Abstract
Despite an increase in ethnic diversity within the country, the English language teaching workforce remains undeniably binary in Korea. Using an intersectionality lens, this study was an exploration of the racialized experiences of one Ugandan female teacher of English working in Korean ELT. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to investigate how she perceived herself as an English speaker and teacher and how Koreans’ stereotypes of ideal English teachers and Black people affected her professional identity and self-perceptions. Findings suggest that the Ugandan woman was rejected by the formal accreditation process and faced considerable challenges in her efforts to be accepted as a qualified English teacher in Korea. On the other hand, she perceived herself as a native-like English speaker and a fully qualified English teacher with an MA degree in TESOL and years of English teaching experience. This study reveals not only the practical difficulties of a biased assessment system, but also the narrow discourse concerning who can legitimately be recognized as an English teacher in Korea, which is at odds with the Korean policy of a pursuing multicultural society and honoring diversity and with the global trend of recognizing multiple English.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to express her sincere gratitude to Critical Pedagogy SIG members for sharing the ideas and the referees who provided generous and constructive feedback throughout the entire review process. She would also like to thank the participant of the study who was willing to share her story and allow me to write about it.
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Conflict of interest statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Special Issue: The Yellow Peril or the Model Minority? Racialized identities and discourses of Asian Americans and Asian Canadians; Guest Editor: Christian Chun
- Research Articles
- Paradoxes of the Canadian mosaic: “being, feeling and doing Canadian”
- The Asian American teaching method? An overview of language education, social justice issues, and challenging ‘Oppressed’ versus ‘Model’ minority binary discourse
- Life and work between home and “homeland”: a narrative inquiry of transnational Chinese adoptees’ identity negotiations across time and space
- I ain’t your f*cking Model Minority! Indexical orders of ‘Asianness’, class, and heteronormative masculinity
- Special Issue: Assessment and Creativity through a Translingual Lens; Guest Editors: Lavinia Hirsu, Marta Nitecka Barche and Dobrochna Futro
- Editorials
- Assessment and creativity through a translingual lens: introduction
- Assessment and creativity through a translingual lens: transdisciplinary insights
- Creative translanguaging in formative assessment: Chinese teachers’ perceptions and practices in the primary EFL classroom
- Creativity, criticality and translanguaging in assessment design: perspectives from Bangladeshi higher education
- Integrating translanguaging into assessment: students’ responses and perceptions
- Research Articles
- Investigation of factors underlying foreign language classroom anxiety in Chinese university English majors
- Why can’t I teach English? A case study of the racialized experiences of a female Ugandan teacher of English in an EFL context
- Primary-concern solicitation in Chinese medical encounters
- The relationships between young FL learners’ classroom emotions (anxiety, boredom, & enjoyment), engagement, and FL proficiency
- Visualising the language practices of lower secondary students: outlines for practice-based models of multilingualism
- Observing a teacher’s interactional competence in an ESOL classroom: a translanguaging perspective
- Foreign language teacher grit: scale development and examining the relations with emotions and burnout using relative weight analysis
- Vocabulary learning in a foreign language: multimedia input, sentence-writing task, and their combination
- The predictive effects of reading speed and positive affect on first and second language incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading an authentic novel
- The effects of cultural and educational background on students’ use of language learning strategies in CFL learning
- Transl[iter]ating Dubai’s linguistic landscape: a bilingual translation perspective between English and Arabic against a backdrop of globalisation
- Exploring Tibetan residents’ everyday language practices in Danba county, Southwest China: a case study
- The mechanism for the positive effect of foreign language peace of mind in the Chinese EFL context: a moderated mediation model based on learners’ individual resources
- A latent profile analysis of L2 writing emotions and their relations to writing buoyancy, motivation and proficiency
- “Part of me is teaching English”: probing the language-related teaching practices of an English-medium instruction (EMI) teacher
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Special Issue: The Yellow Peril or the Model Minority? Racialized identities and discourses of Asian Americans and Asian Canadians; Guest Editor: Christian Chun
- Research Articles
- Paradoxes of the Canadian mosaic: “being, feeling and doing Canadian”
- The Asian American teaching method? An overview of language education, social justice issues, and challenging ‘Oppressed’ versus ‘Model’ minority binary discourse
- Life and work between home and “homeland”: a narrative inquiry of transnational Chinese adoptees’ identity negotiations across time and space
- I ain’t your f*cking Model Minority! Indexical orders of ‘Asianness’, class, and heteronormative masculinity
- Special Issue: Assessment and Creativity through a Translingual Lens; Guest Editors: Lavinia Hirsu, Marta Nitecka Barche and Dobrochna Futro
- Editorials
- Assessment and creativity through a translingual lens: introduction
- Assessment and creativity through a translingual lens: transdisciplinary insights
- Creative translanguaging in formative assessment: Chinese teachers’ perceptions and practices in the primary EFL classroom
- Creativity, criticality and translanguaging in assessment design: perspectives from Bangladeshi higher education
- Integrating translanguaging into assessment: students’ responses and perceptions
- Research Articles
- Investigation of factors underlying foreign language classroom anxiety in Chinese university English majors
- Why can’t I teach English? A case study of the racialized experiences of a female Ugandan teacher of English in an EFL context
- Primary-concern solicitation in Chinese medical encounters
- The relationships between young FL learners’ classroom emotions (anxiety, boredom, & enjoyment), engagement, and FL proficiency
- Visualising the language practices of lower secondary students: outlines for practice-based models of multilingualism
- Observing a teacher’s interactional competence in an ESOL classroom: a translanguaging perspective
- Foreign language teacher grit: scale development and examining the relations with emotions and burnout using relative weight analysis
- Vocabulary learning in a foreign language: multimedia input, sentence-writing task, and their combination
- The predictive effects of reading speed and positive affect on first and second language incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading an authentic novel
- The effects of cultural and educational background on students’ use of language learning strategies in CFL learning
- Transl[iter]ating Dubai’s linguistic landscape: a bilingual translation perspective between English and Arabic against a backdrop of globalisation
- Exploring Tibetan residents’ everyday language practices in Danba county, Southwest China: a case study
- The mechanism for the positive effect of foreign language peace of mind in the Chinese EFL context: a moderated mediation model based on learners’ individual resources
- A latent profile analysis of L2 writing emotions and their relations to writing buoyancy, motivation and proficiency
- “Part of me is teaching English”: probing the language-related teaching practices of an English-medium instruction (EMI) teacher