The aim of this study is to exmaine Korean university students' Perceptions of Native and Non-native English teachers. For the investigation, data from 100 university students in Seoul and Daegu were gathered. The respondents were various in terms of ...
The aim of this study is to exmaine Korean university students' Perceptions of Native and Non-native English teachers. For the investigation, data from 100 university students in Seoul and Daegu were gathered. The respondents were various in terms of their majors, and grades and showed mid-low level of confidence in English competence, with little experience of studying in English-speaking countries. The 49 questions on the survey were designed in hopes to answer the following three questions this study proposes.
1. What factors are perceived by Korean university students as important qualifications for a native English teacher?
2. What are the learner variables affecting learners' preference for a native English teacher?
3. In what areas of teaching do learners prefer a native English teacher?
For the investigation of the first question, the respondents were asked to show their preferences for native English teachers with regard to their nationalities, understanding of Korean culture and language, teaching licenses related majors, and British or American accent. The result shows that in terms of nationality, the learners have the highest preference for those from English speaking nations, with the second and the third highest preference for those from ESL and EFL nations. The lowest preference was for ethnic Korean teachers with educational background in English-speaking schools. Other factors such as understanding of Korean culture and language, related teaching license and major were all perceived as important qualifications for a native English teacher. Lastly, American accent were preferred to British accent.
The one-way ANOVA test result for the second question shows that speaking and writing confidence were the learner variables affecting the preferences for native English teachers(p<0.05). All the other variables such as learners' grades, majors, experience in English-speaking countries did not show any statistically significant value in t-test(p<0.05).
For the investigation of the third question, learners' preference for native English teachers were surveyed with regard to 10 areas of teaching. The results shows that the native speakers received highest scores in the areas of pronunciation teaching, encouraging communication, vocabulary teaching, creativity of teaching methods, speaking evaluation. However, many students with low English proficiency answered that they have difficulty in communicating with native English teachers during the class.
The implications of the study are as follows. Firstly, it seems that students are still inclined to consider English as the language of Anglo-saxon. Considering the fact that English has long become a Lingua Franca and thus does not belong to a specific group or culture, more efforts should be made to teach English as an international language. Moreover, further researches are imperative on the topic of qualifications of native English teachers from ESL and EFL nations.
Secondly, there is a need for team teaching in beginners' speaking and writing classes. It seems that team teaching has not been considered in the college level English classes, based on the assumption that their English competence is sufficient for taking a native teacher's class. Further research on the appropriateness of team teaching in college level is necessary.
Lastly, further empirical researches are imperative on the teaching ability of native and non-native teachers with regard to their teaching behavior. It seems that there can be discrepancy between native and non-native teacher's actual teaching behavior and teachers' or learners' perceptions(Medgyes, 2000). By conducting further empirical research on this matter, both native and non-native teachers can understand their teaching behavior and improve their teaching ability.