42 Language Teaching
Team-Teaching with Native Speakers
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
March 2020
EDUCATION
Written by Dr. David E. Shaffer
Team-teaching has become a common practice at public schools in Korea where native Englishspeaking teachers are assigned. The concept was introduced on a large scale in Korea by the U.S. Peace Corps volunteers and practiced in the late 1960s and the 1970s. It was revived by the Korean government with the launching of their English Program in Korea (EPIK) in the late 1990s. Because it involves the collaboration and coordination of two teachers, it involves an extra measure of effort. The Gwangju News was fortunate to be able to set up an interview with a veteran team-teacher, Yun Seongsuk, who is also a lifetime member of the Gwangju-Jeonnam Chapter of Korea TESOL. — Ed. Gwangju News (GN): Thank you for agreeing to do this interview for the Gwangju News on teaching English with native English speakers. To start off, could you give us some general information about who Yun Seongsuk is? Yun Seongsuk: I’m a teacher who enjoys learning and teaching English. I am a graduate of Gwangju National University of Education and majored in elementary education. I was a homeroom teacher for about seven years, and I have been an English subject teacher for about eight years now. I was also the team leader managing the Ojeong English Center for two years. It is one of only four government-funded English Centers in Gwangju. Then, I took a two-year break from teaching to get my master’s in a government program for elementary school teachers. I majored in elementary English education at Korea National University of Education in Cheongju. Now I am an English subject teacher at Ojeong Elementary School and also the head teacher in charge of curriculum development and related activities such as open classes. Early in my career, I was part of a six-month intensive teacher-training program at Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming. It was sponsored by the Gwangju Office of Education. I really enjoyed experiencing life in a different culture as well as interacting with U.S. students and observing their classes. GN: Why did you decide to become an elementary school teacher? Yun Seongsuk: Well actually, I had many dreams of what
I wanted to be – writer, TV producer, singer-songwriter, pharmacist, and teacher. Though one of my dreams was to be a teacher, I was not sure if my personality was suited for teaching. Then, in the third year of high school, one of my favorite teachers who I look up to took me under his wing and recommended elementary-school teaching, saying that it was well suited for my character. His words influenced me to decide to become an elementary school teacher. GN: When you were a university student, did you expect that you would one day be an English teacher? Yun Seongsuk: No, not at all. I wasn’t even very good at English, so that was the last thing that I was thinking of doing. But since English became an elementary school subject, I had no choice but to also teach English. And it turned out that I liked to teach the subject and became increasingly interested in it, and I still am. GN: You’ve been working with and co-teaching with native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) for a number of years. What is your general impression of the experience? Are NESTs easy to get along with? Easy to work with. Dedicated to teaching? Or are they all very different? Yun Seongsuk: It was really great to teach English with NESTs. By the way, let me use the term “team-teaching” instead of “co-teaching.” I prefer “team-teaching” because it better conveys the spirit of working together, which is important to achieve the day’s goal. Anyhow, I actually think “Two heads are better than one!” so having a native-speaking English teacher to lesson-plan and
