings are consistent with the trend in Korea for parentsto either purchase childrenrsquos books through large bookstores suchas the major Kyobo bookstores or go through book clubs like theones run by Scholastic to purchase books in English for theirchildren Parents also bring back books from English-speakingcountries when they travel abroad

Reading personally selected books and not merely textbookscan help foreign language learners Mason and Krashen (1997) pointout that extensive reading in a foreign language can be an effectiveway to improve language skills even when learners are in differentsettings and situations A variety of books including fiction andnonfiction can help children as they embark on their journey tolearn English as a new language (Vardell et al 2006) Learnersbenefit from being exposed to easy materials that they themselveshave selected (Day amp Bamford 2002)

Although it is clear from the data that reading English languagebooks is considered to be important it is not clear what types ofbook experiences parents advocate for their children Within thecontext of Korean society and culture the extensive reading expe-rience that parents advocate may differ greatly from the types of

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 485

extensive reading programs cited in the academic literature Afurther area of inquiry would be to examine the types of bookexperiences parents feel are optimal for their children in order toimprove their English language skills

Pronunciation

The teacher researcher group felt that parents put an extremely highpremium on the teaching of pronunciation so they crafted an itemabout whether parents felt that native-like pronunciation was one ofthe most important things for students to achieve The group wascareful to include the phrase lsquolsquoone of the mostrsquorsquo to indicate theimportance that they believe parents place on native-like pronun-ciation As shown in Table 1 81 of survey respondents agreed orstrongly agreed and only 8 disagreed

This finding reflects the emphasis that is placed on phonicspronunciation instruction in Korea Pronunciation could be viewedas a status symbol with more native-like pronunciation being givenhigher status than pronunciation that does not sound as native-likeAlthough phonics and pronunciation are different some teachersand parents may confuse the two concepts because both deal withsounds associated with letters (Linse 2005) Korean parents oftenenroll children from preschool and kindergarten through elemen-tary school in phonics classes as a strategy for helping them developnative-like pronunciation

Korean English language teachers working in the countryrsquospublic primary schools often do not feel satisfied with their ownEnglish pronunciation and feel that it is not what they hoped itwould be (Butler 2004) Although they may not feel comfortablewith their own pronunciation Korean speakers are often the ones inprivate language schools who provide children with initial phonicsinstruction so that they can point out to Korean-speaking childrenhow to articulate English language sounds with native-like pro-nunciation The importance of pronunciation may also be whynative English speakers are frequently employed in Englishlanguage kindergartens and private language schools alongsideKorean teachers

486 TESOL Journal

Limitations

The sample consisted of teachers who may not be completelycognizant of parental perceptions even though they share the samecultural background as the parents However it is important to takeinto account what teachers perceive to be parental beliefs inreference to English language development and to directly andindirectly address these perceptions The teachers in the study wereKorean and represent the Korean cultural belief systems and wereable to begin to identify issues that parents see as prominent This isan important first step in initiating conversations between parentsand teachers about the process of learning English as a foreignlanguage

CONCLUSIONThe purpose of this article was to begin to examine what teachersbelieve to be Korean parentsrsquo perceptions with regard to the processof their children learning English as a foreign language The articleidentified perceptions so that English language teachers will be in abetter position to begin the process of forming partnerships withparents of school-age and preschool or kindergarten learners inKorea

The results clearly illustrate how the Korean culture impactsperceptions about learning English and the importance of framinginformation about ELT in the local cultural context Participantsexpressed the view that parents believe in the importance ofmemorizing vocabulary as well as reading in the quest for childrento learn English This clearly reflects the overall context of Koreaneducation that emphasizes literacy and in the case of vocabularyrote learning There were also perceptions about when Englishshould be taught to young learners where and by whom It wassurprising to note that native English speakers were not alwaysidentified as the best people to teach English because they generallydo not possess the cultural and linguistic capital to prepare learnersfor the KSAT

When parents make comments about English language edu-cation it is important to consider the cultural context related toEnglish education and to education in general For example it is tooeasy to say that parents are wrong in their belief that memorization

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 487

is the best way to learn vocabulary Instead it is better to questionwhy parents make such a remark By framing parentsrsquo remarks inthe local context it will be easier to engage in a dialogue rather thanan argument Teachers need help learning how to reflect on andconsider what parents say

Parents are such important stakeholders that teachers of youngEFL learners should be cognizant of them in virtually every culturalsetting This research underscores the important role that the cul-tural context plays in the English language education of school-ageand preschool-age learners Further the cultural context should betaken into account when considering parentsrsquo expectations ofEnglish language instructional programs for young learners

THE AUTHORCaroline Linse is a senior lecturer at Queenrsquos University Belfastwhere she teaches in both the masterrsquos and doctoral programs inTESOL She has extensive experience teaching English to younglearners in a wide range of international contexts and is the authorof a variety of materials for learners as well as their teachers Inaddition she has lived and worked in South Korea with teachersserving learners of all ages

REFERENCESBast J L amp Walberg H J (2004) Can parents choose the best

schools for their children Economics of Education Review 23 431ndash440 doi101016jeconedurev200308003

Beck I L McKeown M G amp Kucan L (2004) Bringing words tolife Robust vocabulary instruction New York NY Guilford Press

Bialystok E (2001) Bilingualism in development Language literacyand cognition Cambridge England Cambridge University Press

Blachowicz C L Z Fisher P J L Ogle D amp Watts-Taffe S(2006) Vocabulary Questions from the classroom ReadingResearch Quarterly 41 524ndash539 doi101598RRQ4145

Braine G (1999) Non-native educators in English language teachingMahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Brown H D (1995) Principles of language learning and teaching (3rded) Englewood Cliffs NJ Prentice Hall Regents

488 TESOL Journal

appropriate when the research is in a new area of inquiry (Maxwell1996) In addition grounded theory is used when one of the aimsis to develop a theory based on the data rather than to test apreexisting theory (Glaser amp Strauss 1967) This study focused onthe data that emerged from the research instruments and did notassess a preexisting theory because a theory related to teachersrsquoperceptions of parentsrsquo beliefs regarding childrenrsquos development ofEnglish as a foreign language did not exist

RESEARCH CONTEXTThe research was conducted in Seoul and data were gathered fromtwo groups of English language teachers Teachers instead ofparents were chosen as participants because teachers have workedwith many parents and have witnessed parents expressing a widerange of sentiments regarding English language instruction Teach-ers are acutely aware of the demands that parents make regardingEnglish language instruction

EFL is taught to school-age pupils in the public as well as privatesectors in large part because parents demand it The Koreangovernment including the Ministry of Education view knowledgeof English as an imperative skill if the country is to be successful onthe global economic stage (Jo 2008) Private English languageinstitutes and English language kindergartens flourish throughoutKorea and provide school-age learners with English languageinstruction that supplements what takes place in classrooms underthe Ministry of Education

PARTICIPANTSThere were two groups of Korean teacher participants the teacherresearcher group and the survey participant group Teachers inboth groups possessed at least an intermediate level of Englishlanguage proficiency Both groups of study participants also hadexperience teaching English to school-age learners and workingwith the parents of these learners

The teacher researcher group consisted of 13 teachers enrolled ina Korean universityrsquos MATESOL program and who had firsthandexperience addressing the needs of parents Twelve of theseparticipants were experienced teachers the remaining ones were

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 477

teachers at a novice level The teacher researcher group collectivelyhad more than 180 years9 experience of teaching Englishpredominantly to Korean school-age learners

The survey participant group consisted of 120 teachers who alsohad experience working with school-age learners in both the publicand private sectors This group completed the survey as part of ELTcourses or workshops conducted for teachers of school-age learnersin Seoul

PROCEDURES

Data Collection and Data Analysis

This study used qualitative and quantitative methods Qualitativemethods were used to generate the initial data that formed the basisof the survey

The teacher researcher group was asked to write about thebeliefs that Korean parents have regarding children learningEnglish as a foreign language All of the members of the teacherresearcher group most of whom have dealt with parental com-plaints on a regular basis wrote a list of beliefs as expressed to themby parents They then went through their list of items and coded thedata into categories with recurrent themes Next they createdLikert-style items based on the recurrent themes that emerged fromcoding the data

The Likert-based survey was administered to the 120 membersof the survey participant group These were teachers attendinggraduate-level EFL methodology classes or workshops intended tohelp them be better prepared to work with kindergarten and school-age learners The numerical data from the survey were tabulatedand the frequency counts were analyzed to determine significanttrends within the data sets

In order to further triangulate the data the results from thesurveys were then presented to the teacher researcher group whohad created the initial qualitative data This group was queried todetermine whether the data generated from the survey participantgroup and the description of the results appeared to be accurate Theteacher researcher group stated that the results reflected the beliefsystem that is operational among Korean parents of school-age

478 TESOL Journal

and preschool-age children in Korea The group was quite pleasedwith the results because they felt that they confirmed their ownthinking with regard to this issue

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONA number of significant themes emerged from the data The themesreflect the pressure that families feel and their desire for theirchildren to learn English The themes also reflect the overall contextof education in Korea There were some consistencies between thebeliefs expressed and the latest findings in research on EFL teach-ing The first set of results dealt with vocabulary learning The nextaddressed where children should be taught who should teachthem and the role that testing plays in childrenrsquos English languageeducation This leads into the results concerning when to learnEnglish the role of reading and the role of pronunciation

Vocabulary Learning

As seen in Table 1 94 of survey participants said that parentsbelieve memorizing vocabulary items is important The teacherresearchers who generated the items for the Likert scale used theword memorize because they felt that it reflected the way parentsperceive how vocabulary items should be learned Almost unan-imously survey participants agreed with the item The way that itwas phrased is somewhat understandable considering that educa-tion in Korea has historically relied on rote learning However thisfinding is a little surprising because it is not uncommon for Koreanswho learned English in Korea to lament that memorizing voca-bulary items was ineffective in their English language learningprocess

To a limited degree the survey responses are consistent with thelatest vocabulary research that supports the notion that vocabularydevelopment is a cornerstone for academic development in onersquosown language and is pivotal when developing skills in English asa second or foreign language However research in the area ofvocabulary development does not support the notion that memo-rizing vocabulary items is an effective way to expand childrenrsquosvocabularies According to Beck McKeown and Kucan (2002)school-age learners learning in their home language need

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 479

vocabulary instruction that is comprehensive and multifaceted (alsoknown as robust) and need to make personal and cognitiveconnections with the words Effective vocabulary teaching forchildren learning English as a home language or as a second lan-guage is a multifaceted process and occurs over time rather than allat once (Blachowicz et al 2006) Children learning English as asecond language particularly benefit from a comprehensive ap-proach to vocabulary development (Carlo et al 2005)

TABLE 1 Results

Stronglyagree Agree Neutral Disagree

Stronglydisagree

Memorizingvocabulary items isvery important

62 32 4 1 1

Learners learn best bygoing abroad

21 54 20 5 0

Native speakerteachers are betterEnglish teachersthan nonnative-speaking teachers

23 39 21 14 4

A test score is anexcellent indicatorof English languagecompetency andproficiency

25 40 18 17 0

The earlier childrenlearn English thebetter

38 46 12 0 2

Children need to readbooks in English

26 60 11 2 1

Reading novels andreading othermaterials in Englishis very important

28 58 11 2 1

Native-like Englishpronunciation isone of the mostimportant things forstudents to achieve

24 57 11 8 0

480 TESOL Journal

Vocabulary teaching is an important aspect of overall instructionfor children learning English as their home language or as a secondor foreign language To be successful academically children need tohave a rich vocabulary and it must be noted that knowing wordsand definitions in isolation is not a hallmark of a rich vocabularyThe challenge is to help Korean parents who themselves come froma culture that puts a high premium on rote learning understand thenecessity of providing students with robust vocabulary instructionthat enables students to make connections beyond simple memo-rization of the vocabulary items

Where to Learn English

As shown in Table 1 only 5 of survey participants disagreed withthe statement that the best way to learn English is to travel to anEnglish-speaking country Seventy-five percent agreed or stronglyagreed and 20 were neutral neither agreeing nor disagreeingThe word best is important because it suggests that going abroad tolearn English is superior to staying in Korea to learn English Thisfinding is consistent with the large sums that families invest in theirchildrenrsquos English language education overseas for camps or evenestablishing children on their own in English-speaking countriesAccording to Onishi (2008) it is estimated that some 40000 childrenhave gone abroad in part to learn English and in part because offrustration with the Korean education system

Going abroad to study English is not without consequences anddrawbacks According to Chiang-Hom (2004) one of the reasonsthat parents from Asian families send their teenagers to English-speaking countries often without parental supervision is so thatthey can be immersed in an English language environment andimprove their English language skills Study abroad programs alsoare a not a simple panacea and research on such programs hasshown that although it is true that students initially learn the targetlanguage much more quickly in a locale where it is spoken theirskills plateau over time in the target language environment (Rees ampKlapper 2007)

This is an important but not necessarily comforting result forall teachers of English who are working in Korea It suggests thatteachers delivering English instruction in Korea will always be at a

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 481

disadvantage because they are not educating children in an overallEnglish-speaking context Parents may not necessarily weigh thepros and cons of English study abroad when considering this optionfor their children

Who Should Teach English

The teacher researcher group created an item that asked surveyparticipants if parents felt that native English speakers were betterEnglish teachers than nonnative English speakers Table 1 illustratesthat 62 either agreed or strongly agreed that parents believed thisto be true 21 neither agreed nor disagreed and 18 eitherdisagreed or strongly disagreed These results seemed quitesurprising at first because within Korean society on the surfacethere appears to be an overwhelming overt preference for native-English-speaking (NES) teachers in both public and private insti-tutions for school-age learners These teachers are imported toKorea to teach students and are often compensated and treatedbetter than nonnative-English-speaking (NNES) teachers

NES teachers are favored in private English language kinder-gartens and private language schools for primary school studentsand adults However they do not teach secondary school studentsbecause only Korean teachers of English are able to prepare Koreanstudents for the English language section of the Korean universityentrance examination the Korean Scholastic Aptitude Test (KSAT)

The distinction between NES and NNES teachers of English isone that is not always helpful even though the distinction is madebetween teachers and students (Braine 1999) It is important toremember that numerous factors determine a teacherrsquos abilitybeyond whether he or she is a native speaker of English and is ableto deliver English language instruction (Samimy amp Brutt-Griffler1999) However the results obtained from this item help to bring acertain segment of ELT in Korea to the forefront specificallyuniversity entrance examination test preparation for high schoolstudents

The KSAT is written by Korean high school teachers andprofessors many of whom do not have any language testing skillsbut who nevertheless are literally locked away to create this crucialexamination (Choi 2008) Some of the items on the test are written

482 TESOL Journal

in Korean and few native English speakers possess the Koreanlanguage and cultural skills necessary to fully comprehend andprepare students for this high-stakes exam Consequently onlyKoreans are entrusted with preparing learners for this examAccording to M Lee and Larson (2000) within the context ofKorean society the inordinate amount of pressure to perform wellon university entrance examinations is so great that many studentsexperience enormous anxiety It is thus understandable that onlyKorean speakers are the ones trusted to prepare students for anexam that is viewed as pivotal to a learnerrsquos overall success in life

Members of the teacher researcher group were asked specificallyif they agreed with the idea that the reason some participants feltthat NES teachers were not always better was because they cannotprepare students for the KSAT The teacher researchers expressedgenuine pride in their ability to prepare students for the KSATThey also felt strongly that this question touched on the issue thatin some cases monolingual NES teachers are not as capable ofdelivering the same instruction that NNES teachers can deliverThis is significant because it illustrates an area in which NNESteachers have an advantage over native speakers of English NNESteachers too often are viewed in a negative light so it is useful tobalance this perception by highlighting a function that Koreanspeakers can perform better than native English speakers Thisfinding adds a new dimension to the argument that NNES teacherspossess skills that NES teachers lack

Test Scores

The members of the teacher researcher group were acutely aware ofthe role that English language test scores play in Korean society sothey designed an item that specifically addressed how test scoresare perceived Table 1 illustrates how parents view test scores as anexcellent indicator of language competency and proficiency

Doing well on examinations is important for Korean family honorand reflects Confucian values (Paik 2004) Further the emphasis onMinistry of Education multiple-choice tests is pandemic in Korea andmay very well prevent teachers from providing learners with oppor-tunities to develop true communicative skills Thus it is understandablethat parents may equate a good test score with language competency

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 483

and proficiency which in turn indicates that parents may possessmisconceptions about the development of English language skills Thisfinding may be a result of the focus in Korean Society on the KSATwhich is written in Korean by a Korean team

When to Learn English

Survey participants were asked to comment on whether parentsbelieve that the earlier a child learns English the better Table 1shows that 84 either agreed or strongly agreed that earlier wasbetter Only 12 neither agreed nor disagreed or disagreed and 2strongly disagreed

A lsquolsquomagicrsquorsquo time during which a learner can or cannot acquire asecond or new language does not exist and the notion that there isclearly a critical or fixed period for second language acquisitionis false (Hakuta Bialystok amp Wiley 2003 Singleton 2005) Theprocess of becoming bilingual is quite complex due to severalfactors including cognitive environmental political and socialfactors that come into play (Bialystok 2001) Parents may intuitivelyunderstand that there are advantages to their children studyingEnglish at early ages And although there isnrsquot a magic year or timeperiod for learning a second or foreign language there is a declinein learnersrsquo ability to learn a new language that corresponds withaging (Hakuta et al 2003)

The survey points to a clear belief that children will have anadvantage if they start learning English at an early age From acommonsense point of view children are in a better position tolearn a new language than adults simply because they have moretime to devote to the task In addition English is part of thelandscape for children in Korea with English language kinder-gartens and private English language schools in large cities such asSeoul as well as in smaller communities throughout the countryThe government has even set up programs in public schools toteach English to children after school hours as well as Englishlanguage camps

Parents in Korea view knowledge of English as a way to enhancetheir childrenrsquos chances for success and gain elite status in societylater on in life (Park amp Abelmann 2004) Korean parents want theirchildren to embark on the path to English language success as early

484 TESOL Journal

as possible Within the overall context of Korean society parentsbelieve that there are advantages to getting a head start on Englishlanguage study when children are very young

Reading

Several survey items addressed reading because the teacherresearcher group felt this was an issue that needed to be givenpriority when using an inter-item reliability check Two teacherresearchers explained that parents are spending more and moremoney on English language books for their children Eighty-sixpercent of survey participants agreed or strongly agreed thatchildren need to read books in English 3 disagreed or stronglydisagreed and 11 were neutral

Survey participants were also asked if they thought that readingnovels and other materials in English was very important Eighty-six percent felt that this type of reading was very importantwhereas 11 had no opinion and only 3 felt that it was notimportant

These findings are consistent with the trend in Korea for parentsto either purchase childrenrsquos books through large bookstores suchas the major Kyobo bookstores or go through book clubs like theones run by Scholastic to purchase books in English for theirchildren Parents also bring back books from English-speakingcountries when they travel abroad

Reading personally selected books and not merely textbookscan help foreign language learners Mason and Krashen (1997) pointout that extensive reading in a foreign language can be an effectiveway to improve language skills even when learners are in differentsettings and situations A variety of books including fiction andnonfiction can help children as they embark on their journey tolearn English as a new language (Vardell et al 2006) Learnersbenefit from being exposed to easy materials that they themselveshave selected (Day amp Bamford 2002)

Although it is clear from the data that reading English languagebooks is considered to be important it is not clear what types ofbook experiences parents advocate for their children Within thecontext of Korean society and culture the extensive reading expe-rience that parents advocate may differ greatly from the types of

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 485

extensive reading programs cited in the academic literature Afurther area of inquiry would be to examine the types of bookexperiences parents feel are optimal for their children in order toimprove their English language skills

Pronunciation

The teacher researcher group felt that parents put an extremely highpremium on the teaching of pronunciation so they crafted an itemabout whether parents felt that native-like pronunciation was one ofthe most important things for students to achieve The group wascareful to include the phrase lsquolsquoone of the mostrsquorsquo to indicate theimportance that they believe parents place on native-like pronun-ciation As shown in Table 1 81 of survey respondents agreed orstrongly agreed and only 8 disagreed

This finding reflects the emphasis that is placed on phonicspronunciation instruction in Korea Pronunciation could be viewedas a status symbol with more native-like pronunciation being givenhigher status than pronunciation that does not sound as native-likeAlthough phonics and pronunciation are different some teachersand parents may confuse the two concepts because both deal withsounds associated with letters (Linse 2005) Korean parents oftenenroll children from preschool and kindergarten through elemen-tary school in phonics classes as a strategy for helping them developnative-like pronunciation

Korean English language teachers working in the countryrsquospublic primary schools often do not feel satisfied with their ownEnglish pronunciation and feel that it is not what they hoped itwould be (Butler 2004) Although they may not feel comfortablewith their own pronunciation Korean speakers are often the ones inprivate language schools who provide children with initial phonicsinstruction so that they can point out to Korean-speaking childrenhow to articulate English language sounds with native-like pro-nunciation The importance of pronunciation may also be whynative English speakers are frequently employed in Englishlanguage kindergartens and private language schools alongsideKorean teachers

486 TESOL Journal

Limitations

The sample consisted of teachers who may not be completelycognizant of parental perceptions even though they share the samecultural background as the parents However it is important to takeinto account what teachers perceive to be parental beliefs inreference to English language development and to directly andindirectly address these perceptions The teachers in the study wereKorean and represent the Korean cultural belief systems and wereable to begin to identify issues that parents see as prominent This isan important first step in initiating conversations between parentsand teachers about the process of learning English as a foreignlanguage

CONCLUSIONThe purpose of this article was to begin to examine what teachersbelieve to be Korean parentsrsquo perceptions with regard to the processof their children learning English as a foreign language The articleidentified perceptions so that English language teachers will be in abetter position to begin the process of forming partnerships withparents of school-age and preschool or kindergarten learners inKorea

The results clearly illustrate how the Korean culture impactsperceptions about learning English and the importance of framinginformation about ELT in the local cultural context Participantsexpressed the view that parents believe in the importance ofmemorizing vocabulary as well as reading in the quest for childrento learn English This clearly reflects the overall context of Koreaneducation that emphasizes literacy and in the case of vocabularyrote learning There were also perceptions about when Englishshould be taught to young learners where and by whom It wassurprising to note that native English speakers were not alwaysidentified as the best people to teach English because they generallydo not possess the cultural and linguistic capital to prepare learnersfor the KSAT

When parents make comments about English language edu-cation it is important to consider the cultural context related toEnglish education and to education in general For example it is tooeasy to say that parents are wrong in their belief that memorization

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 487

is the best way to learn vocabulary Instead it is better to questionwhy parents make such a remark By framing parentsrsquo remarks inthe local context it will be easier to engage in a dialogue rather thanan argument Teachers need help learning how to reflect on andconsider what parents say

Parents are such important stakeholders that teachers of youngEFL learners should be cognizant of them in virtually every culturalsetting This research underscores the important role that the cul-tural context plays in the English language education of school-ageand preschool-age learners Further the cultural context should betaken into account when considering parentsrsquo expectations ofEnglish language instructional programs for young learners

THE AUTHORCaroline Linse is a senior lecturer at Queenrsquos University Belfastwhere she teaches in both the masterrsquos and doctoral programs inTESOL She has extensive experience teaching English to younglearners in a wide range of international contexts and is the authorof a variety of materials for learners as well as their teachers Inaddition she has lived and worked in South Korea with teachersserving learners of all ages

REFERENCESBast J L amp Walberg H J (2004) Can parents choose the best

schools for their children Economics of Education Review 23 431ndash440 doi101016jeconedurev200308003

Beck I L McKeown M G amp Kucan L (2004) Bringing words tolife Robust vocabulary instruction New York NY Guilford Press

Bialystok E (2001) Bilingualism in development Language literacyand cognition Cambridge England Cambridge University Press

Blachowicz C L Z Fisher P J L Ogle D amp Watts-Taffe S(2006) Vocabulary Questions from the classroom ReadingResearch Quarterly 41 524ndash539 doi101598RRQ4145

Braine G (1999) Non-native educators in English language teachingMahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Brown H D (1995) Principles of language learning and teaching (3rded) Englewood Cliffs NJ Prentice Hall Regents

488 TESOL Journal

teachers at a novice level The teacher researcher group collectivelyhad more than 180 years9 experience of teaching Englishpredominantly to Korean school-age learners

The survey participant group consisted of 120 teachers who alsohad experience working with school-age learners in both the publicand private sectors This group completed the survey as part of ELTcourses or workshops conducted for teachers of school-age learnersin Seoul

PROCEDURES

Data Collection and Data Analysis

This study used qualitative and quantitative methods Qualitativemethods were used to generate the initial data that formed the basisof the survey

The teacher researcher group was asked to write about thebeliefs that Korean parents have regarding children learningEnglish as a foreign language All of the members of the teacherresearcher group most of whom have dealt with parental com-plaints on a regular basis wrote a list of beliefs as expressed to themby parents They then went through their list of items and coded thedata into categories with recurrent themes Next they createdLikert-style items based on the recurrent themes that emerged fromcoding the data

The Likert-based survey was administered to the 120 membersof the survey participant group These were teachers attendinggraduate-level EFL methodology classes or workshops intended tohelp them be better prepared to work with kindergarten and school-age learners The numerical data from the survey were tabulatedand the frequency counts were analyzed to determine significanttrends within the data sets

In order to further triangulate the data the results from thesurveys were then presented to the teacher researcher group whohad created the initial qualitative data This group was queried todetermine whether the data generated from the survey participantgroup and the description of the results appeared to be accurate Theteacher researcher group stated that the results reflected the beliefsystem that is operational among Korean parents of school-age

478 TESOL Journal

and preschool-age children in Korea The group was quite pleasedwith the results because they felt that they confirmed their ownthinking with regard to this issue

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONA number of significant themes emerged from the data The themesreflect the pressure that families feel and their desire for theirchildren to learn English The themes also reflect the overall contextof education in Korea There were some consistencies between thebeliefs expressed and the latest findings in research on EFL teach-ing The first set of results dealt with vocabulary learning The nextaddressed where children should be taught who should teachthem and the role that testing plays in childrenrsquos English languageeducation This leads into the results concerning when to learnEnglish the role of reading and the role of pronunciation

Vocabulary Learning

As seen in Table 1 94 of survey participants said that parentsbelieve memorizing vocabulary items is important The teacherresearchers who generated the items for the Likert scale used theword memorize because they felt that it reflected the way parentsperceive how vocabulary items should be learned Almost unan-imously survey participants agreed with the item The way that itwas phrased is somewhat understandable considering that educa-tion in Korea has historically relied on rote learning However thisfinding is a little surprising because it is not uncommon for Koreanswho learned English in Korea to lament that memorizing voca-bulary items was ineffective in their English language learningprocess

To a limited degree the survey responses are consistent with thelatest vocabulary research that supports the notion that vocabularydevelopment is a cornerstone for academic development in onersquosown language and is pivotal when developing skills in English asa second or foreign language However research in the area ofvocabulary development does not support the notion that memo-rizing vocabulary items is an effective way to expand childrenrsquosvocabularies According to Beck McKeown and Kucan (2002)school-age learners learning in their home language need

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 479

vocabulary instruction that is comprehensive and multifaceted (alsoknown as robust) and need to make personal and cognitiveconnections with the words Effective vocabulary teaching forchildren learning English as a home language or as a second lan-guage is a multifaceted process and occurs over time rather than allat once (Blachowicz et al 2006) Children learning English as asecond language particularly benefit from a comprehensive ap-proach to vocabulary development (Carlo et al 2005)

TABLE 1 Results

Stronglyagree Agree Neutral Disagree

Stronglydisagree

Memorizingvocabulary items isvery important

62 32 4 1 1

Learners learn best bygoing abroad

21 54 20 5 0

Native speakerteachers are betterEnglish teachersthan nonnative-speaking teachers

23 39 21 14 4

A test score is anexcellent indicatorof English languagecompetency andproficiency

25 40 18 17 0

The earlier childrenlearn English thebetter

38 46 12 0 2

Children need to readbooks in English

26 60 11 2 1

Reading novels andreading othermaterials in Englishis very important

28 58 11 2 1

Native-like Englishpronunciation isone of the mostimportant things forstudents to achieve

24 57 11 8 0

480 TESOL Journal

Vocabulary teaching is an important aspect of overall instructionfor children learning English as their home language or as a secondor foreign language To be successful academically children need tohave a rich vocabulary and it must be noted that knowing wordsand definitions in isolation is not a hallmark of a rich vocabularyThe challenge is to help Korean parents who themselves come froma culture that puts a high premium on rote learning understand thenecessity of providing students with robust vocabulary instructionthat enables students to make connections beyond simple memo-rization of the vocabulary items

Where to Learn English

As shown in Table 1 only 5 of survey participants disagreed withthe statement that the best way to learn English is to travel to anEnglish-speaking country Seventy-five percent agreed or stronglyagreed and 20 were neutral neither agreeing nor disagreeingThe word best is important because it suggests that going abroad tolearn English is superior to staying in Korea to learn English Thisfinding is consistent with the large sums that families invest in theirchildrenrsquos English language education overseas for camps or evenestablishing children on their own in English-speaking countriesAccording to Onishi (2008) it is estimated that some 40000 childrenhave gone abroad in part to learn English and in part because offrustration with the Korean education system

Going abroad to study English is not without consequences anddrawbacks According to Chiang-Hom (2004) one of the reasonsthat parents from Asian families send their teenagers to English-speaking countries often without parental supervision is so thatthey can be immersed in an English language environment andimprove their English language skills Study abroad programs alsoare a not a simple panacea and research on such programs hasshown that although it is true that students initially learn the targetlanguage much more quickly in a locale where it is spoken theirskills plateau over time in the target language environment (Rees ampKlapper 2007)

This is an important but not necessarily comforting result forall teachers of English who are working in Korea It suggests thatteachers delivering English instruction in Korea will always be at a

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 481

disadvantage because they are not educating children in an overallEnglish-speaking context Parents may not necessarily weigh thepros and cons of English study abroad when considering this optionfor their children

Who Should Teach English

The teacher researcher group created an item that asked surveyparticipants if parents felt that native English speakers were betterEnglish teachers than nonnative English speakers Table 1 illustratesthat 62 either agreed or strongly agreed that parents believed thisto be true 21 neither agreed nor disagreed and 18 eitherdisagreed or strongly disagreed These results seemed quitesurprising at first because within Korean society on the surfacethere appears to be an overwhelming overt preference for native-English-speaking (NES) teachers in both public and private insti-tutions for school-age learners These teachers are imported toKorea to teach students and are often compensated and treatedbetter than nonnative-English-speaking (NNES) teachers

NES teachers are favored in private English language kinder-gartens and private language schools for primary school studentsand adults However they do not teach secondary school studentsbecause only Korean teachers of English are able to prepare Koreanstudents for the English language section of the Korean universityentrance examination the Korean Scholastic Aptitude Test (KSAT)

The distinction between NES and NNES teachers of English isone that is not always helpful even though the distinction is madebetween teachers and students (Braine 1999) It is important toremember that numerous factors determine a teacherrsquos abilitybeyond whether he or she is a native speaker of English and is ableto deliver English language instruction (Samimy amp Brutt-Griffler1999) However the results obtained from this item help to bring acertain segment of ELT in Korea to the forefront specificallyuniversity entrance examination test preparation for high schoolstudents

The KSAT is written by Korean high school teachers andprofessors many of whom do not have any language testing skillsbut who nevertheless are literally locked away to create this crucialexamination (Choi 2008) Some of the items on the test are written

482 TESOL Journal

in Korean and few native English speakers possess the Koreanlanguage and cultural skills necessary to fully comprehend andprepare students for this high-stakes exam Consequently onlyKoreans are entrusted with preparing learners for this examAccording to M Lee and Larson (2000) within the context ofKorean society the inordinate amount of pressure to perform wellon university entrance examinations is so great that many studentsexperience enormous anxiety It is thus understandable that onlyKorean speakers are the ones trusted to prepare students for anexam that is viewed as pivotal to a learnerrsquos overall success in life

Members of the teacher researcher group were asked specificallyif they agreed with the idea that the reason some participants feltthat NES teachers were not always better was because they cannotprepare students for the KSAT The teacher researchers expressedgenuine pride in their ability to prepare students for the KSATThey also felt strongly that this question touched on the issue thatin some cases monolingual NES teachers are not as capable ofdelivering the same instruction that NNES teachers can deliverThis is significant because it illustrates an area in which NNESteachers have an advantage over native speakers of English NNESteachers too often are viewed in a negative light so it is useful tobalance this perception by highlighting a function that Koreanspeakers can perform better than native English speakers Thisfinding adds a new dimension to the argument that NNES teacherspossess skills that NES teachers lack

Test Scores

The members of the teacher researcher group were acutely aware ofthe role that English language test scores play in Korean society sothey designed an item that specifically addressed how test scoresare perceived Table 1 illustrates how parents view test scores as anexcellent indicator of language competency and proficiency

Doing well on examinations is important for Korean family honorand reflects Confucian values (Paik 2004) Further the emphasis onMinistry of Education multiple-choice tests is pandemic in Korea andmay very well prevent teachers from providing learners with oppor-tunities to develop true communicative skills Thus it is understandablethat parents may equate a good test score with language competency

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 483

and proficiency which in turn indicates that parents may possessmisconceptions about the development of English language skills Thisfinding may be a result of the focus in Korean Society on the KSATwhich is written in Korean by a Korean team

When to Learn English

Survey participants were asked to comment on whether parentsbelieve that the earlier a child learns English the better Table 1shows that 84 either agreed or strongly agreed that earlier wasbetter Only 12 neither agreed nor disagreed or disagreed and 2strongly disagreed

A lsquolsquomagicrsquorsquo time during which a learner can or cannot acquire asecond or new language does not exist and the notion that there isclearly a critical or fixed period for second language acquisitionis false (Hakuta Bialystok amp Wiley 2003 Singleton 2005) Theprocess of becoming bilingual is quite complex due to severalfactors including cognitive environmental political and socialfactors that come into play (Bialystok 2001) Parents may intuitivelyunderstand that there are advantages to their children studyingEnglish at early ages And although there isnrsquot a magic year or timeperiod for learning a second or foreign language there is a declinein learnersrsquo ability to learn a new language that corresponds withaging (Hakuta et al 2003)

The survey points to a clear belief that children will have anadvantage if they start learning English at an early age From acommonsense point of view children are in a better position tolearn a new language than adults simply because they have moretime to devote to the task In addition English is part of thelandscape for children in Korea with English language kinder-gartens and private English language schools in large cities such asSeoul as well as in smaller communities throughout the countryThe government has even set up programs in public schools toteach English to children after school hours as well as Englishlanguage camps

Parents in Korea view knowledge of English as a way to enhancetheir childrenrsquos chances for success and gain elite status in societylater on in life (Park amp Abelmann 2004) Korean parents want theirchildren to embark on the path to English language success as early

484 TESOL Journal

as possible Within the overall context of Korean society parentsbelieve that there are advantages to getting a head start on Englishlanguage study when children are very young

Reading

Several survey items addressed reading because the teacherresearcher group felt this was an issue that needed to be givenpriority when using an inter-item reliability check Two teacherresearchers explained that parents are spending more and moremoney on English language books for their children Eighty-sixpercent of survey participants agreed or strongly agreed thatchildren need to read books in English 3 disagreed or stronglydisagreed and 11 were neutral

Survey participants were also asked if they thought that readingnovels and other materials in English was very important Eighty-six percent felt that this type of reading was very importantwhereas 11 had no opinion and only 3 felt that it was notimportant

These findings are consistent with the trend in Korea for parentsto either purchase childrenrsquos books through large bookstores suchas the major Kyobo bookstores or go through book clubs like theones run by Scholastic to purchase books in English for theirchildren Parents also bring back books from English-speakingcountries when they travel abroad

Reading personally selected books and not merely textbookscan help foreign language learners Mason and Krashen (1997) pointout that extensive reading in a foreign language can be an effectiveway to improve language skills even when learners are in differentsettings and situations A variety of books including fiction andnonfiction can help children as they embark on their journey tolearn English as a new language (Vardell et al 2006) Learnersbenefit from being exposed to easy materials that they themselveshave selected (Day amp Bamford 2002)

Although it is clear from the data that reading English languagebooks is considered to be important it is not clear what types ofbook experiences parents advocate for their children Within thecontext of Korean society and culture the extensive reading expe-rience that parents advocate may differ greatly from the types of

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 485

extensive reading programs cited in the academic literature Afurther area of inquiry would be to examine the types of bookexperiences parents feel are optimal for their children in order toimprove their English language skills

Pronunciation

The teacher researcher group felt that parents put an extremely highpremium on the teaching of pronunciation so they crafted an itemabout whether parents felt that native-like pronunciation was one ofthe most important things for students to achieve The group wascareful to include the phrase lsquolsquoone of the mostrsquorsquo to indicate theimportance that they believe parents place on native-like pronun-ciation As shown in Table 1 81 of survey respondents agreed orstrongly agreed and only 8 disagreed

This finding reflects the emphasis that is placed on phonicspronunciation instruction in Korea Pronunciation could be viewedas a status symbol with more native-like pronunciation being givenhigher status than pronunciation that does not sound as native-likeAlthough phonics and pronunciation are different some teachersand parents may confuse the two concepts because both deal withsounds associated with letters (Linse 2005) Korean parents oftenenroll children from preschool and kindergarten through elemen-tary school in phonics classes as a strategy for helping them developnative-like pronunciation

Korean English language teachers working in the countryrsquospublic primary schools often do not feel satisfied with their ownEnglish pronunciation and feel that it is not what they hoped itwould be (Butler 2004) Although they may not feel comfortablewith their own pronunciation Korean speakers are often the ones inprivate language schools who provide children with initial phonicsinstruction so that they can point out to Korean-speaking childrenhow to articulate English language sounds with native-like pro-nunciation The importance of pronunciation may also be whynative English speakers are frequently employed in Englishlanguage kindergartens and private language schools alongsideKorean teachers

486 TESOL Journal

Limitations

The sample consisted of teachers who may not be completelycognizant of parental perceptions even though they share the samecultural background as the parents However it is important to takeinto account what teachers perceive to be parental beliefs inreference to English language development and to directly andindirectly address these perceptions The teachers in the study wereKorean and represent the Korean cultural belief systems and wereable to begin to identify issues that parents see as prominent This isan important first step in initiating conversations between parentsand teachers about the process of learning English as a foreignlanguage

CONCLUSIONThe purpose of this article was to begin to examine what teachersbelieve to be Korean parentsrsquo perceptions with regard to the processof their children learning English as a foreign language The articleidentified perceptions so that English language teachers will be in abetter position to begin the process of forming partnerships withparents of school-age and preschool or kindergarten learners inKorea

The results clearly illustrate how the Korean culture impactsperceptions about learning English and the importance of framinginformation about ELT in the local cultural context Participantsexpressed the view that parents believe in the importance ofmemorizing vocabulary as well as reading in the quest for childrento learn English This clearly reflects the overall context of Koreaneducation that emphasizes literacy and in the case of vocabularyrote learning There were also perceptions about when Englishshould be taught to young learners where and by whom It wassurprising to note that native English speakers were not alwaysidentified as the best people to teach English because they generallydo not possess the cultural and linguistic capital to prepare learnersfor the KSAT

When parents make comments about English language edu-cation it is important to consider the cultural context related toEnglish education and to education in general For example it is tooeasy to say that parents are wrong in their belief that memorization

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 487

is the best way to learn vocabulary Instead it is better to questionwhy parents make such a remark By framing parentsrsquo remarks inthe local context it will be easier to engage in a dialogue rather thanan argument Teachers need help learning how to reflect on andconsider what parents say

Parents are such important stakeholders that teachers of youngEFL learners should be cognizant of them in virtually every culturalsetting This research underscores the important role that the cul-tural context plays in the English language education of school-ageand preschool-age learners Further the cultural context should betaken into account when considering parentsrsquo expectations ofEnglish language instructional programs for young learners

THE AUTHORCaroline Linse is a senior lecturer at Queenrsquos University Belfastwhere she teaches in both the masterrsquos and doctoral programs inTESOL She has extensive experience teaching English to younglearners in a wide range of international contexts and is the authorof a variety of materials for learners as well as their teachers Inaddition she has lived and worked in South Korea with teachersserving learners of all ages

REFERENCESBast J L amp Walberg H J (2004) Can parents choose the best

schools for their children Economics of Education Review 23 431ndash440 doi101016jeconedurev200308003

Beck I L McKeown M G amp Kucan L (2004) Bringing words tolife Robust vocabulary instruction New York NY Guilford Press

Bialystok E (2001) Bilingualism in development Language literacyand cognition Cambridge England Cambridge University Press

Blachowicz C L Z Fisher P J L Ogle D amp Watts-Taffe S(2006) Vocabulary Questions from the classroom ReadingResearch Quarterly 41 524ndash539 doi101598RRQ4145

Braine G (1999) Non-native educators in English language teachingMahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Brown H D (1995) Principles of language learning and teaching (3rded) Englewood Cliffs NJ Prentice Hall Regents

488 TESOL Journal

and preschool-age children in Korea The group was quite pleasedwith the results because they felt that they confirmed their ownthinking with regard to this issue

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONA number of significant themes emerged from the data The themesreflect the pressure that families feel and their desire for theirchildren to learn English The themes also reflect the overall contextof education in Korea There were some consistencies between thebeliefs expressed and the latest findings in research on EFL teach-ing The first set of results dealt with vocabulary learning The nextaddressed where children should be taught who should teachthem and the role that testing plays in childrenrsquos English languageeducation This leads into the results concerning when to learnEnglish the role of reading and the role of pronunciation

Vocabulary Learning

As seen in Table 1 94 of survey participants said that parentsbelieve memorizing vocabulary items is important The teacherresearchers who generated the items for the Likert scale used theword memorize because they felt that it reflected the way parentsperceive how vocabulary items should be learned Almost unan-imously survey participants agreed with the item The way that itwas phrased is somewhat understandable considering that educa-tion in Korea has historically relied on rote learning However thisfinding is a little surprising because it is not uncommon for Koreanswho learned English in Korea to lament that memorizing voca-bulary items was ineffective in their English language learningprocess

To a limited degree the survey responses are consistent with thelatest vocabulary research that supports the notion that vocabularydevelopment is a cornerstone for academic development in onersquosown language and is pivotal when developing skills in English asa second or foreign language However research in the area ofvocabulary development does not support the notion that memo-rizing vocabulary items is an effective way to expand childrenrsquosvocabularies According to Beck McKeown and Kucan (2002)school-age learners learning in their home language need

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 479

vocabulary instruction that is comprehensive and multifaceted (alsoknown as robust) and need to make personal and cognitiveconnections with the words Effective vocabulary teaching forchildren learning English as a home language or as a second lan-guage is a multifaceted process and occurs over time rather than allat once (Blachowicz et al 2006) Children learning English as asecond language particularly benefit from a comprehensive ap-proach to vocabulary development (Carlo et al 2005)

TABLE 1 Results

Stronglyagree Agree Neutral Disagree

Stronglydisagree

Memorizingvocabulary items isvery important

62 32 4 1 1

Learners learn best bygoing abroad

21 54 20 5 0

Native speakerteachers are betterEnglish teachersthan nonnative-speaking teachers

23 39 21 14 4

A test score is anexcellent indicatorof English languagecompetency andproficiency

25 40 18 17 0

The earlier childrenlearn English thebetter

38 46 12 0 2

Children need to readbooks in English

26 60 11 2 1

Reading novels andreading othermaterials in Englishis very important

28 58 11 2 1

Native-like Englishpronunciation isone of the mostimportant things forstudents to achieve

24 57 11 8 0

480 TESOL Journal

Vocabulary teaching is an important aspect of overall instructionfor children learning English as their home language or as a secondor foreign language To be successful academically children need tohave a rich vocabulary and it must be noted that knowing wordsand definitions in isolation is not a hallmark of a rich vocabularyThe challenge is to help Korean parents who themselves come froma culture that puts a high premium on rote learning understand thenecessity of providing students with robust vocabulary instructionthat enables students to make connections beyond simple memo-rization of the vocabulary items

Where to Learn English

As shown in Table 1 only 5 of survey participants disagreed withthe statement that the best way to learn English is to travel to anEnglish-speaking country Seventy-five percent agreed or stronglyagreed and 20 were neutral neither agreeing nor disagreeingThe word best is important because it suggests that going abroad tolearn English is superior to staying in Korea to learn English Thisfinding is consistent with the large sums that families invest in theirchildrenrsquos English language education overseas for camps or evenestablishing children on their own in English-speaking countriesAccording to Onishi (2008) it is estimated that some 40000 childrenhave gone abroad in part to learn English and in part because offrustration with the Korean education system

Going abroad to study English is not without consequences anddrawbacks According to Chiang-Hom (2004) one of the reasonsthat parents from Asian families send their teenagers to English-speaking countries often without parental supervision is so thatthey can be immersed in an English language environment andimprove their English language skills Study abroad programs alsoare a not a simple panacea and research on such programs hasshown that although it is true that students initially learn the targetlanguage much more quickly in a locale where it is spoken theirskills plateau over time in the target language environment (Rees ampKlapper 2007)

This is an important but not necessarily comforting result forall teachers of English who are working in Korea It suggests thatteachers delivering English instruction in Korea will always be at a

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 481

disadvantage because they are not educating children in an overallEnglish-speaking context Parents may not necessarily weigh thepros and cons of English study abroad when considering this optionfor their children

Who Should Teach English

The teacher researcher group created an item that asked surveyparticipants if parents felt that native English speakers were betterEnglish teachers than nonnative English speakers Table 1 illustratesthat 62 either agreed or strongly agreed that parents believed thisto be true 21 neither agreed nor disagreed and 18 eitherdisagreed or strongly disagreed These results seemed quitesurprising at first because within Korean society on the surfacethere appears to be an overwhelming overt preference for native-English-speaking (NES) teachers in both public and private insti-tutions for school-age learners These teachers are imported toKorea to teach students and are often compensated and treatedbetter than nonnative-English-speaking (NNES) teachers

NES teachers are favored in private English language kinder-gartens and private language schools for primary school studentsand adults However they do not teach secondary school studentsbecause only Korean teachers of English are able to prepare Koreanstudents for the English language section of the Korean universityentrance examination the Korean Scholastic Aptitude Test (KSAT)

The distinction between NES and NNES teachers of English isone that is not always helpful even though the distinction is madebetween teachers and students (Braine 1999) It is important toremember that numerous factors determine a teacherrsquos abilitybeyond whether he or she is a native speaker of English and is ableto deliver English language instruction (Samimy amp Brutt-Griffler1999) However the results obtained from this item help to bring acertain segment of ELT in Korea to the forefront specificallyuniversity entrance examination test preparation for high schoolstudents

The KSAT is written by Korean high school teachers andprofessors many of whom do not have any language testing skillsbut who nevertheless are literally locked away to create this crucialexamination (Choi 2008) Some of the items on the test are written

482 TESOL Journal

in Korean and few native English speakers possess the Koreanlanguage and cultural skills necessary to fully comprehend andprepare students for this high-stakes exam Consequently onlyKoreans are entrusted with preparing learners for this examAccording to M Lee and Larson (2000) within the context ofKorean society the inordinate amount of pressure to perform wellon university entrance examinations is so great that many studentsexperience enormous anxiety It is thus understandable that onlyKorean speakers are the ones trusted to prepare students for anexam that is viewed as pivotal to a learnerrsquos overall success in life

Members of the teacher researcher group were asked specificallyif they agreed with the idea that the reason some participants feltthat NES teachers were not always better was because they cannotprepare students for the KSAT The teacher researchers expressedgenuine pride in their ability to prepare students for the KSATThey also felt strongly that this question touched on the issue thatin some cases monolingual NES teachers are not as capable ofdelivering the same instruction that NNES teachers can deliverThis is significant because it illustrates an area in which NNESteachers have an advantage over native speakers of English NNESteachers too often are viewed in a negative light so it is useful tobalance this perception by highlighting a function that Koreanspeakers can perform better than native English speakers Thisfinding adds a new dimension to the argument that NNES teacherspossess skills that NES teachers lack

Test Scores

The members of the teacher researcher group were acutely aware ofthe role that English language test scores play in Korean society sothey designed an item that specifically addressed how test scoresare perceived Table 1 illustrates how parents view test scores as anexcellent indicator of language competency and proficiency

Doing well on examinations is important for Korean family honorand reflects Confucian values (Paik 2004) Further the emphasis onMinistry of Education multiple-choice tests is pandemic in Korea andmay very well prevent teachers from providing learners with oppor-tunities to develop true communicative skills Thus it is understandablethat parents may equate a good test score with language competency

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 483

and proficiency which in turn indicates that parents may possessmisconceptions about the development of English language skills Thisfinding may be a result of the focus in Korean Society on the KSATwhich is written in Korean by a Korean team

When to Learn English

Survey participants were asked to comment on whether parentsbelieve that the earlier a child learns English the better Table 1shows that 84 either agreed or strongly agreed that earlier wasbetter Only 12 neither agreed nor disagreed or disagreed and 2strongly disagreed

A lsquolsquomagicrsquorsquo time during which a learner can or cannot acquire asecond or new language does not exist and the notion that there isclearly a critical or fixed period for second language acquisitionis false (Hakuta Bialystok amp Wiley 2003 Singleton 2005) Theprocess of becoming bilingual is quite complex due to severalfactors including cognitive environmental political and socialfactors that come into play (Bialystok 2001) Parents may intuitivelyunderstand that there are advantages to their children studyingEnglish at early ages And although there isnrsquot a magic year or timeperiod for learning a second or foreign language there is a declinein learnersrsquo ability to learn a new language that corresponds withaging (Hakuta et al 2003)

The survey points to a clear belief that children will have anadvantage if they start learning English at an early age From acommonsense point of view children are in a better position tolearn a new language than adults simply because they have moretime to devote to the task In addition English is part of thelandscape for children in Korea with English language kinder-gartens and private English language schools in large cities such asSeoul as well as in smaller communities throughout the countryThe government has even set up programs in public schools toteach English to children after school hours as well as Englishlanguage camps

Parents in Korea view knowledge of English as a way to enhancetheir childrenrsquos chances for success and gain elite status in societylater on in life (Park amp Abelmann 2004) Korean parents want theirchildren to embark on the path to English language success as early

484 TESOL Journal

as possible Within the overall context of Korean society parentsbelieve that there are advantages to getting a head start on Englishlanguage study when children are very young

Reading

Several survey items addressed reading because the teacherresearcher group felt this was an issue that needed to be givenpriority when using an inter-item reliability check Two teacherresearchers explained that parents are spending more and moremoney on English language books for their children Eighty-sixpercent of survey participants agreed or strongly agreed thatchildren need to read books in English 3 disagreed or stronglydisagreed and 11 were neutral

Survey participants were also asked if they thought that readingnovels and other materials in English was very important Eighty-six percent felt that this type of reading was very importantwhereas 11 had no opinion and only 3 felt that it was notimportant

These findings are consistent with the trend in Korea for parentsto either purchase childrenrsquos books through large bookstores suchas the major Kyobo bookstores or go through book clubs like theones run by Scholastic to purchase books in English for theirchildren Parents also bring back books from English-speakingcountries when they travel abroad

Reading personally selected books and not merely textbookscan help foreign language learners Mason and Krashen (1997) pointout that extensive reading in a foreign language can be an effectiveway to improve language skills even when learners are in differentsettings and situations A variety of books including fiction andnonfiction can help children as they embark on their journey tolearn English as a new language (Vardell et al 2006) Learnersbenefit from being exposed to easy materials that they themselveshave selected (Day amp Bamford 2002)

Although it is clear from the data that reading English languagebooks is considered to be important it is not clear what types ofbook experiences parents advocate for their children Within thecontext of Korean society and culture the extensive reading expe-rience that parents advocate may differ greatly from the types of

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 485

extensive reading programs cited in the academic literature Afurther area of inquiry would be to examine the types of bookexperiences parents feel are optimal for their children in order toimprove their English language skills

Pronunciation

The teacher researcher group felt that parents put an extremely highpremium on the teaching of pronunciation so they crafted an itemabout whether parents felt that native-like pronunciation was one ofthe most important things for students to achieve The group wascareful to include the phrase lsquolsquoone of the mostrsquorsquo to indicate theimportance that they believe parents place on native-like pronun-ciation As shown in Table 1 81 of survey respondents agreed orstrongly agreed and only 8 disagreed

This finding reflects the emphasis that is placed on phonicspronunciation instruction in Korea Pronunciation could be viewedas a status symbol with more native-like pronunciation being givenhigher status than pronunciation that does not sound as native-likeAlthough phonics and pronunciation are different some teachersand parents may confuse the two concepts because both deal withsounds associated with letters (Linse 2005) Korean parents oftenenroll children from preschool and kindergarten through elemen-tary school in phonics classes as a strategy for helping them developnative-like pronunciation

Korean English language teachers working in the countryrsquospublic primary schools often do not feel satisfied with their ownEnglish pronunciation and feel that it is not what they hoped itwould be (Butler 2004) Although they may not feel comfortablewith their own pronunciation Korean speakers are often the ones inprivate language schools who provide children with initial phonicsinstruction so that they can point out to Korean-speaking childrenhow to articulate English language sounds with native-like pro-nunciation The importance of pronunciation may also be whynative English speakers are frequently employed in Englishlanguage kindergartens and private language schools alongsideKorean teachers

486 TESOL Journal

Limitations

The sample consisted of teachers who may not be completelycognizant of parental perceptions even though they share the samecultural background as the parents However it is important to takeinto account what teachers perceive to be parental beliefs inreference to English language development and to directly andindirectly address these perceptions The teachers in the study wereKorean and represent the Korean cultural belief systems and wereable to begin to identify issues that parents see as prominent This isan important first step in initiating conversations between parentsand teachers about the process of learning English as a foreignlanguage

CONCLUSIONThe purpose of this article was to begin to examine what teachersbelieve to be Korean parentsrsquo perceptions with regard to the processof their children learning English as a foreign language The articleidentified perceptions so that English language teachers will be in abetter position to begin the process of forming partnerships withparents of school-age and preschool or kindergarten learners inKorea

The results clearly illustrate how the Korean culture impactsperceptions about learning English and the importance of framinginformation about ELT in the local cultural context Participantsexpressed the view that parents believe in the importance ofmemorizing vocabulary as well as reading in the quest for childrento learn English This clearly reflects the overall context of Koreaneducation that emphasizes literacy and in the case of vocabularyrote learning There were also perceptions about when Englishshould be taught to young learners where and by whom It wassurprising to note that native English speakers were not alwaysidentified as the best people to teach English because they generallydo not possess the cultural and linguistic capital to prepare learnersfor the KSAT

When parents make comments about English language edu-cation it is important to consider the cultural context related toEnglish education and to education in general For example it is tooeasy to say that parents are wrong in their belief that memorization

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 487

is the best way to learn vocabulary Instead it is better to questionwhy parents make such a remark By framing parentsrsquo remarks inthe local context it will be easier to engage in a dialogue rather thanan argument Teachers need help learning how to reflect on andconsider what parents say

Parents are such important stakeholders that teachers of youngEFL learners should be cognizant of them in virtually every culturalsetting This research underscores the important role that the cul-tural context plays in the English language education of school-ageand preschool-age learners Further the cultural context should betaken into account when considering parentsrsquo expectations ofEnglish language instructional programs for young learners

THE AUTHORCaroline Linse is a senior lecturer at Queenrsquos University Belfastwhere she teaches in both the masterrsquos and doctoral programs inTESOL She has extensive experience teaching English to younglearners in a wide range of international contexts and is the authorof a variety of materials for learners as well as their teachers Inaddition she has lived and worked in South Korea with teachersserving learners of all ages

REFERENCESBast J L amp Walberg H J (2004) Can parents choose the best

schools for their children Economics of Education Review 23 431ndash440 doi101016jeconedurev200308003

Beck I L McKeown M G amp Kucan L (2004) Bringing words tolife Robust vocabulary instruction New York NY Guilford Press

Bialystok E (2001) Bilingualism in development Language literacyand cognition Cambridge England Cambridge University Press

Blachowicz C L Z Fisher P J L Ogle D amp Watts-Taffe S(2006) Vocabulary Questions from the classroom ReadingResearch Quarterly 41 524ndash539 doi101598RRQ4145

Braine G (1999) Non-native educators in English language teachingMahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Brown H D (1995) Principles of language learning and teaching (3rded) Englewood Cliffs NJ Prentice Hall Regents

488 TESOL Journal

vocabulary instruction that is comprehensive and multifaceted (alsoknown as robust) and need to make personal and cognitiveconnections with the words Effective vocabulary teaching forchildren learning English as a home language or as a second lan-guage is a multifaceted process and occurs over time rather than allat once (Blachowicz et al 2006) Children learning English as asecond language particularly benefit from a comprehensive ap-proach to vocabulary development (Carlo et al 2005)

TABLE 1 Results

Stronglyagree Agree Neutral Disagree

Stronglydisagree

Memorizingvocabulary items isvery important

62 32 4 1 1

Learners learn best bygoing abroad

21 54 20 5 0

Native speakerteachers are betterEnglish teachersthan nonnative-speaking teachers

23 39 21 14 4

A test score is anexcellent indicatorof English languagecompetency andproficiency

25 40 18 17 0

The earlier childrenlearn English thebetter

38 46 12 0 2

Children need to readbooks in English

26 60 11 2 1

Reading novels andreading othermaterials in Englishis very important

28 58 11 2 1

Native-like Englishpronunciation isone of the mostimportant things forstudents to achieve

24 57 11 8 0

480 TESOL Journal

Vocabulary teaching is an important aspect of overall instructionfor children learning English as their home language or as a secondor foreign language To be successful academically children need tohave a rich vocabulary and it must be noted that knowing wordsand definitions in isolation is not a hallmark of a rich vocabularyThe challenge is to help Korean parents who themselves come froma culture that puts a high premium on rote learning understand thenecessity of providing students with robust vocabulary instructionthat enables students to make connections beyond simple memo-rization of the vocabulary items

Where to Learn English

As shown in Table 1 only 5 of survey participants disagreed withthe statement that the best way to learn English is to travel to anEnglish-speaking country Seventy-five percent agreed or stronglyagreed and 20 were neutral neither agreeing nor disagreeingThe word best is important because it suggests that going abroad tolearn English is superior to staying in Korea to learn English Thisfinding is consistent with the large sums that families invest in theirchildrenrsquos English language education overseas for camps or evenestablishing children on their own in English-speaking countriesAccording to Onishi (2008) it is estimated that some 40000 childrenhave gone abroad in part to learn English and in part because offrustration with the Korean education system

Going abroad to study English is not without consequences anddrawbacks According to Chiang-Hom (2004) one of the reasonsthat parents from Asian families send their teenagers to English-speaking countries often without parental supervision is so thatthey can be immersed in an English language environment andimprove their English language skills Study abroad programs alsoare a not a simple panacea and research on such programs hasshown that although it is true that students initially learn the targetlanguage much more quickly in a locale where it is spoken theirskills plateau over time in the target language environment (Rees ampKlapper 2007)

This is an important but not necessarily comforting result forall teachers of English who are working in Korea It suggests thatteachers delivering English instruction in Korea will always be at a

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 481

disadvantage because they are not educating children in an overallEnglish-speaking context Parents may not necessarily weigh thepros and cons of English study abroad when considering this optionfor their children

Who Should Teach English

The teacher researcher group created an item that asked surveyparticipants if parents felt that native English speakers were betterEnglish teachers than nonnative English speakers Table 1 illustratesthat 62 either agreed or strongly agreed that parents believed thisto be true 21 neither agreed nor disagreed and 18 eitherdisagreed or strongly disagreed These results seemed quitesurprising at first because within Korean society on the surfacethere appears to be an overwhelming overt preference for native-English-speaking (NES) teachers in both public and private insti-tutions for school-age learners These teachers are imported toKorea to teach students and are often compensated and treatedbetter than nonnative-English-speaking (NNES) teachers

NES teachers are favored in private English language kinder-gartens and private language schools for primary school studentsand adults However they do not teach secondary school studentsbecause only Korean teachers of English are able to prepare Koreanstudents for the English language section of the Korean universityentrance examination the Korean Scholastic Aptitude Test (KSAT)

The distinction between NES and NNES teachers of English isone that is not always helpful even though the distinction is madebetween teachers and students (Braine 1999) It is important toremember that numerous factors determine a teacherrsquos abilitybeyond whether he or she is a native speaker of English and is ableto deliver English language instruction (Samimy amp Brutt-Griffler1999) However the results obtained from this item help to bring acertain segment of ELT in Korea to the forefront specificallyuniversity entrance examination test preparation for high schoolstudents

The KSAT is written by Korean high school teachers andprofessors many of whom do not have any language testing skillsbut who nevertheless are literally locked away to create this crucialexamination (Choi 2008) Some of the items on the test are written

482 TESOL Journal

in Korean and few native English speakers possess the Koreanlanguage and cultural skills necessary to fully comprehend andprepare students for this high-stakes exam Consequently onlyKoreans are entrusted with preparing learners for this examAccording to M Lee and Larson (2000) within the context ofKorean society the inordinate amount of pressure to perform wellon university entrance examinations is so great that many studentsexperience enormous anxiety It is thus understandable that onlyKorean speakers are the ones trusted to prepare students for anexam that is viewed as pivotal to a learnerrsquos overall success in life

Members of the teacher researcher group were asked specificallyif they agreed with the idea that the reason some participants feltthat NES teachers were not always better was because they cannotprepare students for the KSAT The teacher researchers expressedgenuine pride in their ability to prepare students for the KSATThey also felt strongly that this question touched on the issue thatin some cases monolingual NES teachers are not as capable ofdelivering the same instruction that NNES teachers can deliverThis is significant because it illustrates an area in which NNESteachers have an advantage over native speakers of English NNESteachers too often are viewed in a negative light so it is useful tobalance this perception by highlighting a function that Koreanspeakers can perform better than native English speakers Thisfinding adds a new dimension to the argument that NNES teacherspossess skills that NES teachers lack

Test Scores

The members of the teacher researcher group were acutely aware ofthe role that English language test scores play in Korean society sothey designed an item that specifically addressed how test scoresare perceived Table 1 illustrates how parents view test scores as anexcellent indicator of language competency and proficiency

Doing well on examinations is important for Korean family honorand reflects Confucian values (Paik 2004) Further the emphasis onMinistry of Education multiple-choice tests is pandemic in Korea andmay very well prevent teachers from providing learners with oppor-tunities to develop true communicative skills Thus it is understandablethat parents may equate a good test score with language competency

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 483

and proficiency which in turn indicates that parents may possessmisconceptions about the development of English language skills Thisfinding may be a result of the focus in Korean Society on the KSATwhich is written in Korean by a Korean team

When to Learn English

Survey participants were asked to comment on whether parentsbelieve that the earlier a child learns English the better Table 1shows that 84 either agreed or strongly agreed that earlier wasbetter Only 12 neither agreed nor disagreed or disagreed and 2strongly disagreed

A lsquolsquomagicrsquorsquo time during which a learner can or cannot acquire asecond or new language does not exist and the notion that there isclearly a critical or fixed period for second language acquisitionis false (Hakuta Bialystok amp Wiley 2003 Singleton 2005) Theprocess of becoming bilingual is quite complex due to severalfactors including cognitive environmental political and socialfactors that come into play (Bialystok 2001) Parents may intuitivelyunderstand that there are advantages to their children studyingEnglish at early ages And although there isnrsquot a magic year or timeperiod for learning a second or foreign language there is a declinein learnersrsquo ability to learn a new language that corresponds withaging (Hakuta et al 2003)

The survey points to a clear belief that children will have anadvantage if they start learning English at an early age From acommonsense point of view children are in a better position tolearn a new language than adults simply because they have moretime to devote to the task In addition English is part of thelandscape for children in Korea with English language kinder-gartens and private English language schools in large cities such asSeoul as well as in smaller communities throughout the countryThe government has even set up programs in public schools toteach English to children after school hours as well as Englishlanguage camps

Parents in Korea view knowledge of English as a way to enhancetheir childrenrsquos chances for success and gain elite status in societylater on in life (Park amp Abelmann 2004) Korean parents want theirchildren to embark on the path to English language success as early

484 TESOL Journal

as possible Within the overall context of Korean society parentsbelieve that there are advantages to getting a head start on Englishlanguage study when children are very young

Reading

Several survey items addressed reading because the teacherresearcher group felt this was an issue that needed to be givenpriority when using an inter-item reliability check Two teacherresearchers explained that parents are spending more and moremoney on English language books for their children Eighty-sixpercent of survey participants agreed or strongly agreed thatchildren need to read books in English 3 disagreed or stronglydisagreed and 11 were neutral

Survey participants were also asked if they thought that readingnovels and other materials in English was very important Eighty-six percent felt that this type of reading was very importantwhereas 11 had no opinion and only 3 felt that it was notimportant

These findings are consistent with the trend in Korea for parentsto either purchase childrenrsquos books through large bookstores suchas the major Kyobo bookstores or go through book clubs like theones run by Scholastic to purchase books in English for theirchildren Parents also bring back books from English-speakingcountries when they travel abroad

Reading personally selected books and not merely textbookscan help foreign language learners Mason and Krashen (1997) pointout that extensive reading in a foreign language can be an effectiveway to improve language skills even when learners are in differentsettings and situations A variety of books including fiction andnonfiction can help children as they embark on their journey tolearn English as a new language (Vardell et al 2006) Learnersbenefit from being exposed to easy materials that they themselveshave selected (Day amp Bamford 2002)

Although it is clear from the data that reading English languagebooks is considered to be important it is not clear what types ofbook experiences parents advocate for their children Within thecontext of Korean society and culture the extensive reading expe-rience that parents advocate may differ greatly from the types of

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 485

extensive reading programs cited in the academic literature Afurther area of inquiry would be to examine the types of bookexperiences parents feel are optimal for their children in order toimprove their English language skills

Pronunciation

The teacher researcher group felt that parents put an extremely highpremium on the teaching of pronunciation so they crafted an itemabout whether parents felt that native-like pronunciation was one ofthe most important things for students to achieve The group wascareful to include the phrase lsquolsquoone of the mostrsquorsquo to indicate theimportance that they believe parents place on native-like pronun-ciation As shown in Table 1 81 of survey respondents agreed orstrongly agreed and only 8 disagreed

This finding reflects the emphasis that is placed on phonicspronunciation instruction in Korea Pronunciation could be viewedas a status symbol with more native-like pronunciation being givenhigher status than pronunciation that does not sound as native-likeAlthough phonics and pronunciation are different some teachersand parents may confuse the two concepts because both deal withsounds associated with letters (Linse 2005) Korean parents oftenenroll children from preschool and kindergarten through elemen-tary school in phonics classes as a strategy for helping them developnative-like pronunciation

Korean English language teachers working in the countryrsquospublic primary schools often do not feel satisfied with their ownEnglish pronunciation and feel that it is not what they hoped itwould be (Butler 2004) Although they may not feel comfortablewith their own pronunciation Korean speakers are often the ones inprivate language schools who provide children with initial phonicsinstruction so that they can point out to Korean-speaking childrenhow to articulate English language sounds with native-like pro-nunciation The importance of pronunciation may also be whynative English speakers are frequently employed in Englishlanguage kindergartens and private language schools alongsideKorean teachers

486 TESOL Journal

Limitations

The sample consisted of teachers who may not be completelycognizant of parental perceptions even though they share the samecultural background as the parents However it is important to takeinto account what teachers perceive to be parental beliefs inreference to English language development and to directly andindirectly address these perceptions The teachers in the study wereKorean and represent the Korean cultural belief systems and wereable to begin to identify issues that parents see as prominent This isan important first step in initiating conversations between parentsand teachers about the process of learning English as a foreignlanguage

CONCLUSIONThe purpose of this article was to begin to examine what teachersbelieve to be Korean parentsrsquo perceptions with regard to the processof their children learning English as a foreign language The articleidentified perceptions so that English language teachers will be in abetter position to begin the process of forming partnerships withparents of school-age and preschool or kindergarten learners inKorea

The results clearly illustrate how the Korean culture impactsperceptions about learning English and the importance of framinginformation about ELT in the local cultural context Participantsexpressed the view that parents believe in the importance ofmemorizing vocabulary as well as reading in the quest for childrento learn English This clearly reflects the overall context of Koreaneducation that emphasizes literacy and in the case of vocabularyrote learning There were also perceptions about when Englishshould be taught to young learners where and by whom It wassurprising to note that native English speakers were not alwaysidentified as the best people to teach English because they generallydo not possess the cultural and linguistic capital to prepare learnersfor the KSAT

When parents make comments about English language edu-cation it is important to consider the cultural context related toEnglish education and to education in general For example it is tooeasy to say that parents are wrong in their belief that memorization

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 487

is the best way to learn vocabulary Instead it is better to questionwhy parents make such a remark By framing parentsrsquo remarks inthe local context it will be easier to engage in a dialogue rather thanan argument Teachers need help learning how to reflect on andconsider what parents say

Parents are such important stakeholders that teachers of youngEFL learners should be cognizant of them in virtually every culturalsetting This research underscores the important role that the cul-tural context plays in the English language education of school-ageand preschool-age learners Further the cultural context should betaken into account when considering parentsrsquo expectations ofEnglish language instructional programs for young learners

THE AUTHORCaroline Linse is a senior lecturer at Queenrsquos University Belfastwhere she teaches in both the masterrsquos and doctoral programs inTESOL She has extensive experience teaching English to younglearners in a wide range of international contexts and is the authorof a variety of materials for learners as well as their teachers Inaddition she has lived and worked in South Korea with teachersserving learners of all ages

REFERENCESBast J L amp Walberg H J (2004) Can parents choose the best

schools for their children Economics of Education Review 23 431ndash440 doi101016jeconedurev200308003

Beck I L McKeown M G amp Kucan L (2004) Bringing words tolife Robust vocabulary instruction New York NY Guilford Press

Bialystok E (2001) Bilingualism in development Language literacyand cognition Cambridge England Cambridge University Press

Blachowicz C L Z Fisher P J L Ogle D amp Watts-Taffe S(2006) Vocabulary Questions from the classroom ReadingResearch Quarterly 41 524ndash539 doi101598RRQ4145

Braine G (1999) Non-native educators in English language teachingMahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Brown H D (1995) Principles of language learning and teaching (3rded) Englewood Cliffs NJ Prentice Hall Regents

488 TESOL Journal

Vocabulary teaching is an important aspect of overall instructionfor children learning English as their home language or as a secondor foreign language To be successful academically children need tohave a rich vocabulary and it must be noted that knowing wordsand definitions in isolation is not a hallmark of a rich vocabularyThe challenge is to help Korean parents who themselves come froma culture that puts a high premium on rote learning understand thenecessity of providing students with robust vocabulary instructionthat enables students to make connections beyond simple memo-rization of the vocabulary items

Where to Learn English

As shown in Table 1 only 5 of survey participants disagreed withthe statement that the best way to learn English is to travel to anEnglish-speaking country Seventy-five percent agreed or stronglyagreed and 20 were neutral neither agreeing nor disagreeingThe word best is important because it suggests that going abroad tolearn English is superior to staying in Korea to learn English Thisfinding is consistent with the large sums that families invest in theirchildrenrsquos English language education overseas for camps or evenestablishing children on their own in English-speaking countriesAccording to Onishi (2008) it is estimated that some 40000 childrenhave gone abroad in part to learn English and in part because offrustration with the Korean education system

Going abroad to study English is not without consequences anddrawbacks According to Chiang-Hom (2004) one of the reasonsthat parents from Asian families send their teenagers to English-speaking countries often without parental supervision is so thatthey can be immersed in an English language environment andimprove their English language skills Study abroad programs alsoare a not a simple panacea and research on such programs hasshown that although it is true that students initially learn the targetlanguage much more quickly in a locale where it is spoken theirskills plateau over time in the target language environment (Rees ampKlapper 2007)

This is an important but not necessarily comforting result forall teachers of English who are working in Korea It suggests thatteachers delivering English instruction in Korea will always be at a

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 481

disadvantage because they are not educating children in an overallEnglish-speaking context Parents may not necessarily weigh thepros and cons of English study abroad when considering this optionfor their children

Who Should Teach English

The teacher researcher group created an item that asked surveyparticipants if parents felt that native English speakers were betterEnglish teachers than nonnative English speakers Table 1 illustratesthat 62 either agreed or strongly agreed that parents believed thisto be true 21 neither agreed nor disagreed and 18 eitherdisagreed or strongly disagreed These results seemed quitesurprising at first because within Korean society on the surfacethere appears to be an overwhelming overt preference for native-English-speaking (NES) teachers in both public and private insti-tutions for school-age learners These teachers are imported toKorea to teach students and are often compensated and treatedbetter than nonnative-English-speaking (NNES) teachers

NES teachers are favored in private English language kinder-gartens and private language schools for primary school studentsand adults However they do not teach secondary school studentsbecause only Korean teachers of English are able to prepare Koreanstudents for the English language section of the Korean universityentrance examination the Korean Scholastic Aptitude Test (KSAT)

The distinction between NES and NNES teachers of English isone that is not always helpful even though the distinction is madebetween teachers and students (Braine 1999) It is important toremember that numerous factors determine a teacherrsquos abilitybeyond whether he or she is a native speaker of English and is ableto deliver English language instruction (Samimy amp Brutt-Griffler1999) However the results obtained from this item help to bring acertain segment of ELT in Korea to the forefront specificallyuniversity entrance examination test preparation for high schoolstudents

The KSAT is written by Korean high school teachers andprofessors many of whom do not have any language testing skillsbut who nevertheless are literally locked away to create this crucialexamination (Choi 2008) Some of the items on the test are written

482 TESOL Journal

in Korean and few native English speakers possess the Koreanlanguage and cultural skills necessary to fully comprehend andprepare students for this high-stakes exam Consequently onlyKoreans are entrusted with preparing learners for this examAccording to M Lee and Larson (2000) within the context ofKorean society the inordinate amount of pressure to perform wellon university entrance examinations is so great that many studentsexperience enormous anxiety It is thus understandable that onlyKorean speakers are the ones trusted to prepare students for anexam that is viewed as pivotal to a learnerrsquos overall success in life

Members of the teacher researcher group were asked specificallyif they agreed with the idea that the reason some participants feltthat NES teachers were not always better was because they cannotprepare students for the KSAT The teacher researchers expressedgenuine pride in their ability to prepare students for the KSATThey also felt strongly that this question touched on the issue thatin some cases monolingual NES teachers are not as capable ofdelivering the same instruction that NNES teachers can deliverThis is significant because it illustrates an area in which NNESteachers have an advantage over native speakers of English NNESteachers too often are viewed in a negative light so it is useful tobalance this perception by highlighting a function that Koreanspeakers can perform better than native English speakers Thisfinding adds a new dimension to the argument that NNES teacherspossess skills that NES teachers lack

Test Scores

The members of the teacher researcher group were acutely aware ofthe role that English language test scores play in Korean society sothey designed an item that specifically addressed how test scoresare perceived Table 1 illustrates how parents view test scores as anexcellent indicator of language competency and proficiency

Doing well on examinations is important for Korean family honorand reflects Confucian values (Paik 2004) Further the emphasis onMinistry of Education multiple-choice tests is pandemic in Korea andmay very well prevent teachers from providing learners with oppor-tunities to develop true communicative skills Thus it is understandablethat parents may equate a good test score with language competency

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 483

and proficiency which in turn indicates that parents may possessmisconceptions about the development of English language skills Thisfinding may be a result of the focus in Korean Society on the KSATwhich is written in Korean by a Korean team

When to Learn English

Survey participants were asked to comment on whether parentsbelieve that the earlier a child learns English the better Table 1shows that 84 either agreed or strongly agreed that earlier wasbetter Only 12 neither agreed nor disagreed or disagreed and 2strongly disagreed

A lsquolsquomagicrsquorsquo time during which a learner can or cannot acquire asecond or new language does not exist and the notion that there isclearly a critical or fixed period for second language acquisitionis false (Hakuta Bialystok amp Wiley 2003 Singleton 2005) Theprocess of becoming bilingual is quite complex due to severalfactors including cognitive environmental political and socialfactors that come into play (Bialystok 2001) Parents may intuitivelyunderstand that there are advantages to their children studyingEnglish at early ages And although there isnrsquot a magic year or timeperiod for learning a second or foreign language there is a declinein learnersrsquo ability to learn a new language that corresponds withaging (Hakuta et al 2003)

The survey points to a clear belief that children will have anadvantage if they start learning English at an early age From acommonsense point of view children are in a better position tolearn a new language than adults simply because they have moretime to devote to the task In addition English is part of thelandscape for children in Korea with English language kinder-gartens and private English language schools in large cities such asSeoul as well as in smaller communities throughout the countryThe government has even set up programs in public schools toteach English to children after school hours as well as Englishlanguage camps

Parents in Korea view knowledge of English as a way to enhancetheir childrenrsquos chances for success and gain elite status in societylater on in life (Park amp Abelmann 2004) Korean parents want theirchildren to embark on the path to English language success as early

484 TESOL Journal

as possible Within the overall context of Korean society parentsbelieve that there are advantages to getting a head start on Englishlanguage study when children are very young

Reading

Several survey items addressed reading because the teacherresearcher group felt this was an issue that needed to be givenpriority when using an inter-item reliability check Two teacherresearchers explained that parents are spending more and moremoney on English language books for their children Eighty-sixpercent of survey participants agreed or strongly agreed thatchildren need to read books in English 3 disagreed or stronglydisagreed and 11 were neutral

Survey participants were also asked if they thought that readingnovels and other materials in English was very important Eighty-six percent felt that this type of reading was very importantwhereas 11 had no opinion and only 3 felt that it was notimportant

These findings are consistent with the trend in Korea for parentsto either purchase childrenrsquos books through large bookstores suchas the major Kyobo bookstores or go through book clubs like theones run by Scholastic to purchase books in English for theirchildren Parents also bring back books from English-speakingcountries when they travel abroad

Reading personally selected books and not merely textbookscan help foreign language learners Mason and Krashen (1997) pointout that extensive reading in a foreign language can be an effectiveway to improve language skills even when learners are in differentsettings and situations A variety of books including fiction andnonfiction can help children as they embark on their journey tolearn English as a new language (Vardell et al 2006) Learnersbenefit from being exposed to easy materials that they themselveshave selected (Day amp Bamford 2002)

Although it is clear from the data that reading English languagebooks is considered to be important it is not clear what types ofbook experiences parents advocate for their children Within thecontext of Korean society and culture the extensive reading expe-rience that parents advocate may differ greatly from the types of

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 485

extensive reading programs cited in the academic literature Afurther area of inquiry would be to examine the types of bookexperiences parents feel are optimal for their children in order toimprove their English language skills

Pronunciation

The teacher researcher group felt that parents put an extremely highpremium on the teaching of pronunciation so they crafted an itemabout whether parents felt that native-like pronunciation was one ofthe most important things for students to achieve The group wascareful to include the phrase lsquolsquoone of the mostrsquorsquo to indicate theimportance that they believe parents place on native-like pronun-ciation As shown in Table 1 81 of survey respondents agreed orstrongly agreed and only 8 disagreed

This finding reflects the emphasis that is placed on phonicspronunciation instruction in Korea Pronunciation could be viewedas a status symbol with more native-like pronunciation being givenhigher status than pronunciation that does not sound as native-likeAlthough phonics and pronunciation are different some teachersand parents may confuse the two concepts because both deal withsounds associated with letters (Linse 2005) Korean parents oftenenroll children from preschool and kindergarten through elemen-tary school in phonics classes as a strategy for helping them developnative-like pronunciation

Korean English language teachers working in the countryrsquospublic primary schools often do not feel satisfied with their ownEnglish pronunciation and feel that it is not what they hoped itwould be (Butler 2004) Although they may not feel comfortablewith their own pronunciation Korean speakers are often the ones inprivate language schools who provide children with initial phonicsinstruction so that they can point out to Korean-speaking childrenhow to articulate English language sounds with native-like pro-nunciation The importance of pronunciation may also be whynative English speakers are frequently employed in Englishlanguage kindergartens and private language schools alongsideKorean teachers

486 TESOL Journal

Limitations

The sample consisted of teachers who may not be completelycognizant of parental perceptions even though they share the samecultural background as the parents However it is important to takeinto account what teachers perceive to be parental beliefs inreference to English language development and to directly andindirectly address these perceptions The teachers in the study wereKorean and represent the Korean cultural belief systems and wereable to begin to identify issues that parents see as prominent This isan important first step in initiating conversations between parentsand teachers about the process of learning English as a foreignlanguage

CONCLUSIONThe purpose of this article was to begin to examine what teachersbelieve to be Korean parentsrsquo perceptions with regard to the processof their children learning English as a foreign language The articleidentified perceptions so that English language teachers will be in abetter position to begin the process of forming partnerships withparents of school-age and preschool or kindergarten learners inKorea

The results clearly illustrate how the Korean culture impactsperceptions about learning English and the importance of framinginformation about ELT in the local cultural context Participantsexpressed the view that parents believe in the importance ofmemorizing vocabulary as well as reading in the quest for childrento learn English This clearly reflects the overall context of Koreaneducation that emphasizes literacy and in the case of vocabularyrote learning There were also perceptions about when Englishshould be taught to young learners where and by whom It wassurprising to note that native English speakers were not alwaysidentified as the best people to teach English because they generallydo not possess the cultural and linguistic capital to prepare learnersfor the KSAT

When parents make comments about English language edu-cation it is important to consider the cultural context related toEnglish education and to education in general For example it is tooeasy to say that parents are wrong in their belief that memorization

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 487

is the best way to learn vocabulary Instead it is better to questionwhy parents make such a remark By framing parentsrsquo remarks inthe local context it will be easier to engage in a dialogue rather thanan argument Teachers need help learning how to reflect on andconsider what parents say

Parents are such important stakeholders that teachers of youngEFL learners should be cognizant of them in virtually every culturalsetting This research underscores the important role that the cul-tural context plays in the English language education of school-ageand preschool-age learners Further the cultural context should betaken into account when considering parentsrsquo expectations ofEnglish language instructional programs for young learners

THE AUTHORCaroline Linse is a senior lecturer at Queenrsquos University Belfastwhere she teaches in both the masterrsquos and doctoral programs inTESOL She has extensive experience teaching English to younglearners in a wide range of international contexts and is the authorof a variety of materials for learners as well as their teachers Inaddition she has lived and worked in South Korea with teachersserving learners of all ages

REFERENCESBast J L amp Walberg H J (2004) Can parents choose the best

schools for their children Economics of Education Review 23 431ndash440 doi101016jeconedurev200308003

Beck I L McKeown M G amp Kucan L (2004) Bringing words tolife Robust vocabulary instruction New York NY Guilford Press

Bialystok E (2001) Bilingualism in development Language literacyand cognition Cambridge England Cambridge University Press

Blachowicz C L Z Fisher P J L Ogle D amp Watts-Taffe S(2006) Vocabulary Questions from the classroom ReadingResearch Quarterly 41 524ndash539 doi101598RRQ4145

Braine G (1999) Non-native educators in English language teachingMahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Brown H D (1995) Principles of language learning and teaching (3rded) Englewood Cliffs NJ Prentice Hall Regents

488 TESOL Journal

disadvantage because they are not educating children in an overallEnglish-speaking context Parents may not necessarily weigh thepros and cons of English study abroad when considering this optionfor their children

Who Should Teach English

The teacher researcher group created an item that asked surveyparticipants if parents felt that native English speakers were betterEnglish teachers than nonnative English speakers Table 1 illustratesthat 62 either agreed or strongly agreed that parents believed thisto be true 21 neither agreed nor disagreed and 18 eitherdisagreed or strongly disagreed These results seemed quitesurprising at first because within Korean society on the surfacethere appears to be an overwhelming overt preference for native-English-speaking (NES) teachers in both public and private insti-tutions for school-age learners These teachers are imported toKorea to teach students and are often compensated and treatedbetter than nonnative-English-speaking (NNES) teachers

NES teachers are favored in private English language kinder-gartens and private language schools for primary school studentsand adults However they do not teach secondary school studentsbecause only Korean teachers of English are able to prepare Koreanstudents for the English language section of the Korean universityentrance examination the Korean Scholastic Aptitude Test (KSAT)

The distinction between NES and NNES teachers of English isone that is not always helpful even though the distinction is madebetween teachers and students (Braine 1999) It is important toremember that numerous factors determine a teacherrsquos abilitybeyond whether he or she is a native speaker of English and is ableto deliver English language instruction (Samimy amp Brutt-Griffler1999) However the results obtained from this item help to bring acertain segment of ELT in Korea to the forefront specificallyuniversity entrance examination test preparation for high schoolstudents

The KSAT is written by Korean high school teachers andprofessors many of whom do not have any language testing skillsbut who nevertheless are literally locked away to create this crucialexamination (Choi 2008) Some of the items on the test are written

482 TESOL Journal

in Korean and few native English speakers possess the Koreanlanguage and cultural skills necessary to fully comprehend andprepare students for this high-stakes exam Consequently onlyKoreans are entrusted with preparing learners for this examAccording to M Lee and Larson (2000) within the context ofKorean society the inordinate amount of pressure to perform wellon university entrance examinations is so great that many studentsexperience enormous anxiety It is thus understandable that onlyKorean speakers are the ones trusted to prepare students for anexam that is viewed as pivotal to a learnerrsquos overall success in life

Members of the teacher researcher group were asked specificallyif they agreed with the idea that the reason some participants feltthat NES teachers were not always better was because they cannotprepare students for the KSAT The teacher researchers expressedgenuine pride in their ability to prepare students for the KSATThey also felt strongly that this question touched on the issue thatin some cases monolingual NES teachers are not as capable ofdelivering the same instruction that NNES teachers can deliverThis is significant because it illustrates an area in which NNESteachers have an advantage over native speakers of English NNESteachers too often are viewed in a negative light so it is useful tobalance this perception by highlighting a function that Koreanspeakers can perform better than native English speakers Thisfinding adds a new dimension to the argument that NNES teacherspossess skills that NES teachers lack

Test Scores

The members of the teacher researcher group were acutely aware ofthe role that English language test scores play in Korean society sothey designed an item that specifically addressed how test scoresare perceived Table 1 illustrates how parents view test scores as anexcellent indicator of language competency and proficiency

Doing well on examinations is important for Korean family honorand reflects Confucian values (Paik 2004) Further the emphasis onMinistry of Education multiple-choice tests is pandemic in Korea andmay very well prevent teachers from providing learners with oppor-tunities to develop true communicative skills Thus it is understandablethat parents may equate a good test score with language competency

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 483

and proficiency which in turn indicates that parents may possessmisconceptions about the development of English language skills Thisfinding may be a result of the focus in Korean Society on the KSATwhich is written in Korean by a Korean team

When to Learn English

Survey participants were asked to comment on whether parentsbelieve that the earlier a child learns English the better Table 1shows that 84 either agreed or strongly agreed that earlier wasbetter Only 12 neither agreed nor disagreed or disagreed and 2strongly disagreed

A lsquolsquomagicrsquorsquo time during which a learner can or cannot acquire asecond or new language does not exist and the notion that there isclearly a critical or fixed period for second language acquisitionis false (Hakuta Bialystok amp Wiley 2003 Singleton 2005) Theprocess of becoming bilingual is quite complex due to severalfactors including cognitive environmental political and socialfactors that come into play (Bialystok 2001) Parents may intuitivelyunderstand that there are advantages to their children studyingEnglish at early ages And although there isnrsquot a magic year or timeperiod for learning a second or foreign language there is a declinein learnersrsquo ability to learn a new language that corresponds withaging (Hakuta et al 2003)

The survey points to a clear belief that children will have anadvantage if they start learning English at an early age From acommonsense point of view children are in a better position tolearn a new language than adults simply because they have moretime to devote to the task In addition English is part of thelandscape for children in Korea with English language kinder-gartens and private English language schools in large cities such asSeoul as well as in smaller communities throughout the countryThe government has even set up programs in public schools toteach English to children after school hours as well as Englishlanguage camps

Parents in Korea view knowledge of English as a way to enhancetheir childrenrsquos chances for success and gain elite status in societylater on in life (Park amp Abelmann 2004) Korean parents want theirchildren to embark on the path to English language success as early

484 TESOL Journal

as possible Within the overall context of Korean society parentsbelieve that there are advantages to getting a head start on Englishlanguage study when children are very young

Reading

Several survey items addressed reading because the teacherresearcher group felt this was an issue that needed to be givenpriority when using an inter-item reliability check Two teacherresearchers explained that parents are spending more and moremoney on English language books for their children Eighty-sixpercent of survey participants agreed or strongly agreed thatchildren need to read books in English 3 disagreed or stronglydisagreed and 11 were neutral

Survey participants were also asked if they thought that readingnovels and other materials in English was very important Eighty-six percent felt that this type of reading was very importantwhereas 11 had no opinion and only 3 felt that it was notimportant

These findings are consistent with the trend in Korea for parentsto either purchase childrenrsquos books through large bookstores suchas the major Kyobo bookstores or go through book clubs like theones run by Scholastic to purchase books in English for theirchildren Parents also bring back books from English-speakingcountries when they travel abroad

Reading personally selected books and not merely textbookscan help foreign language learners Mason and Krashen (1997) pointout that extensive reading in a foreign language can be an effectiveway to improve language skills even when learners are in differentsettings and situations A variety of books including fiction andnonfiction can help children as they embark on their journey tolearn English as a new language (Vardell et al 2006) Learnersbenefit from being exposed to easy materials that they themselveshave selected (Day amp Bamford 2002)

Although it is clear from the data that reading English languagebooks is considered to be important it is not clear what types ofbook experiences parents advocate for their children Within thecontext of Korean society and culture the extensive reading expe-rience that parents advocate may differ greatly from the types of

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 485

extensive reading programs cited in the academic literature Afurther area of inquiry would be to examine the types of bookexperiences parents feel are optimal for their children in order toimprove their English language skills

Pronunciation

The teacher researcher group felt that parents put an extremely highpremium on the teaching of pronunciation so they crafted an itemabout whether parents felt that native-like pronunciation was one ofthe most important things for students to achieve The group wascareful to include the phrase lsquolsquoone of the mostrsquorsquo to indicate theimportance that they believe parents place on native-like pronun-ciation As shown in Table 1 81 of survey respondents agreed orstrongly agreed and only 8 disagreed

This finding reflects the emphasis that is placed on phonicspronunciation instruction in Korea Pronunciation could be viewedas a status symbol with more native-like pronunciation being givenhigher status than pronunciation that does not sound as native-likeAlthough phonics and pronunciation are different some teachersand parents may confuse the two concepts because both deal withsounds associated with letters (Linse 2005) Korean parents oftenenroll children from preschool and kindergarten through elemen-tary school in phonics classes as a strategy for helping them developnative-like pronunciation

Korean English language teachers working in the countryrsquospublic primary schools often do not feel satisfied with their ownEnglish pronunciation and feel that it is not what they hoped itwould be (Butler 2004) Although they may not feel comfortablewith their own pronunciation Korean speakers are often the ones inprivate language schools who provide children with initial phonicsinstruction so that they can point out to Korean-speaking childrenhow to articulate English language sounds with native-like pro-nunciation The importance of pronunciation may also be whynative English speakers are frequently employed in Englishlanguage kindergartens and private language schools alongsideKorean teachers

486 TESOL Journal

Limitations

The sample consisted of teachers who may not be completelycognizant of parental perceptions even though they share the samecultural background as the parents However it is important to takeinto account what teachers perceive to be parental beliefs inreference to English language development and to directly andindirectly address these perceptions The teachers in the study wereKorean and represent the Korean cultural belief systems and wereable to begin to identify issues that parents see as prominent This isan important first step in initiating conversations between parentsand teachers about the process of learning English as a foreignlanguage

CONCLUSIONThe purpose of this article was to begin to examine what teachersbelieve to be Korean parentsrsquo perceptions with regard to the processof their children learning English as a foreign language The articleidentified perceptions so that English language teachers will be in abetter position to begin the process of forming partnerships withparents of school-age and preschool or kindergarten learners inKorea

The results clearly illustrate how the Korean culture impactsperceptions about learning English and the importance of framinginformation about ELT in the local cultural context Participantsexpressed the view that parents believe in the importance ofmemorizing vocabulary as well as reading in the quest for childrento learn English This clearly reflects the overall context of Koreaneducation that emphasizes literacy and in the case of vocabularyrote learning There were also perceptions about when Englishshould be taught to young learners where and by whom It wassurprising to note that native English speakers were not alwaysidentified as the best people to teach English because they generallydo not possess the cultural and linguistic capital to prepare learnersfor the KSAT

When parents make comments about English language edu-cation it is important to consider the cultural context related toEnglish education and to education in general For example it is tooeasy to say that parents are wrong in their belief that memorization

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 487

is the best way to learn vocabulary Instead it is better to questionwhy parents make such a remark By framing parentsrsquo remarks inthe local context it will be easier to engage in a dialogue rather thanan argument Teachers need help learning how to reflect on andconsider what parents say

Parents are such important stakeholders that teachers of youngEFL learners should be cognizant of them in virtually every culturalsetting This research underscores the important role that the cul-tural context plays in the English language education of school-ageand preschool-age learners Further the cultural context should betaken into account when considering parentsrsquo expectations ofEnglish language instructional programs for young learners

THE AUTHORCaroline Linse is a senior lecturer at Queenrsquos University Belfastwhere she teaches in both the masterrsquos and doctoral programs inTESOL She has extensive experience teaching English to younglearners in a wide range of international contexts and is the authorof a variety of materials for learners as well as their teachers Inaddition she has lived and worked in South Korea with teachersserving learners of all ages

REFERENCESBast J L amp Walberg H J (2004) Can parents choose the best

schools for their children Economics of Education Review 23 431ndash440 doi101016jeconedurev200308003

Beck I L McKeown M G amp Kucan L (2004) Bringing words tolife Robust vocabulary instruction New York NY Guilford Press

Bialystok E (2001) Bilingualism in development Language literacyand cognition Cambridge England Cambridge University Press

Blachowicz C L Z Fisher P J L Ogle D amp Watts-Taffe S(2006) Vocabulary Questions from the classroom ReadingResearch Quarterly 41 524ndash539 doi101598RRQ4145

Braine G (1999) Non-native educators in English language teachingMahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Brown H D (1995) Principles of language learning and teaching (3rded) Englewood Cliffs NJ Prentice Hall Regents

488 TESOL Journal

in Korean and few native English speakers possess the Koreanlanguage and cultural skills necessary to fully comprehend andprepare students for this high-stakes exam Consequently onlyKoreans are entrusted with preparing learners for this examAccording to M Lee and Larson (2000) within the context ofKorean society the inordinate amount of pressure to perform wellon university entrance examinations is so great that many studentsexperience enormous anxiety It is thus understandable that onlyKorean speakers are the ones trusted to prepare students for anexam that is viewed as pivotal to a learnerrsquos overall success in life

Members of the teacher researcher group were asked specificallyif they agreed with the idea that the reason some participants feltthat NES teachers were not always better was because they cannotprepare students for the KSAT The teacher researchers expressedgenuine pride in their ability to prepare students for the KSATThey also felt strongly that this question touched on the issue thatin some cases monolingual NES teachers are not as capable ofdelivering the same instruction that NNES teachers can deliverThis is significant because it illustrates an area in which NNESteachers have an advantage over native speakers of English NNESteachers too often are viewed in a negative light so it is useful tobalance this perception by highlighting a function that Koreanspeakers can perform better than native English speakers Thisfinding adds a new dimension to the argument that NNES teacherspossess skills that NES teachers lack

Test Scores

The members of the teacher researcher group were acutely aware ofthe role that English language test scores play in Korean society sothey designed an item that specifically addressed how test scoresare perceived Table 1 illustrates how parents view test scores as anexcellent indicator of language competency and proficiency

Doing well on examinations is important for Korean family honorand reflects Confucian values (Paik 2004) Further the emphasis onMinistry of Education multiple-choice tests is pandemic in Korea andmay very well prevent teachers from providing learners with oppor-tunities to develop true communicative skills Thus it is understandablethat parents may equate a good test score with language competency

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 483

and proficiency which in turn indicates that parents may possessmisconceptions about the development of English language skills Thisfinding may be a result of the focus in Korean Society on the KSATwhich is written in Korean by a Korean team

When to Learn English

Survey participants were asked to comment on whether parentsbelieve that the earlier a child learns English the better Table 1shows that 84 either agreed or strongly agreed that earlier wasbetter Only 12 neither agreed nor disagreed or disagreed and 2strongly disagreed

A lsquolsquomagicrsquorsquo time during which a learner can or cannot acquire asecond or new language does not exist and the notion that there isclearly a critical or fixed period for second language acquisitionis false (Hakuta Bialystok amp Wiley 2003 Singleton 2005) Theprocess of becoming bilingual is quite complex due to severalfactors including cognitive environmental political and socialfactors that come into play (Bialystok 2001) Parents may intuitivelyunderstand that there are advantages to their children studyingEnglish at early ages And although there isnrsquot a magic year or timeperiod for learning a second or foreign language there is a declinein learnersrsquo ability to learn a new language that corresponds withaging (Hakuta et al 2003)

The survey points to a clear belief that children will have anadvantage if they start learning English at an early age From acommonsense point of view children are in a better position tolearn a new language than adults simply because they have moretime to devote to the task In addition English is part of thelandscape for children in Korea with English language kinder-gartens and private English language schools in large cities such asSeoul as well as in smaller communities throughout the countryThe government has even set up programs in public schools toteach English to children after school hours as well as Englishlanguage camps

Parents in Korea view knowledge of English as a way to enhancetheir childrenrsquos chances for success and gain elite status in societylater on in life (Park amp Abelmann 2004) Korean parents want theirchildren to embark on the path to English language success as early

484 TESOL Journal

as possible Within the overall context of Korean society parentsbelieve that there are advantages to getting a head start on Englishlanguage study when children are very young

Reading

Several survey items addressed reading because the teacherresearcher group felt this was an issue that needed to be givenpriority when using an inter-item reliability check Two teacherresearchers explained that parents are spending more and moremoney on English language books for their children Eighty-sixpercent of survey participants agreed or strongly agreed thatchildren need to read books in English 3 disagreed or stronglydisagreed and 11 were neutral

Survey participants were also asked if they thought that readingnovels and other materials in English was very important Eighty-six percent felt that this type of reading was very importantwhereas 11 had no opinion and only 3 felt that it was notimportant

These findings are consistent with the trend in Korea for parentsto either purchase childrenrsquos books through large bookstores suchas the major Kyobo bookstores or go through book clubs like theones run by Scholastic to purchase books in English for theirchildren Parents also bring back books from English-speakingcountries when they travel abroad

Reading personally selected books and not merely textbookscan help foreign language learners Mason and Krashen (1997) pointout that extensive reading in a foreign language can be an effectiveway to improve language skills even when learners are in differentsettings and situations A variety of books including fiction andnonfiction can help children as they embark on their journey tolearn English as a new language (Vardell et al 2006) Learnersbenefit from being exposed to easy materials that they themselveshave selected (Day amp Bamford 2002)

Although it is clear from the data that reading English languagebooks is considered to be important it is not clear what types ofbook experiences parents advocate for their children Within thecontext of Korean society and culture the extensive reading expe-rience that parents advocate may differ greatly from the types of

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 485

extensive reading programs cited in the academic literature Afurther area of inquiry would be to examine the types of bookexperiences parents feel are optimal for their children in order toimprove their English language skills

Pronunciation

The teacher researcher group felt that parents put an extremely highpremium on the teaching of pronunciation so they crafted an itemabout whether parents felt that native-like pronunciation was one ofthe most important things for students to achieve The group wascareful to include the phrase lsquolsquoone of the mostrsquorsquo to indicate theimportance that they believe parents place on native-like pronun-ciation As shown in Table 1 81 of survey respondents agreed orstrongly agreed and only 8 disagreed

This finding reflects the emphasis that is placed on phonicspronunciation instruction in Korea Pronunciation could be viewedas a status symbol with more native-like pronunciation being givenhigher status than pronunciation that does not sound as native-likeAlthough phonics and pronunciation are different some teachersand parents may confuse the two concepts because both deal withsounds associated with letters (Linse 2005) Korean parents oftenenroll children from preschool and kindergarten through elemen-tary school in phonics classes as a strategy for helping them developnative-like pronunciation

Korean English language teachers working in the countryrsquospublic primary schools often do not feel satisfied with their ownEnglish pronunciation and feel that it is not what they hoped itwould be (Butler 2004) Although they may not feel comfortablewith their own pronunciation Korean speakers are often the ones inprivate language schools who provide children with initial phonicsinstruction so that they can point out to Korean-speaking childrenhow to articulate English language sounds with native-like pro-nunciation The importance of pronunciation may also be whynative English speakers are frequently employed in Englishlanguage kindergartens and private language schools alongsideKorean teachers

486 TESOL Journal

Limitations

The sample consisted of teachers who may not be completelycognizant of parental perceptions even though they share the samecultural background as the parents However it is important to takeinto account what teachers perceive to be parental beliefs inreference to English language development and to directly andindirectly address these perceptions The teachers in the study wereKorean and represent the Korean cultural belief systems and wereable to begin to identify issues that parents see as prominent This isan important first step in initiating conversations between parentsand teachers about the process of learning English as a foreignlanguage

CONCLUSIONThe purpose of this article was to begin to examine what teachersbelieve to be Korean parentsrsquo perceptions with regard to the processof their children learning English as a foreign language The articleidentified perceptions so that English language teachers will be in abetter position to begin the process of forming partnerships withparents of school-age and preschool or kindergarten learners inKorea

The results clearly illustrate how the Korean culture impactsperceptions about learning English and the importance of framinginformation about ELT in the local cultural context Participantsexpressed the view that parents believe in the importance ofmemorizing vocabulary as well as reading in the quest for childrento learn English This clearly reflects the overall context of Koreaneducation that emphasizes literacy and in the case of vocabularyrote learning There were also perceptions about when Englishshould be taught to young learners where and by whom It wassurprising to note that native English speakers were not alwaysidentified as the best people to teach English because they generallydo not possess the cultural and linguistic capital to prepare learnersfor the KSAT

When parents make comments about English language edu-cation it is important to consider the cultural context related toEnglish education and to education in general For example it is tooeasy to say that parents are wrong in their belief that memorization

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 487

is the best way to learn vocabulary Instead it is better to questionwhy parents make such a remark By framing parentsrsquo remarks inthe local context it will be easier to engage in a dialogue rather thanan argument Teachers need help learning how to reflect on andconsider what parents say

Parents are such important stakeholders that teachers of youngEFL learners should be cognizant of them in virtually every culturalsetting This research underscores the important role that the cul-tural context plays in the English language education of school-ageand preschool-age learners Further the cultural context should betaken into account when considering parentsrsquo expectations ofEnglish language instructional programs for young learners

THE AUTHORCaroline Linse is a senior lecturer at Queenrsquos University Belfastwhere she teaches in both the masterrsquos and doctoral programs inTESOL She has extensive experience teaching English to younglearners in a wide range of international contexts and is the authorof a variety of materials for learners as well as their teachers Inaddition she has lived and worked in South Korea with teachersserving learners of all ages

REFERENCESBast J L amp Walberg H J (2004) Can parents choose the best

schools for their children Economics of Education Review 23 431ndash440 doi101016jeconedurev200308003

Beck I L McKeown M G amp Kucan L (2004) Bringing words tolife Robust vocabulary instruction New York NY Guilford Press

Bialystok E (2001) Bilingualism in development Language literacyand cognition Cambridge England Cambridge University Press

Blachowicz C L Z Fisher P J L Ogle D amp Watts-Taffe S(2006) Vocabulary Questions from the classroom ReadingResearch Quarterly 41 524ndash539 doi101598RRQ4145

Braine G (1999) Non-native educators in English language teachingMahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Brown H D (1995) Principles of language learning and teaching (3rded) Englewood Cliffs NJ Prentice Hall Regents

488 TESOL Journal

and proficiency which in turn indicates that parents may possessmisconceptions about the development of English language skills Thisfinding may be a result of the focus in Korean Society on the KSATwhich is written in Korean by a Korean team

When to Learn English

Survey participants were asked to comment on whether parentsbelieve that the earlier a child learns English the better Table 1shows that 84 either agreed or strongly agreed that earlier wasbetter Only 12 neither agreed nor disagreed or disagreed and 2strongly disagreed

A lsquolsquomagicrsquorsquo time during which a learner can or cannot acquire asecond or new language does not exist and the notion that there isclearly a critical or fixed period for second language acquisitionis false (Hakuta Bialystok amp Wiley 2003 Singleton 2005) Theprocess of becoming bilingual is quite complex due to severalfactors including cognitive environmental political and socialfactors that come into play (Bialystok 2001) Parents may intuitivelyunderstand that there are advantages to their children studyingEnglish at early ages And although there isnrsquot a magic year or timeperiod for learning a second or foreign language there is a declinein learnersrsquo ability to learn a new language that corresponds withaging (Hakuta et al 2003)

The survey points to a clear belief that children will have anadvantage if they start learning English at an early age From acommonsense point of view children are in a better position tolearn a new language than adults simply because they have moretime to devote to the task In addition English is part of thelandscape for children in Korea with English language kinder-gartens and private English language schools in large cities such asSeoul as well as in smaller communities throughout the countryThe government has even set up programs in public schools toteach English to children after school hours as well as Englishlanguage camps

Parents in Korea view knowledge of English as a way to enhancetheir childrenrsquos chances for success and gain elite status in societylater on in life (Park amp Abelmann 2004) Korean parents want theirchildren to embark on the path to English language success as early

484 TESOL Journal

as possible Within the overall context of Korean society parentsbelieve that there are advantages to getting a head start on Englishlanguage study when children are very young

Reading

Several survey items addressed reading because the teacherresearcher group felt this was an issue that needed to be givenpriority when using an inter-item reliability check Two teacherresearchers explained that parents are spending more and moremoney on English language books for their children Eighty-sixpercent of survey participants agreed or strongly agreed thatchildren need to read books in English 3 disagreed or stronglydisagreed and 11 were neutral

Survey participants were also asked if they thought that readingnovels and other materials in English was very important Eighty-six percent felt that this type of reading was very importantwhereas 11 had no opinion and only 3 felt that it was notimportant

These findings are consistent with the trend in Korea for parentsto either purchase childrenrsquos books through large bookstores suchas the major Kyobo bookstores or go through book clubs like theones run by Scholastic to purchase books in English for theirchildren Parents also bring back books from English-speakingcountries when they travel abroad

Reading personally selected books and not merely textbookscan help foreign language learners Mason and Krashen (1997) pointout that extensive reading in a foreign language can be an effectiveway to improve language skills even when learners are in differentsettings and situations A variety of books including fiction andnonfiction can help children as they embark on their journey tolearn English as a new language (Vardell et al 2006) Learnersbenefit from being exposed to easy materials that they themselveshave selected (Day amp Bamford 2002)

Although it is clear from the data that reading English languagebooks is considered to be important it is not clear what types ofbook experiences parents advocate for their children Within thecontext of Korean society and culture the extensive reading expe-rience that parents advocate may differ greatly from the types of

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 485

extensive reading programs cited in the academic literature Afurther area of inquiry would be to examine the types of bookexperiences parents feel are optimal for their children in order toimprove their English language skills

Pronunciation

The teacher researcher group felt that parents put an extremely highpremium on the teaching of pronunciation so they crafted an itemabout whether parents felt that native-like pronunciation was one ofthe most important things for students to achieve The group wascareful to include the phrase lsquolsquoone of the mostrsquorsquo to indicate theimportance that they believe parents place on native-like pronun-ciation As shown in Table 1 81 of survey respondents agreed orstrongly agreed and only 8 disagreed

This finding reflects the emphasis that is placed on phonicspronunciation instruction in Korea Pronunciation could be viewedas a status symbol with more native-like pronunciation being givenhigher status than pronunciation that does not sound as native-likeAlthough phonics and pronunciation are different some teachersand parents may confuse the two concepts because both deal withsounds associated with letters (Linse 2005) Korean parents oftenenroll children from preschool and kindergarten through elemen-tary school in phonics classes as a strategy for helping them developnative-like pronunciation

Korean English language teachers working in the countryrsquospublic primary schools often do not feel satisfied with their ownEnglish pronunciation and feel that it is not what they hoped itwould be (Butler 2004) Although they may not feel comfortablewith their own pronunciation Korean speakers are often the ones inprivate language schools who provide children with initial phonicsinstruction so that they can point out to Korean-speaking childrenhow to articulate English language sounds with native-like pro-nunciation The importance of pronunciation may also be whynative English speakers are frequently employed in Englishlanguage kindergartens and private language schools alongsideKorean teachers

486 TESOL Journal

Limitations

The sample consisted of teachers who may not be completelycognizant of parental perceptions even though they share the samecultural background as the parents However it is important to takeinto account what teachers perceive to be parental beliefs inreference to English language development and to directly andindirectly address these perceptions The teachers in the study wereKorean and represent the Korean cultural belief systems and wereable to begin to identify issues that parents see as prominent This isan important first step in initiating conversations between parentsand teachers about the process of learning English as a foreignlanguage

CONCLUSIONThe purpose of this article was to begin to examine what teachersbelieve to be Korean parentsrsquo perceptions with regard to the processof their children learning English as a foreign language The articleidentified perceptions so that English language teachers will be in abetter position to begin the process of forming partnerships withparents of school-age and preschool or kindergarten learners inKorea

The results clearly illustrate how the Korean culture impactsperceptions about learning English and the importance of framinginformation about ELT in the local cultural context Participantsexpressed the view that parents believe in the importance ofmemorizing vocabulary as well as reading in the quest for childrento learn English This clearly reflects the overall context of Koreaneducation that emphasizes literacy and in the case of vocabularyrote learning There were also perceptions about when Englishshould be taught to young learners where and by whom It wassurprising to note that native English speakers were not alwaysidentified as the best people to teach English because they generallydo not possess the cultural and linguistic capital to prepare learnersfor the KSAT

When parents make comments about English language edu-cation it is important to consider the cultural context related toEnglish education and to education in general For example it is tooeasy to say that parents are wrong in their belief that memorization

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 487

is the best way to learn vocabulary Instead it is better to questionwhy parents make such a remark By framing parentsrsquo remarks inthe local context it will be easier to engage in a dialogue rather thanan argument Teachers need help learning how to reflect on andconsider what parents say

Parents are such important stakeholders that teachers of youngEFL learners should be cognizant of them in virtually every culturalsetting This research underscores the important role that the cul-tural context plays in the English language education of school-ageand preschool-age learners Further the cultural context should betaken into account when considering parentsrsquo expectations ofEnglish language instructional programs for young learners

THE AUTHORCaroline Linse is a senior lecturer at Queenrsquos University Belfastwhere she teaches in both the masterrsquos and doctoral programs inTESOL She has extensive experience teaching English to younglearners in a wide range of international contexts and is the authorof a variety of materials for learners as well as their teachers Inaddition she has lived and worked in South Korea with teachersserving learners of all ages

REFERENCESBast J L amp Walberg H J (2004) Can parents choose the best

schools for their children Economics of Education Review 23 431ndash440 doi101016jeconedurev200308003

Beck I L McKeown M G amp Kucan L (2004) Bringing words tolife Robust vocabulary instruction New York NY Guilford Press

Bialystok E (2001) Bilingualism in development Language literacyand cognition Cambridge England Cambridge University Press

Blachowicz C L Z Fisher P J L Ogle D amp Watts-Taffe S(2006) Vocabulary Questions from the classroom ReadingResearch Quarterly 41 524ndash539 doi101598RRQ4145

Braine G (1999) Non-native educators in English language teachingMahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Brown H D (1995) Principles of language learning and teaching (3rded) Englewood Cliffs NJ Prentice Hall Regents

488 TESOL Journal

as possible Within the overall context of Korean society parentsbelieve that there are advantages to getting a head start on Englishlanguage study when children are very young

Reading

Several survey items addressed reading because the teacherresearcher group felt this was an issue that needed to be givenpriority when using an inter-item reliability check Two teacherresearchers explained that parents are spending more and moremoney on English language books for their children Eighty-sixpercent of survey participants agreed or strongly agreed thatchildren need to read books in English 3 disagreed or stronglydisagreed and 11 were neutral

Survey participants were also asked if they thought that readingnovels and other materials in English was very important Eighty-six percent felt that this type of reading was very importantwhereas 11 had no opinion and only 3 felt that it was notimportant

These findings are consistent with the trend in Korea for parentsto either purchase childrenrsquos books through large bookstores suchas the major Kyobo bookstores or go through book clubs like theones run by Scholastic to purchase books in English for theirchildren Parents also bring back books from English-speakingcountries when they travel abroad

Reading personally selected books and not merely textbookscan help foreign language learners Mason and Krashen (1997) pointout that extensive reading in a foreign language can be an effectiveway to improve language skills even when learners are in differentsettings and situations A variety of books including fiction andnonfiction can help children as they embark on their journey tolearn English as a new language (Vardell et al 2006) Learnersbenefit from being exposed to easy materials that they themselveshave selected (Day amp Bamford 2002)

Although it is clear from the data that reading English languagebooks is considered to be important it is not clear what types ofbook experiences parents advocate for their children Within thecontext of Korean society and culture the extensive reading expe-rience that parents advocate may differ greatly from the types of

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 485

extensive reading programs cited in the academic literature Afurther area of inquiry would be to examine the types of bookexperiences parents feel are optimal for their children in order toimprove their English language skills

Pronunciation

The teacher researcher group felt that parents put an extremely highpremium on the teaching of pronunciation so they crafted an itemabout whether parents felt that native-like pronunciation was one ofthe most important things for students to achieve The group wascareful to include the phrase lsquolsquoone of the mostrsquorsquo to indicate theimportance that they believe parents place on native-like pronun-ciation As shown in Table 1 81 of survey respondents agreed orstrongly agreed and only 8 disagreed

This finding reflects the emphasis that is placed on phonicspronunciation instruction in Korea Pronunciation could be viewedas a status symbol with more native-like pronunciation being givenhigher status than pronunciation that does not sound as native-likeAlthough phonics and pronunciation are different some teachersand parents may confuse the two concepts because both deal withsounds associated with letters (Linse 2005) Korean parents oftenenroll children from preschool and kindergarten through elemen-tary school in phonics classes as a strategy for helping them developnative-like pronunciation

Korean English language teachers working in the countryrsquospublic primary schools often do not feel satisfied with their ownEnglish pronunciation and feel that it is not what they hoped itwould be (Butler 2004) Although they may not feel comfortablewith their own pronunciation Korean speakers are often the ones inprivate language schools who provide children with initial phonicsinstruction so that they can point out to Korean-speaking childrenhow to articulate English language sounds with native-like pro-nunciation The importance of pronunciation may also be whynative English speakers are frequently employed in Englishlanguage kindergartens and private language schools alongsideKorean teachers

486 TESOL Journal

Limitations

The sample consisted of teachers who may not be completelycognizant of parental perceptions even though they share the samecultural background as the parents However it is important to takeinto account what teachers perceive to be parental beliefs inreference to English language development and to directly andindirectly address these perceptions The teachers in the study wereKorean and represent the Korean cultural belief systems and wereable to begin to identify issues that parents see as prominent This isan important first step in initiating conversations between parentsand teachers about the process of learning English as a foreignlanguage

CONCLUSIONThe purpose of this article was to begin to examine what teachersbelieve to be Korean parentsrsquo perceptions with regard to the processof their children learning English as a foreign language The articleidentified perceptions so that English language teachers will be in abetter position to begin the process of forming partnerships withparents of school-age and preschool or kindergarten learners inKorea

The results clearly illustrate how the Korean culture impactsperceptions about learning English and the importance of framinginformation about ELT in the local cultural context Participantsexpressed the view that parents believe in the importance ofmemorizing vocabulary as well as reading in the quest for childrento learn English This clearly reflects the overall context of Koreaneducation that emphasizes literacy and in the case of vocabularyrote learning There were also perceptions about when Englishshould be taught to young learners where and by whom It wassurprising to note that native English speakers were not alwaysidentified as the best people to teach English because they generallydo not possess the cultural and linguistic capital to prepare learnersfor the KSAT

When parents make comments about English language edu-cation it is important to consider the cultural context related toEnglish education and to education in general For example it is tooeasy to say that parents are wrong in their belief that memorization

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 487

is the best way to learn vocabulary Instead it is better to questionwhy parents make such a remark By framing parentsrsquo remarks inthe local context it will be easier to engage in a dialogue rather thanan argument Teachers need help learning how to reflect on andconsider what parents say

Parents are such important stakeholders that teachers of youngEFL learners should be cognizant of them in virtually every culturalsetting This research underscores the important role that the cul-tural context plays in the English language education of school-ageand preschool-age learners Further the cultural context should betaken into account when considering parentsrsquo expectations ofEnglish language instructional programs for young learners

THE AUTHORCaroline Linse is a senior lecturer at Queenrsquos University Belfastwhere she teaches in both the masterrsquos and doctoral programs inTESOL She has extensive experience teaching English to younglearners in a wide range of international contexts and is the authorof a variety of materials for learners as well as their teachers Inaddition she has lived and worked in South Korea with teachersserving learners of all ages

REFERENCESBast J L amp Walberg H J (2004) Can parents choose the best

schools for their children Economics of Education Review 23 431ndash440 doi101016jeconedurev200308003

Beck I L McKeown M G amp Kucan L (2004) Bringing words tolife Robust vocabulary instruction New York NY Guilford Press

Bialystok E (2001) Bilingualism in development Language literacyand cognition Cambridge England Cambridge University Press

Blachowicz C L Z Fisher P J L Ogle D amp Watts-Taffe S(2006) Vocabulary Questions from the classroom ReadingResearch Quarterly 41 524ndash539 doi101598RRQ4145

Braine G (1999) Non-native educators in English language teachingMahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Brown H D (1995) Principles of language learning and teaching (3rded) Englewood Cliffs NJ Prentice Hall Regents

488 TESOL Journal

extensive reading programs cited in the academic literature Afurther area of inquiry would be to examine the types of bookexperiences parents feel are optimal for their children in order toimprove their English language skills

Pronunciation

The teacher researcher group felt that parents put an extremely highpremium on the teaching of pronunciation so they crafted an itemabout whether parents felt that native-like pronunciation was one ofthe most important things for students to achieve The group wascareful to include the phrase lsquolsquoone of the mostrsquorsquo to indicate theimportance that they believe parents place on native-like pronun-ciation As shown in Table 1 81 of survey respondents agreed orstrongly agreed and only 8 disagreed

This finding reflects the emphasis that is placed on phonicspronunciation instruction in Korea Pronunciation could be viewedas a status symbol with more native-like pronunciation being givenhigher status than pronunciation that does not sound as native-likeAlthough phonics and pronunciation are different some teachersand parents may confuse the two concepts because both deal withsounds associated with letters (Linse 2005) Korean parents oftenenroll children from preschool and kindergarten through elemen-tary school in phonics classes as a strategy for helping them developnative-like pronunciation

Korean English language teachers working in the countryrsquospublic primary schools often do not feel satisfied with their ownEnglish pronunciation and feel that it is not what they hoped itwould be (Butler 2004) Although they may not feel comfortablewith their own pronunciation Korean speakers are often the ones inprivate language schools who provide children with initial phonicsinstruction so that they can point out to Korean-speaking childrenhow to articulate English language sounds with native-like pro-nunciation The importance of pronunciation may also be whynative English speakers are frequently employed in Englishlanguage kindergartens and private language schools alongsideKorean teachers

486 TESOL Journal

Limitations

The sample consisted of teachers who may not be completelycognizant of parental perceptions even though they share the samecultural background as the parents However it is important to takeinto account what teachers perceive to be parental beliefs inreference to English language development and to directly andindirectly address these perceptions The teachers in the study wereKorean and represent the Korean cultural belief systems and wereable to begin to identify issues that parents see as prominent This isan important first step in initiating conversations between parentsand teachers about the process of learning English as a foreignlanguage

CONCLUSIONThe purpose of this article was to begin to examine what teachersbelieve to be Korean parentsrsquo perceptions with regard to the processof their children learning English as a foreign language The articleidentified perceptions so that English language teachers will be in abetter position to begin the process of forming partnerships withparents of school-age and preschool or kindergarten learners inKorea

The results clearly illustrate how the Korean culture impactsperceptions about learning English and the importance of framinginformation about ELT in the local cultural context Participantsexpressed the view that parents believe in the importance ofmemorizing vocabulary as well as reading in the quest for childrento learn English This clearly reflects the overall context of Koreaneducation that emphasizes literacy and in the case of vocabularyrote learning There were also perceptions about when Englishshould be taught to young learners where and by whom It wassurprising to note that native English speakers were not alwaysidentified as the best people to teach English because they generallydo not possess the cultural and linguistic capital to prepare learnersfor the KSAT

When parents make comments about English language edu-cation it is important to consider the cultural context related toEnglish education and to education in general For example it is tooeasy to say that parents are wrong in their belief that memorization

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 487

is the best way to learn vocabulary Instead it is better to questionwhy parents make such a remark By framing parentsrsquo remarks inthe local context it will be easier to engage in a dialogue rather thanan argument Teachers need help learning how to reflect on andconsider what parents say

Parents are such important stakeholders that teachers of youngEFL learners should be cognizant of them in virtually every culturalsetting This research underscores the important role that the cul-tural context plays in the English language education of school-ageand preschool-age learners Further the cultural context should betaken into account when considering parentsrsquo expectations ofEnglish language instructional programs for young learners

THE AUTHORCaroline Linse is a senior lecturer at Queenrsquos University Belfastwhere she teaches in both the masterrsquos and doctoral programs inTESOL She has extensive experience teaching English to younglearners in a wide range of international contexts and is the authorof a variety of materials for learners as well as their teachers Inaddition she has lived and worked in South Korea with teachersserving learners of all ages

REFERENCESBast J L amp Walberg H J (2004) Can parents choose the best

schools for their children Economics of Education Review 23 431ndash440 doi101016jeconedurev200308003

Beck I L McKeown M G amp Kucan L (2004) Bringing words tolife Robust vocabulary instruction New York NY Guilford Press

Bialystok E (2001) Bilingualism in development Language literacyand cognition Cambridge England Cambridge University Press

Blachowicz C L Z Fisher P J L Ogle D amp Watts-Taffe S(2006) Vocabulary Questions from the classroom ReadingResearch Quarterly 41 524ndash539 doi101598RRQ4145

Braine G (1999) Non-native educators in English language teachingMahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Brown H D (1995) Principles of language learning and teaching (3rded) Englewood Cliffs NJ Prentice Hall Regents

488 TESOL Journal

Limitations

The sample consisted of teachers who may not be completelycognizant of parental perceptions even though they share the samecultural background as the parents However it is important to takeinto account what teachers perceive to be parental beliefs inreference to English language development and to directly andindirectly address these perceptions The teachers in the study wereKorean and represent the Korean cultural belief systems and wereable to begin to identify issues that parents see as prominent This isan important first step in initiating conversations between parentsand teachers about the process of learning English as a foreignlanguage

CONCLUSIONThe purpose of this article was to begin to examine what teachersbelieve to be Korean parentsrsquo perceptions with regard to the processof their children learning English as a foreign language The articleidentified perceptions so that English language teachers will be in abetter position to begin the process of forming partnerships withparents of school-age and preschool or kindergarten learners inKorea

The results clearly illustrate how the Korean culture impactsperceptions about learning English and the importance of framinginformation about ELT in the local cultural context Participantsexpressed the view that parents believe in the importance ofmemorizing vocabulary as well as reading in the quest for childrento learn English This clearly reflects the overall context of Koreaneducation that emphasizes literacy and in the case of vocabularyrote learning There were also perceptions about when Englishshould be taught to young learners where and by whom It wassurprising to note that native English speakers were not alwaysidentified as the best people to teach English because they generallydo not possess the cultural and linguistic capital to prepare learnersfor the KSAT

When parents make comments about English language edu-cation it is important to consider the cultural context related toEnglish education and to education in general For example it is tooeasy to say that parents are wrong in their belief that memorization

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 487

is the best way to learn vocabulary Instead it is better to questionwhy parents make such a remark By framing parentsrsquo remarks inthe local context it will be easier to engage in a dialogue rather thanan argument Teachers need help learning how to reflect on andconsider what parents say

Parents are such important stakeholders that teachers of youngEFL learners should be cognizant of them in virtually every culturalsetting This research underscores the important role that the cul-tural context plays in the English language education of school-ageand preschool-age learners Further the cultural context should betaken into account when considering parentsrsquo expectations ofEnglish language instructional programs for young learners

THE AUTHORCaroline Linse is a senior lecturer at Queenrsquos University Belfastwhere she teaches in both the masterrsquos and doctoral programs inTESOL She has extensive experience teaching English to younglearners in a wide range of international contexts and is the authorof a variety of materials for learners as well as their teachers Inaddition she has lived and worked in South Korea with teachersserving learners of all ages

REFERENCESBast J L amp Walberg H J (2004) Can parents choose the best

schools for their children Economics of Education Review 23 431ndash440 doi101016jeconedurev200308003

Beck I L McKeown M G amp Kucan L (2004) Bringing words tolife Robust vocabulary instruction New York NY Guilford Press

Bialystok E (2001) Bilingualism in development Language literacyand cognition Cambridge England Cambridge University Press

Blachowicz C L Z Fisher P J L Ogle D amp Watts-Taffe S(2006) Vocabulary Questions from the classroom ReadingResearch Quarterly 41 524ndash539 doi101598RRQ4145

Braine G (1999) Non-native educators in English language teachingMahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Brown H D (1995) Principles of language learning and teaching (3rded) Englewood Cliffs NJ Prentice Hall Regents

488 TESOL Journal

is the best way to learn vocabulary Instead it is better to questionwhy parents make such a remark By framing parentsrsquo remarks inthe local context it will be easier to engage in a dialogue rather thanan argument Teachers need help learning how to reflect on andconsider what parents say

Parents are such important stakeholders that teachers of youngEFL learners should be cognizant of them in virtually every culturalsetting This research underscores the important role that the cul-tural context plays in the English language education of school-ageand preschool-age learners Further the cultural context should betaken into account when considering parentsrsquo expectations ofEnglish language instructional programs for young learners

THE AUTHORCaroline Linse is a senior lecturer at Queenrsquos University Belfastwhere she teaches in both the masterrsquos and doctoral programs inTESOL She has extensive experience teaching English to younglearners in a wide range of international contexts and is the authorof a variety of materials for learners as well as their teachers Inaddition she has lived and worked in South Korea with teachersserving learners of all ages

REFERENCESBast J L amp Walberg H J (2004) Can parents choose the best

schools for their children Economics of Education Review 23 431ndash440 doi101016jeconedurev200308003

Beck I L McKeown M G amp Kucan L (2004) Bringing words tolife Robust vocabulary instruction New York NY Guilford Press

Bialystok E (2001) Bilingualism in development Language literacyand cognition Cambridge England Cambridge University Press

Blachowicz C L Z Fisher P J L Ogle D amp Watts-Taffe S(2006) Vocabulary Questions from the classroom ReadingResearch Quarterly 41 524ndash539 doi101598RRQ4145

Braine G (1999) Non-native educators in English language teachingMahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Brown H D (1995) Principles of language learning and teaching (3rded) Englewood Cliffs NJ Prentice Hall Regents

488 TESOL Journal

Butler Y (2004) What level of English proficiency do elementaryschool teachers need to attain to teach EFL Case studies fromKorea Taiwan and Japan TESOL Quarterly 38 245ndash278 doi1023073588380

Butler Y (2005) Comparative perspectives towards communicativeactivities among elementary school teachers in South KoreaJapan and Taiwan Language Teaching Research 9 423ndash446 doi1011911362168805lr176oa

Cameron L (2003) Challenges for ELT from the expansion inteaching children ELT Journal 57 105ndash112 doi101093elt572105

Carlo M S August D McClaughlin B Snow C E Dressler CLippman D N amp White C (2005) Closing the gapAddressing the vocabulary needs of English-language learnersin bilingual and mainstream classrooms Reading ResearchQuarterly 39 188ndash215 doi101598RRQ3923

Chiang-Hom C (2004) Transnational cultural practices andChinese immigrant youth and parachute kids In J Lee amp MZhou (Eds) Asian American youth Culture identity and ethnicity(pp 143ndash158) New York NY Routledge

Choi I (2008) The impact of EFL testing on EFL education inKorea Language Testing 25 39ndash62 doi1011770265532207083744

Davis B (1995) How to involve parents in a multicultural schoolAlexandria VA Association for Supervision and CurriculumDevelopment

Day R amp Bamford J (2002) Top ten principles for teachingextensive reading Reading in a Foreign Language 14(2) Retrievedfrom httpnflrchawaiiedurfl

Dewey J (1938) Experience and education New York NY CollierBooks

Eccles J S amp Harold R D (1996) Family involvement inchildrenrsquos and adolescentsrsquo schooling In A Booth amp J F Dunn(Eds) Family-school links How do they affect educational outcomes(pp 3ndash34) Mahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Epstein J L (2001) School family and community partnershipsPreparing educators and improving schools Boulder CO Westview

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 489

Glaser B G amp Strauss A (1967) The discovery of grounded theoryPiscataway NJ Aldine Transactions

Hakuta K Bailystok E amp Wiley E (2003) Critical evidence A testof the critical-period hypothesis for second-languageacquisition Psychological Science 14 31ndash39 doi1011111467-928001415

Jo S (2008) English education and teacher education in SouthKorea Journal of Education for Teaching 34 271ndash381 doi10108002607470802401594

Kang D M (2008) The classroom language use of a Koreanelementary school EFL teacher Another look at TETE System36 214ndash226 doi101016jsystem200710005

Lawrence-Lightfoot S (2003) The essential conversation What parentsand teachers can learn from each other New York NY BallantineBooks

Lee K S amp Carrasquillo A (2006) Korean college students inUnited States Perceptions of professors College Student Journal40 442ndash456

Lee M amp Larson R (2000) The Korean lsquolsquoexamination hellrsquorsquo Longhours of studying distress and depression Journal of Youth andAdolescence 29 249ndash271 doi101023A1005160717081

Linse C (2005) Practical English language teaching Young learnersNew York NY McGraw-Hill

Mason B amp Krashen S (1997) Extensive reading in English as aforeign language System 25 91ndash102 doi101016S0346-251X(96)00063-2

Maxwell J (1996) Qualitative research design An interactive approachThousand Oaks CA Sage

Nunan D (2003) The impact of English as a global language oneducational policies and practices in the Asia-Pacific regionTESOL Quarterly 37 589ndash613 doi1023073588214

Onishi N (2008 June 8) For studies in English Koreans learn tosay goodbye to dad The New York Times Retrieved from httpwwwnytimescom

Paik S J (2004) Korean and US families schools and learningInternational Journal of Educational Research 41 71ndash90doi101016jijer200504006

490 TESOL Journal

Park S J amp Abelmann N (2004) Class and cosmopolitan strivingMothersrsquo management of English education in South KoreaAnthropological Quarterly 77 645ndash672 doi101353anq20040063

Rees J amp Klapper J (2007) Analysing and evaluating the linguisticbenefit of residence abroad for UK foreign language studentsAssessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 32 331ndash353 doi10108002602930600801860

Samimy K K amp Brutt-Griffler J (1999) To be a native or non-native speaker Perceptions of lsquolsquonon-nativersquorsquo students in agraduate TESOL program In G Braine (Ed) Non-nativeeducators in English language teaching (pp 127ndash144) Mahwah NJLawrence Erlbaum

Sherman L amp Strang H (2004) Experimental ethnography Themarriage of qualitative and quantitative research Annals of theAmerican Academy of Political and Social Science 595 204ndash222doi1011770002716204267481

Singleton D (2005) The critical period hypothesis A coat of manycolours International Review of Applied Linguistics in LanguageTeaching 43 269ndash285 doi101515iral2005434269

Sorenson C W (1994) Education and success in contemporarySouth Korea Comparative Education Review 38 10ndash35doi101086447223

Vardell S M Hadaway N L amp Young T A (2006) Matchingbooks and readers Selecting literature for English learnersReading Teacher 59 734ndash741 doi101598RT5981

Korean Parental Beliefs About ELT 491