Defining competencies for training non-native Korean speaking teachers: a Q methodology approach

2.1 Korean teacher competencies

Richards (2010), in his discussion on competence and performance of language teachers, pointed out that language teaching is a profession, in other words, not something that anybody who knows the target language can do. Language teachers need to acquire specific professional competencies, i.e., sets of knowledge, beliefs, and skills, to put students in a position to learn the target language better (Richard 2010). Beyond possessing specific competencies, a good teacher also needs to have relevant values and attitudes, which lead to the consequence that, as Richards’ (2010) examples show, what makes a successful teacher is also culture specific. Therefore, it is necessary to look at how teacher competencies have been understood in the context of Korean language teaching.

In the early 1990s, publications in Korean language teaching considered knowledge of the language and the ability to speak standard Korean as the most prominent teacher qualities. However, the field developed a more articulated understanding of teacher competencies during the past decade. For example, Bang (2016) identified the core elements of teacher competency across cognitive, behavioral, and affective dimensions, while Won and Jang (2018) foregrounded the importance of bilingual, multicultural understanding, and intercultural communicative competence. Chung (2019) individuated seven types of Korean language teacher competencies, with some of them linked to specific pedagogical skills, such as instructional competency and evaluation competency, while others relevant to the teaching profession in general, such as administrative work competency. Additionally, Chung (2019) individuated a community competency relevant to Korean teachers in overseas contexts.

In Korea, the Framework Act of the Korean Language is the piece of legislation that provides the legal grounds for the provision of the government-recognized qualification of Korean language teacher. Most Korean teacher training programs are designed on the requirements outlined in the legislation to guarantee the trainees the possibility to obtain the qualification. These requirements include knowledge of Korean linguistics, Korean language pedagogy, Second Language Acquisition, Korean culture pedagogy, and a placement/practicum.^[1] Although these are important aspects of what Richards (2010) called disciplinary and pedagogical content knowledge, other relevant skills, such as pedagogical reasoning skills and the cognitive ability to plan and develop lessons (Richards 2010), or the ability to understand the educational setting in its socio-cultural context (Chung 2019), are given a minor weight.

A further important aspect of language teacher training is the necessity for teachers to possess a language proficiency above a certain threshold (Richards 2010). This aspect is undoubtedly more relevant when dealing with teacher competencies in the context of non-native teachers, as we discuss in the next section.

2.2 Non-native Korean speaking teachers

Gramling (2016) pointed out that for language teachers, “the word monolingual represents little more than the fetishized, delusional abstraction of linguistic nativism” (Gramling 2016: 4), illustrating the association between the concepts of the monolingual speaker and the native speaker. Similarly, Cook (2016) remarked that this native speaker model is unattainable in a traditionally multilingual world and the language teaching domain since it does not represent a model students aspire to attain. On the other hand, the non-native teacher represents a much more attainable goal because “a non-native teacher is necessarily a model of a person who commands two languages and is able to communicate through both” (Cook 2016: 200).

Even if the discussion about non-native teachers has often been centred around issues of strengths and weakness concerning both language proficiency and pedagogical knowledge (Árva and Medgyes 2000; Pasternak and Bailey 2004; Reves and Medgyes 1994), research has progressively focused on other aspects, dealing with teacher identity (Clarke 2008; Fraschini 2012; Hawley Nagatomo 2012; Kramsch and Lam 1999; Lee 2022; Tao and Gao 2018), stakeholders’ perception (Colmenero and Lasagabaster 2020; Fraschini 2010; Samimy and Brutt-Griffler 1999), teacher training (Bayliss and Vignola 2007), and professional challenges, such as discriminatory hiring practices (Leonard 2019; Lowe and Pinner 2016) or the need of a continued commitment to maintain a high level of language proficiency (Braine 2010).

Regarding non-native teachers in Korean Language education, the most studied topics are identity, efficacy, and anxiety (Kim 2019). However, the issue of identifying teacher competencies to train non-native teachers has recently seen growing interest. Lee (2022) noted that non-native Korean teachers often show a low perception of their competencies but a strong desire to grow professionally. Lee et al. (2020) reinforced the need to focus teacher education on developing content, teaching, and technology-related knowledge when training overseas professionals. Kim (2023) added linguistic competence to the behavioural, affective, and cognitive competencies already individuated by Bang (2016), upon the conclusion that non-native professionals have unique needs. Lee and Kim (2022), through a Delphi survey, developed a non-native Korean teacher competency framework divided into four macro-dimensions, namely the ability to use language and culture knowledge, the ability to cultivate and practice Korean language pedagogy skills, the ability to communicate and interact within the classroom and the institutional environment, and the ability to develop a professional identity. These four macro-dimensions are divided into ten sub-dimensions and 44 competencies.

The literature in the context of Korean language education demonstrates the importance of identifying non-native Korean teachers’ competencies, and in particular, Kim (2023) pointed out the need for further studies to identify and discuss the nuances behind the competencies required specifically for non-native Korean professionals. Additionally, regarding non-native teacher research in general, Moussu and Llurda (2008) observed that it has been conducted exclusively through personal narratives, large-scale surveys, interviews, and classroom observations and called for the introduction of new research methods. To address both gaps, we adopt Q methodology to contribute to the discussion on non-native teacher competencies by objectively foregrounding the subjective perspectives that the primary stakeholders, i.e., the teachers themselves, developed on the ground of their unique life experiences.

4.1 Q methodology

Q methodology was developed by William Stephenson (1935) and has recently attracted considerable interest in education research (Lundberg et al. 2020). Q methodology requires participants to sort a set of statements, ranking each statement against all others. The resulting sorts are subjected to by-person factor analysis, allowing the researcher to focus on the individual while at the same time grouping people sharing a similar opinion on a given topic (Brown 1980).

Q methodology has been developed as a science of subjectivity with theoretical grounds in inter-behavioural psychology and quantum physics (Kim 2008). Subjectivity understood as “what one can converse about, to the others, or to oneself” (Stephenson 1968: 501), is closely related to objectivity and not mutually exclusive, implying that people’s subjectivity is observable through their objective behaviour, i.e., through the Q sort (Lundberg et al. 2023). The Q sort also represents the link of Q methodology with quantum physics. The set of statements that participants are asked to sort, the Q sample, is a representative sample of statements taken from the concourse, a theoretically infinite collection of statements that can be said about a topic (McKeown and Thomas 2013). Stephenson (1988) argued that the statements of the concourse do not have any meaning a priori, but it is through sorting each statement in relation to the others, i.e., through the measurement, that quanta phenomena appear. Each statement acquires meaning and provides an observable instantiation of the participant’s subjectivity, with the resulting factors representing probability distributions of people’s subjectivity (Stephenson 1983, 1988). One of the strengths of Q methodology is that it allows the individual “to communicate what is meant by the items constituting a Q sample, apart from the hypothetical-theoretical structure of the researcher” (McKeown and Thomas 2013: 5). A further advantage of Q methodology is that by considering subjectivity self-referential and grounded in the participants’ life experiences (Stephenson 1987) and at the same time considering behaviour an empirically observable expression of subjectivity (Stephenson 2014), it represents the participant’s world view from their own stance, therefore minimizing the risk of biases.

Irie (2014) and Thumvichit (2024) argued in favour of using Q methodology in applied linguistics research. So far, it has been used in language teacher research to explore teacher beliefs (Irie et al. 2018; Lundberg 2019a; Yuan and Lo Bianco 2022) and emotions (Fraschini and Park 2021, 2022; Thumvichit 2024; Thumvichit 2023). Additionally, few but important studies (Lundberg 2019b; Slaughter et al. 2019) have successfully used Q methodology to research language education policies. In this paper, we use Q methodology at the intersection of teacher belief and language education policy research to understand Korean language teacher beliefs regarding the key competencies non-native Korean professionals need, hoping to apply such understanding to teacher training courses.

4.2 P set

Research ethics approval to conduct this research was granted by the University of Melbourne. We recruited 35 participants (see Table 1), corresponding to the P set, by posting an announcement on professional mailing lists and circulating it through our professional network. The number of participants is in line with other Q methodology studies in the field of education (Lundberg et al. 2020).

Most participants obtained their most recent degree in teaching Korean as Second Language from a Korean institution, and most non-native Korean participants were teaching in their original or third country at the time of the data collection. The P set includes non-native and native professionals with teaching experience ranging from less than one year to more than ten years.

4.3 Concourse and Q sample

The study draws its list of statements from Lee and Kim (2022). In their research, they describe an extensive literature review on teacher competencies in Korean language education, competencies frameworks, and non-native professionals, from which they extracted a list of competencies subjected to two rounds of reviews by five experts, following a Delphi protocol. The result gave a framework of 44 competencies divided into four macro-dimensions. In other words, the extensive literature research on teacher competencies and the Delphi study conducted by Lee and Kim (2022) represents our concourse. Other studies have already used a Delphi protocol to generate the statements for a Q methodology study (e.g., Wallis et al. 2009).

We used the 44 competencies as a starting point, reworded them and refined the final Q sample to 42 statements through repeated discussion. Two competencies were excluded as they were deemed too broad to be included in the present study. The statements are divided across the four macro-dimensions as in Table 2. The statements are reported in the Appendix, and the size of the Q sample is in line with other Q methodology studies in education (Lundberg et al. 2020).

4.4 Instruments and procedure

Data were collected online through the application developed by Fraschini et al. (2022). The application, developed to meet human research ethics requirements, has a customizable setup, and guides the participants through the steps of the study with the help of pop-up instructions. Participants were shown information and consent details on the application’s landing page. Then, the first step consisted of answering the background questions reported in Table 1. The following step showed the participants the list of 42 statements and asked them to sort them into three groups, labelled “I think this is the most important for non-native Korean speaking teachers”, “Neutral”, and “I think this is most unimportant for non-native Korean speaking teachers”. The condition of instruction was:

You will see a list of statements related to the main characteristics, qualities, and forms of knowledge desirable for a non-native Korean-speaking teacher. Please consider them, depending on how much you consider they are important for a non-native Korean-speaking teacher.

After sorting the statements into the three categories, the participants were asked to sort them again onto a grid (Table 3).

The labels “I think this is the most important for non-native Korean speaking teachers” and “I think this is the most unimportant for non-native Korean speaking teachers” were visible respectively on the right under the +5 column and the left under the −5 column. In the final step, participants commented on the highest and the lowest ranked statement, could comment about the research topic, and were invited to leave their email addresses if available to participate in a follow-up interview.

4.5 Analysis and interpretation

The sorts were analyzed with KADE v.1.2.1 (Banasick 2019). We extracted factors with Principal Component Analysis and then considered the explanatory power of any solution between two and six factors. A four-factor solution was considered the most suitable because it included the perspective of most participants. The four factors, explaining 57 % of the study variance, were subjected to Varimax rotation. Sorts with a loading higher than +/−0.50 were flagged as significant (see Appendix).^[2] This value, higher than 0.39 (p < 0.01),^[3] allowed us to include a higher number of sorts in constructing the factor arrays since sorts loading on more factors are excluded. We observed no significant pattern between factor association, non-native/native participants, and years of teaching experience.

The factor interpretation is grounded in the researchers’ judgment, in the understanding of participants and research context, and in the empirical evidence of the factor arrays (Lundberg et al. 2023), in order to “provide the feeling of the sorters who define a factor” (Albright et al. 2019: 135) through evidence firmly grounded in the data (Brown 1980). Therefore, together, we considered the most salient statements describing each factor. These statements include those ranked at the two extremes of the grid and those statistically distinguishing. Then, we reviewed all statements ranked higher or lower in a factor than the others. Lastly, we analyzed the statements ranked by difference of variance, i.e., from the statement with the highest consensus across factors to the statement with the highest disagreement.

After analyzing the statements, the researcher more experienced in Q methodology prepared a first draft of the factor narratives. This draft was further refined through team discussion. After, the comments written by the participants associated with each factor were carefully reviewed and integrated to support the narrative. To minimize the researcher bias, we report the factor arrays in the Appendix, and we disclose that the research team comprises native and non-native Korean professionals with more than ten years of experience in Korean language teaching and teacher training. One researcher is associated with Factor 1, while the others are not significantly associated with any factor. All the research team members have an insider perspective on the topic, and this knowledge helped present the opinion of the factors from the participants’ perspective.

Four participants, the highest loading participant available for each factor, i.e., the most representative, were invited to a follow-up interview to discuss their factor narrative. The four interview participants were two non-native teachers and two native teachers. Interviews lasted between 30 and 40 minutes. Each interview participant was shown in advance the relevant narrative. Then during the interview, they were asked whether they could recognize their opinion in the narrative description, and other questions regarding representative, consensus, and disagreement statements. All interview participants confirmed that the narrative description reflected their views. The interviews were fully transcribed, then we read the transcripts multiple times, paying particular attention to those parts where the interviewee illustrated the reasons behind their point of view. The analysis of the interviews informed the discussion of the results and is reported in Section 6.

In the following narratives, the statements are indicated in brackets with their number, followed by their rating as per factor array. To include the voices of as many participants as possible in the narratives, we integrated the description with the comments that the participants wrote at the end of the sorting task.

5.1 Factor 1: Pedagogical flexibility and Korean proficiency

Factor 1 represents the perspective of eight teachers. Of these teachers, only one did not graduate from a Korean university, and three are native Koreans. Five possessed one to five years of teaching experience, two six to ten years, and one more than ten years.

These participants believe that, for non-native teachers, the most important thing is to continue developing their educational expertise (8, +5) since, as one of the participants explained in the comments (16OUNN1), it is through developed expertise that the teacher can smoothly overcome all sorts of episodes or unforeseen circumstances that may arise in a language class. Moreover, this continuing developing expertise would allow them to develop teaching techniques and devise teaching strategies appropriate to their employment context (25, +3). Other needs deemed important by these participants are the ability to design courses and classes that consider learners’ characteristics (23, +4; 22, +2) and language proficiency (20, +1). The need to develop the ability to make the teaching relevant to the students by paying attention to their characteristics is explained in one of the comments by the consideration that this can foster student interest (30KUNN6).

While the aspects considered so far can also be deemed fundamental for all teachers, not only for non-native professionals, participants associated with Factor 1 also believe that non-native teachers need to be able to use Korean or at least possess an understanding of Korean somewhat near to the level of a native speaker. For example, non-native professionals need to be able to use Korean in a contextually appropriate way and with a degree of accuracy close to that of a native speaker (18, +4; 17, +2). Along with contextually appropriate and accurate use of Korean, a non-native teacher must also have an advanced understanding of the Korean phonetic system (9, +3).

Participants associated with Factor 1, compared to other factors, do not consider it important for non-native professionals to love the Korean language (1, −3) or to love their job as a Korean Language teacher (2, −2). They also consider it less important for a non-native teacher to feel a sense of belonging towards their institution (38, −4). In their comments, one of the participants (25KUNN1) explained that this is because compared to the others, these aspects affect less the effective delivery of a class and the relationship with the students.

In summary, the overall perspective of Factor 1 indicates the need for non-native teachers to develop the ability to adjust teaching to the context and the learners and to be able to use certain aspects of the Korean language to a degree near to a native speaker. Compared to these aspects, love for the Korean language or for their job as Korean teachers is less relevant.

5.2 Factor 2: Commitment to the profession and continuing professional development

Factor 2 represents the perspective of three participants. All graduated from a Korean institution, two of whom are non-native teachers. Their language teaching expertise is different, between one and five years, between six and ten years, and more than ten years. A participant with a negative loading on this factor was not flagged since it would have provided a factor with only one participant loading, which, following Watts and Stenner (2012), is not worth attempting to discuss.

These participants believe, similarly to those associated with Factor 1, that non-native professionals must continue developing their educational expertise (8, +5). A way to pursue such constant professional development is by continuously reflecting on lessons and learning from past classroom experiences (7, +4). As explained in a comment (33KUNA6), the reason is that non-native professionals share the same learner background as the students, and reflections on their own experiences can help them better support the students.

Another characteristic that participants associated with this factor consider necessary for non-native professionals is the commitment to the profession. For example, the participants’ view foregrounds the need to possess a strong ethic and commitment as an educator (3, +4; 4, +2) since, as one of the participants commented (24KUNN1), without ethic and commitment, one cannot be called an educator. Moreover, this group of participants considers significantly more important than participants in other factors the need to have enthusiasm for their work and the activities of their institution (39, 0).

A further important ability deemed essential for non-native professionals is that of counselling. Non-native teachers should possess good counselling skills (36, 0) and be able to counsel students on the grounds of their own learning experience (6, +3) and awareness of the learners’ socio-cultural background (14, +2).

From the point of view of content knowledge and linguistic ability, on the one hand, participants associated with this factor believe that non-native professionals need to be sure to possess adequate knowledge of Korean linguistics, applied and comparative linguistics, and language acquisition theory (12, +3). On the other hand, they also do not think non-native teachers must possess a high-level command of other language-related aspects. For example, they do not deem it important to have a good command of paralinguistics and non-verbal aspects of the language (19, −5) since education is developing in an online and remote direction (24KUNN1). Moreover, they do not necessarily need to possess an advanced level of fluency (16, −4), have a developed and advanced vocabulary knowledge (10, −2), use the language with context appropriateness close to native speakers (18, −1), have an advanced understanding of the Korean phonetic system (9, 0), or be aware of the relationship between the Korean language and Korean culture (13, −1). Regarding aspects of professional knowledge, participants associated with this factor consider less important than other factors the ability to use various formative, summative, and external assessments (27, −3).

Moreover, participants associated with this factor do not consider it essential to be able to find flexible solutions to unexpected classroom situations (32, −4), and with regards to classroom situations, they do not deem it important for non-native teachers the ability to create a warm atmosphere (35, −3).

In summary, the perspective of the participants associated with Factor 2 posits that non-native teachers need continuous professional development and commitment to the profession. They must also possess good counselling skills and developed linguistic, applied linguistics and language acquisition knowledge. However, they also think that non-native professional does not need to possess language skills to a level close to a native speaker.

5.3 Factor 3: Love for the language and maintenance of advanced linguistic skills

Factor 3 summarises the perspective of nine participants. Except for one, all graduated from a Korean institution. Five of them are native Koreans, while four are non-native professionals. Three have one to five years of teaching experience, four six to ten years, and two have more than ten years.

These participants believe that the single most important characteristic that a non-native teacher should possess is love for the Korean language (1, +5). One of the participants, in their comments, explained that the love for the Korean language becomes a powerful motivator that pushes the non-native teacher toward learning more about the Korean language, toward love for their profession, and a stronger ethical awareness as an educator (34KUNA6). It is easy then to see that the love for the Korean language is associated with the need for non-native professionals to be aware that they will be lifelong learners (5, +3). Lifelong learning implies developing and maintaining high-level linguistic skills, as confirmed in another participant’s comments (05KUNN6). For this reason, it is possible to see the need to possess a broad and advanced vocabulary knowledge (10, +4) and display an advanced level of fluency (16, +4) also associated with this aspect. Participants associated with this factor also deem important cultural knowledge and understanding. Therefore, non-native participants must possess intercultural awareness across their own and Korean cultures (15, +3) and be aware of the relationship between the Korean language and Korean culture (13, +2).

In comparison to participants associated with other factors, teachers associated with Factor 3 deem less necessary for non-native professionals, the ability to counsel learners (36, −4) and the ability to solve classroom issues, such as, for example, attritions between teachers and learners (33, −4). Another less critical aspect is the capacity to develop and adapt classroom material and teaching plans, create new curricula, and integrate feedback from past assessments (28, −3; 24, −1; 25, −1).

To summarise, participants associated with Factor 3 may consider fundamental for a non-native teacher to love the language, develop and maintain advanced language skills, and possess (cross-)cultural knowledge and understanding. However, compared to participants associated with other factors, teachers associated with Factor 3 deem less important the ability to develop class materials, teaching plans, and new curricula.

5.4 Factor 4: Love for the profession and responsibility as an educator

Factor 4 illustrates the shared perspective of four participants. Three received their degree from a Korean university, and one from an overseas institution. Three of them are non-native professionals, and all have one to five years of teaching experience.

Similarly to Factor 3, in the opinion of these participants, one of the most important characteristics that non-native teachers need to have is love for the Korean language (1, +4). This aspect is closely connected to the need to love, consequently, the Korean teaching profession (2, +5) and feel a strong sense of responsibility towards the teaching job (40, +4). Participants associated with this factor explained that love for the profession is essential since it brings people to teach better (08KUNN1) and to grow as a teacher (09OUNN1). In contrast to Factor 3, in this factor, this aspect is not seen in association with the awareness of being lifelong learners (5, −3).

A further aspect highlighted by these participants is the need to possess the ability to develop educational material (24, +2), perhaps by using a wide range of technological tools (29, +2). Regarding classroom teaching, the perspective shared by these participants is that non-native teachers should be able to use paralinguistic (intonation, tone, etc.) and non-verbal (facial expressions, body language, etc.) elements (19, +2).

The perspective of Factor 4 also suggests that it is less important for non-native teachers to use a bilingual approach in the classroom (21, −4) since this may not be strictly necessary for effective teaching (11KUNN1), or to acquire extensive knowledge in the field of Korean linguistics, comparative and applied linguistics, and language acquisition theory (12, −2), and neither to use the language with a near-native degree of accuracy (17, −1). Participants associated with this factor also consider less important for non-native teachers a few aspects associated with cultural knowledge and culture teaching. These include being aware of and making intercultural comparisons (15, −1; 26, −1), being aware of the socio-cultural background of the learner (14, −2) or the socio-geographical location of the teaching environment (37, −4).

To summarise, participants associated with this factor believe that the most relevant characteristics for a non-native teacher are the love for the profession, a strong sense of responsibility as an educator, and the ability to develop teaching resources and good interpersonal relations. On the other hand, compared to other factors, they deem less important a high degree of language accuracy, deep linguistic knowledge, and some intercultural aspects of language teaching.

5.5 Consensus and disagreement across perspectives

Statements displaying the largest variance across their ratings indicate points of disagreement across factors. Two main aspects emerged as dividing the opinion of the participants.

The first aspect is related to the need to love the Korean language and the job of the Korean language teacher. The rating of statement 1, indicating the love for the Korean language, and statement 2, indicating the love for the Korean language teaching profession, is negative in Factor 1 but positive, to different degrees, in the remaining factors. This aspect is, therefore, contentious, indicating teachers who, in the first instance, believe there are more important aspects that a non-native professional needs to possess and skills that need to be mastered.

The second aspect of disagreement is related to some linguistic features, such as the need for a high degree of fluency or the need to master and use paralinguistics and non-verbal features of the Korean language. Statement 16, indicating the need to speak Korean fluently, has been rated negatively in three factors (1, 2, and 4) and positively in one (Factor 3). The disagreement regarding the importance of a high level of fluency for a non-native professional is evident, and it is essential to highlight that most factors consider other competencies to be more relevant than a high degree of fluency. A similar argument can be made regarding statement 19, indicating the need to be able to use paralinguistics and non-verbal language features. This statement has also been rated negatively in factors 1 and 2 but positively in factors 3 and 4.

Interestingly, another statement regarding linguistic knowledge has the highest degree of consensus. Statement 11, indicating that non-native professionals need to possess a deep knowledge of the Korean language structures, has been ranked at +2 in Factor 1 and + 3 in the other factors. This indicates that there is overall agreement that non-native professionals should have an advanced understanding of Korean grammar and its structure; however, on the other hand, there is no agreement on whether a high degree of fluency is necessary.

The rating of statement 42, indicating the ability to conduct non-teaching administrative activities, is not similar across factors to the point of being flagged as a statistical consensus, but it is negative in all factors, and the statement is worth discussion. It is not uncommon for teachers to be assigned administrative duties; however, previous research has shown that such extra-teaching requirements are among the causes of teacher anxiety (Fraschini and Park 2021). Hence, it is easy to see how this aspect is seen as one of the least necessary.

6.1 Significance of the results in relation to Korean teacher competencies and professional frameworks

Notably, the four factors do not reproduce the four dimensions of Lee and Kim (2022) framework. While the first dimension related to knowledge of the Korean language is relevant to the participants of this study, other dimensions, such as those related to interactional skills and self-management ability, appear less relevant. Some other aspects belonging to other frameworks developed in the Korean language education context, such as evaluation and administrative work competencies (Chung 2019), are given little weight by the participants of this study.

Kamhi-Stein (2000) remarked that non-native teacher training courses should improve self-perception and confidence; however, this aspect is not foregrounded by the factor arrays and did not emerge from the interviews. Similarly, aspects related to identity-building components of non-native teacher competency, extensively taken into consideration by the English language teaching (ELT) literature (Clarke 2008, Hawley Nagatomo 2012, Tao and Gao 2018), appear to have less relevance for the participants of this study. A reason could be that, since non-native teacher identity is dynamic and develops over time (Wang and Mason 2023), the teachers participating in this study, having most of them considerable experience, already have a well-developed teacher identity and did not feel the need to foreground this aspect as strongly as pre-service teachers (Wolff and De Costa 2017). On the contrary, the relevance of the love for the Korean language and the profession has not been widely considered in the previous literature. This aspect, relevant to factors 3 and 4, finds confirmation in the research foregrounding the importance of the affective side of the language teaching profession (Dewaele 2020).

It is important to stress that the Korean government’s requirements to obtain the Korean language teacher qualification, as seen in Section 2, heavily lean toward disciplinary and pedagogical content knowledge. These aspects are not central to any factor. In other words, in-service teachers demonstrate awareness that much more is needed beyond content and pedagogical knowledge to become successful teachers. This also brings the consequence that the framework of the teacher certification needs to be reviewed to reflect better the perspective of non-native Korean teachers, and what makes an effective teacher.

6.2 Significance of the results in relation to a required threshold of language proficiency

The need for advanced language proficiency and developed linguistic knowledge divides the participants’ opinions. The language proficiency of non-native teachers has been widely debated in the literature (Árva and Medgyes 2000; Braine 2010; Kim 2023; Pasternak and Bailey 2004) and deserves a separate discussion.

In the interviews, the participant representing Factor 2 (a native professional) pointed out that any teacher needs to have a good understanding of comparative linguistics. Nevertheless, the same participant remarked that non necessarily non-native teachers need to possess a native-like language proficiency or be highly fluent since, in team-teaching situations, they are more likely to teach beginner student classes, and their role in these classes is to guide the students at the beginning of their language learning journey. The participant interviewed for Factor 1 said that accuracy and fluency are both important, but when teaching beginner learners, it is more important to be accurate since fluency comes with time. The same participant remarked on the need for non-native teachers to know the norms of standard Korean to provide accurate feedback. In her perspective, overt grammar knowledge and grammar accuracy helps non-native teachers overcome the lack of grammar intuition. The interview participant representing Factor 3 thought that it is nevertheless important for non-native teachers to have both good fluency and accuracy; moreover, non-native teachers need to stay updated with the current use of the language. The interview participant representing Factor 4 said that to be a good Korean language teacher, it is sufficient to communicate successfully and that even without native-like vocabulary knowledge or advanced fluency, it is possible to teach in an enjoyable way, which matters the most.

Overall, it is fundamental to note that the participants of this study, situated within the context of Korean language teaching, do not seem to fall victim to the fallacy common in the ELT field, by which teachers should sound authentic from a linguistic and cultural perspective (Lowe and Pinner 2016; Waddington 2022).

6.3 Significance of the results with reference to the design of teacher training programs

Other elements that need to be considered in the design of Korean teacher training programs are the ability to adapt teaching to different contexts and learners, the ability to pursue continuous professional development, the love for the language and the profession and a strong sense of responsibility as an educator.

It is easy to note how these are important competencies applicable to any language teacher, a reflection made by all interview participants. The interviewee for Factor 2 commented that “it is not a matter of distinguishing between native and non-native, professional development applies to any teacher. […] This is very important for all”. While sorting the statements on the grid, the participant interviewed for Factor 3 thought that “some statements do not apply strictly to non-native teachers, they also apply to native teachers. […] In reality, there is not a big difference with native teachers”. The participant from Factor 4 also remarked that, while conducting the sorting task, “I just thought in general at the abilities and the tasks required of a Korean language teacher, I never thought about dividing native and non-native”. Finally, the participant interviewed for Factor 1 acknowledged that there are native Korean teachers who are not good and that, therefore, even non-native teachers with less-than-optimal competence are acceptable, indicating that both native and non-native teachers, in the end, need teacher training. Therefore, this study shows that the participants believe the main teaching competencies apply to any teacher, not necessarily to native or non-native professionals. This conclusion expands what has been recently stated in the literature, confirming that whether the teacher is a native speaker or not is less relevant than what is usually believed (Wulstan Christiansen 2022).

Furthermore, despite different socio-cultural contexts and ecosystems shape teacher beliefs, motivation, and values (Gu et al. 2021), no factor emerging from this study identified a perspective belonging only to non-native or native teachers. This was also verified through our attempts to rotate factors manually and indicates that notwithstanding different opinions shaped by personal experiences, non-native and native teachers do not hold separate opinions because of their language background. These results bear significant consequences for the development of teacher training programs, as they suggest that given an acceptable degree of language competence, which does not necessarily need to be near-native, teacher training programs addressing the most important teaching competencies may suit non-native and native teachers alike. Therefore, from a training program design perspective, non-native teachers do not need to be separated from native teachers when undergoing their teaching training.

A further important consequence for designing teacher training programs is the need to address aspects beyond content and pedagogical knowledge. This can be done by including in the program design subjects dealing with how to pursue continuing professional development, how to conduct learner counselling, and ethics of language teaching. These subjects that are not included even in some of the most comprehensive Korean teacher training programs available, such as the online K-teacher program developed by the National Institute of the Korean Language.^[4]