"A Profile of In-Service Korean EFL Teachers’ Attitudes toward World Englishes"

Abstract

This study investigates in-service Korean EFL teachers` attitudes toward World Englishes (WEs) and how they perceive non-native varieties of English in the context of English language teaching. A total of 68 in-service Korean EFL teachers participated in an online questionnaire with a 6-point Likert scale and their responses were scored from 1 to 6, so that higher WEs index scores indicate more positive attitudes toward the WEs perspective. Six subcategories were also identified through factor analysis and used for analysis of the collected data to examine the participants` attitudes in more detail. The results reveal that in-service Korean EFL teachers view the general concept of WEs slightly positively with a WEs index score of 4.01. When it comes to teaching in the classroom and evaluating the students` grammar and vocabulary use, however, they show a tendency to lean towards the World Standard English (WSE) perspective, indicating that they prefer native-varieties as the standard in their teaching and testing. Further analysis found that the in-service teachers` knowledge of WEs affects their acceptance of the WEs perspective overall. The teachers` awareness of WEs led to positive attitudes toward WEs (p< .05). Specifically, statistically significant differences were observed in evaluating students` oral proficiency and pronunciation and in accepting the ownership of the English language (p< .05). The findings of the present study might imply a probable future in which Korean EFL classrooms show greater diversity.