32 Language Teaching
Understanding the EFL Teacher An Inter view with Ian Moodie
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
October 2021
TEACHING & LEARNING
Teacher, Researcher, Fisherman
If you live in the Mokpo area, go to ELT conferences, or look through language teaching journals, you are familiar with Ian Moodie. Ian is a tenure-track associate professor in the Department of English Education at Mokpo National University, where he teaches linguistics and English education courses to local preservice teachers. Although he is originally from Canada, he has a PhD in linguistics from the University of Otago in New Zealand and an MA in applied linguistics from the University of New England in Australia. He is also a lifetime member of Korea TESOL. In this interview, we discuss some of his recent research on English teachers in Korea, about teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) here, and a bit on the fishing connection. — Ed.
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nterviewer: Thank you, Dr. Moodie, for taking the time for this interview. Your research has always been of interest to me, so I have quite a number of questions to ask. Shall we get started? It seems to me that a substantial majority of English language teaching (ELT) research is student-focused: efficacy of teaching methods and techniques, learning strategies, etc. But most of your research is ELT teacher-focused. What piqued your interest in this area?
but I suppose the key finding was demonstrating how elementary school teachers’ commitment to teaching English is regulated by the teacher rotation system. With this system, teachers switch grades and schools with some regularity, and it has led to a situation where teachers generally only teach English for a short time, say, a year or two, and then return to homeroom teaching. The biggest drawback of this system is that it has really inhibited the development of ELT expertise in Korean elementary schools.
Ian Moodie: Good question. Looking back, before I got into doing research, I had taught English in Korea for many years. When I started, I was just thrown into a classroom. Despite my best efforts, I soon noticed how ineffective I was, so I spent a lot of time studying how to teach on my own over the years. I suppose that is the root of my interest in the type of research that I have done with English teachers in Korea, whether it be with local teachers or expat teachers.
Interviewer: Many EFL programs in Korea that include native English-speaking teachers (NESTs), such as the EPIK program, are designed to employ co-teaching with a Korean counterpart. Why is it that such co-teaching does not seem to work out very well?
Interviewer: Some of your research has been devoted to commitments and motivations for teaching English in Korea. What have you found? Is there much variation among teachers? Ian Moodie: Yes, for example, I have done a couple studies in this area with local elementary school teachers. What I have found is that people want to teach English for many reasons, and, yes, sure, there is variation among teachers,
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Ian Moodie: This one would take a long time to answer sufficiently, and each participant in these programs might have a slightly different view, but overall, I would say that there are structural problems with how the programs are implemented that make authentic co-teaching pretty challenging to pull off. For instance, there is a big gap in the power/authority and qualifications between the local teachers and expat teachers, which presents a barrier to collaboration. Communication is also often an issue, and the textbooks and curriculum are not necessarily designed with co-teaching in mind. I could go on and on, but I want to flip this question and talk about what is good. It is pretty clear that these programs are popular with students, and in Jeonnam in particular, these programs provide the opportunity for many local children to interact with someone from another country for the first time. That can be a transformative
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