Early Study-Abroad and Identities: Korean Early Study-Abroad Undergraduates

108 Pages·2016·1.64 MB·English

by  Mun Woo Lee (auth.)

SPRINGER BRIEFS IN EDUCATION
Mun Woo Lee
Early Study-Abroad
and Identities
Korean Early
Study-Abroad
Undergraduates
123
SpringerBriefs in Education
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8914
Mun Woo Lee
Early Study-Abroad
and Identities
Korean Early Study-Abroad Undergraduates
123
MunWooLee
HanyangUniversity
Seoul
Korea,Republic of (SouthKorea)
ISSN 2211-1921 ISSN 2211-193X (electronic)
SpringerBriefs inEducation
ISBN978-981-287-908-0 ISBN978-981-287-910-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-981-287-910-3
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Acknowledgments
TheworkpresentedinthisbookwassupportedbyaNationalResearchFoundation
Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2014S1A3A2044609). This work
could be published thanks to the support of many people who were willing to
provide me with insightful feedback and kind advice. I want to show my deepest
gratitude to my dearest friend, Dr. Yu-ju Hung. She has been a competent col-
league, a caring counselor, and a constant supporter of my study. I also thank
Dr. Moon-Hae Koo, Dr. Oryang Kwon, Dr. Mitzi Lewison, and my husband and
familyforgivingmeendlesstrust,support,andlove.Aboveall,Ifeelgratefultoall
of the participants who did not mind talking about their issues and beliefs about
beingKoreanearlystudy-abroadundergraduatesintheU.S.Theyallparticipatedin
thestudyactivelyandencouragedme,sayingthatthetopicwasreallyimportantnot
only to themselves but also to Korean society. All of them consented to use the
materials presented in this book which were from my unpublished doctoral dis-
sertation, “Between Two Languages and Two Worlds: Identity of Korean Early
Study-Abroad Undergraduates in the U.S.” I sincerely thank them all.
v
Contents
1 Early Study-Abroad Phenomenon
in South Korea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 My Interest in Early Study-Abroad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Personal, Social, and Political Issues of Early-Study Abroad . . . . 3
1.3 Purpose of This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2 Defining Identities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1 Types of Identities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2 Second Language Learning and Identities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2.1 In the ESL Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2.2 Outside the ESL Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3 Theoretical Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3.1 Living in Borderlands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3.2 Being Cosmopolitans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3 The Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.1 The Pilot Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.2 Setting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.3 Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.3.1 Phase 1: Individual Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.3.2 Phase 2: Focus-Group Interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.4 Data Collection Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.4.1 Phase 1: Individual Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.4.2 Phase 2: Focus-Group Interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.5 Data Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.5.1 Phase 1: Grounded Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.5.2 Phase 2: Critical Discourse Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.5.3 Deepening the Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
vii
viii Contents
3.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4 English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.1 Native Speakers of English Are the Ones Who Have Power . . . . 43
4.2 America Is the Number One Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.3 English “Skill” Makes Me an International Citizen. . . . . . . . . . 52
4.4 Deemphasized Rarity of English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
5 Ethnicity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.1 They, the Americans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.2 They, the 100 % or Pure Koreans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.3 They, the Second Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
5.4 We, the Korean Early Study-Abroad Students . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
6 Discussion and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
6.1 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
6.2 Borderlands and Cosmopolitanism Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
6.3 Implications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.3.1 To Korean Parents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.3.2 To American Educators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
6.3.3 To Second/Foreign Language Researchers
in Non-English-Speaking Asian Countries. . . . . . . . . . . 95
6.3.4 To Policy Makers in Non-English-Speaking Asian
Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
6.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
About the Author
Mun Woo Lee is Assistant Professor in the department of English Education at
Hanyang University, South Korea. She worked as an English teacher at a public
high school in Seoul after she got her B.A. and M.A. in English Language
EducationatSeoulNationalUniversity.ShecompletedherPh.D.intheDepartment
ofLiteracy,Culture,andLanguageEducationatIndianaUniversityBloomingtonas
a Fulbright scholar. Her research interests are language and identity, language and
ideology, linguistic ecology, critical discourse theory and analysis, teacher pro-
fessionaldevelopment,andactionresearch.Shehaspublishedanumberofresearch
articles bothinlocalandininternationaljournalsmainlyonthesetopics.Sheisan
editorial member of the Korean Association for Multicultural Education (KAME)
andaresearchofficeroftheKoreaAssociationofTeachersofEnglish(KATE)and
theModernEnglishEducationSociety(MEESO).Also,sheiscurrentlyworkingon
a research project supported by the National Research Foundation in Korea on the
topic of teaching English to North Korean refugee adolescents in South Korea.
ix
List of Figures
Figure 3.1 The Room for the Focus-group Interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Figure 4.1 “Drawing a Picture” Activity by Dong-Min . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Figure 4.2 “Drawing a Picture” Activity by June . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Figure 4.3 “Drawing a Picture” Activity by Eun-Joo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Figure 4.4 “Drawing a Picture” Activity by Hye-Ran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Figure 5.1 “Situating Myself” Activity by Eun-Joo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Figure 5.2 “Situating Myself” Activity by Dong-Min . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Figure 5.3 “Situating Myself” Activity by June . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Figure 5.4 “Situating Myself” Activity from Hye-Ran. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
xi