Three teachers in a Korean language school: culturally bounded teaching practice but different teach

1
Three teachers in a Korean language school
culturally bounded teaching practice but
different teaching styles

• 07P 331
• Spring 2006
• Seon H No

2
Description of Study

• The purpose of this research study is to find out
  how teachers at the Korean language school teach
  and what are the teaching approaches and methods
  used in the classroom.

3
Theoretical Framework

• According to a 1990 U.S census, the
  Korean-American population increased 124 from
  357,000 to 798,849 in the past decade.
• Although most Korean children understand the
  Korean language in the manner that their parents
  use it at home, few Korean immigrant children
  actually have achieved a high level of
  proficiency in the language.
• The Korean language school is the place in which
  the formal home language learning takes place to
  improve immigrant childrens language
  proficiency.

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Research Questions

• How do teachers in Korean language schools
  develop their own literacy program? Are there
  any culturally specific ways of teaching methods?
  
• What are the teachers teaching styles? Is there
  any difference among the teachers in terms of
  teaching styles?

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Case Study Design

• This research was designed as a case study.
• A case study is an empirical inquiry that
  investigates a phenomenon within its real-life
  context, especially when the boundaries between
  phenomenon and context are not clearly evident
  (Yin, 1994).
• This case study offered the advantage of a
  detailed investigation of particular individuals
  in a particular setting.
• Case studies are valuable for contributing to the
  refinement of theory, highlight issues that
  warrant deeper exploration, and mark the limits
  of generalizability (Stake, 1994).
• In contrast to a positivist perspective, no claim
  is made for the generalizability of case study
  findings to a wide range of settings (Guba
  Lincoln, 1994).

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Research site and participants

• Location The language school was a suitable
  place for investigating a Korean language
  teaching environment in the home language
  learning classroom.
• Participants The subjects were three teachers at
  the language school located in a Midwest college
  town in the U.S. The teachers are currently
  enrolled in doctoral programs near in the town.
  Each of the teachers has been serving different
  times as a teacher, but they have all worked at
  the school for more than 1 1/2 years.

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Data collection

• Observation
• For this research study I observed three teachers
  in their classes. Class A has 4 students, Class B
  has 3 students, and class C has 3 students.
• I observed two times for each class from March 4
  until March 25, 2006.
• I chose to write a field note for the first time
  of each observation and for the second, I
  recorded an audio tape for each observation,
  which I transcribed later on.

• Interview
• Pre-interview About 3 hours with the head
  teacher (to build my background knowledge about
  the school environment).
• Interviewed with three teachers at Korean
  language school. The length of interview varied
  from 25min to 15min.

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Category

• Only Korean policy
• Teacher talk vs. students talk
• Dictation
• Reading aloud together
• Using cues ( scaffolding, background knowledge)
• Rote memorization
• Emphasis on grammatical analysis
• Drawing from students recent experience/activiti
  es
• Discipline

• Focus on content/class
• Contradiction between teachers beliefs and
  practices in the classroom
• Agreement between teachers beliefs and practices
  in the classroom.
• Teachers teaching experience
• Teachers area of discipline
• Teachers teaching philosophy
• Ability to connect between students background
  knowledge and topics in the classroom

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Assertion1 All three teachers practiced
culturally bounded teaching methods.

• It seems that it was well understood by students
  and whenever a student verbalized in English, a
  teacher or peers commented and reminded that
  Korean is the only medium in class. Do you know
  the name of a butterfly with various colors?,
  and then the teacher said, What butterfly? I
  have no idea. Then the student said in English,
  Butterfly is yellow!, and the teacher said, No
  English, youd better find out what it called in
  Korean. (Class B. March 25, 2006)
• I noticed that all that class performed dictation
  quizzes after each chapter was finished. In
  class A, as soon as one chapter was finished, the
  teacher said, OK. Its time for dictation.
  One student, I really dont like dictation, wait
  for me (as she opened op her notebook), teacher.
  (Class A, March 11, 2006). Another class was the
  teacher wanted students to write the same
  sentence at the same time in the class she said,
  OK, now I want you to write, Thank you. I will
  eat well with big appetite. Now, you have to
  write down exactly what I said. (Class C, March
  11, 2006).
• I found that in all the classes I observed
  actually the teachers practiced similar patterns
  dictation, rote memorization, ways of discipline
  and reading aloud together, etc. This similarity
  may appear because the teachers unconsciously
  teach culturally embedded practices in the
  classroom.

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Assertion 2 Each teacher revealed different ways
ofteaching approaches.

• The classes started by teachers saying, Open
  your book. Then the classes proceeded according
  to their main text. However, each class has a
  different beginning in terms of the teachers
  different style. My first class observation was
  low intermediate level of class. The teacher
  began her class by checking that everybody
  brought a pencil and book. This class needed
  around 5 min. to get organized and ready to
  study. The teacher was very patient with students
  and was unhurriedly moved on to the subject they
  were going to study that day (Class C. March 11,
  2006)
• I noticed that each teacher has their own
  strategies of building scaffolding and eliciting
  students background knowledge into the class.
  For example, the advanced class profoundly
  emphasized grammatical learning and
  pronunciation. The text is from Korean government
  and the content seems too remote to understand
  for the immigrant children. My observation week,
  the students in advanced class were learning
  lesson 9 Lets read and Think. The objectives
  for the lesson are 1. Student will be able to
  conceptualize cause and effect after the
  reading from a lesson. 2. Student will be able to
  talk fact and opinion. When I was in the class
  first week (March 4, 2006), the students were
  struggling and tried to comprehend these
  concepts. They could not schematize their
  background knowledge related to what they were
  learning in class. The teacher explained
  repeatedly, but there were long struggles in
  order to grasp the concept of cause and effect
  and fact and opinion.

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• My next observation was class A, the advanced
  class. As soon as students opened the text, the
  teacher in the class started right into the class
  subject. She started to read the sentence from
  the book, When the door of castle closed, we
  cannot get in the city. I would like to come
  again. Please wait until that time. Then she
  went on and asked students, what kinds of
  feelings can you think of? All the students in
  the class seemed to know what she meant, but
  could not think of the right words to answer.
  Then the teacher added, (the writer wants to)
  try to soothe ones mind, then what kinds of
  feeling is it? Does it stay longer or not?,
  Dont you think that it wants to stay a little
  longer?, see, try to soothe the minds of little
  star. (Class A. March 11, 2006)
• The last class, class B, was, OK. Lets see. Now
  we are going to learn chapter 5, the new chapter.
  Do you know what the topic is? The teacher in
  class B started her class by clarifying what they
  are going to learn and asking students whether
  they can come up with their own background
  knowledge. (Class B. March 25, 2006) She was able
  to draw students attention very quickly and
  smoothly into the class and students were soon
  actively engaged in learning.
• The three teachers I observed were clearly
  approaching different teaching styles in the
  classroom. It may be difficult to comment on
  their teaching style and how effective one was
  over another by just observing two times for each
  class. However, there are some degrees of
  differences to interact between teacher and
  students, and among the students. I noticed that
  the flow of learning development related to the
  topic that they studied showed some difference
  among the classes.

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Conclusion

• This study finds that the three teachers in a
  Korean language school managed systematically
  Korean cultural bounded teaching practices.
  However, each teacher displayed different
  teaching styles in the classroom.