Concepts of Co-teaching in Secondary English Classrooms: Perspectives of Korean and Native Teachers of English in South Jeolla Province

Abstract

The current study explores the perspectives of co-teaching practices based on the voices of four secondary school English co-teachers consisting of two Korean English teachers (KETs) and two native English teachers (NETs) in South Jeolla Province. Online interviews were conducted for data collection with regard to KETs and NETs’ definitions of co-teaching from personal experiences in Korea, influential factors in determining current attitudes towards co-teaching, and future needs for better co-teaching. Each interview was analyzed through weekly peer debriefing sessions. Findings showed that all four English co-teachers had lacked opportunities to learn ways to reach an explicit consensus on the concepts of co-teaching, its goals, how to co-teach, and how to share feedback. Consequently, KETs and NETs developed an unbalanced sense of ownership and implicit disagreement over co-teaching class. The results revealed that the KETs had difficulties in discussing with a native co-teacher on co-teaching lessons as they assumed that attempts for sharing ideas about co-teaching would be interpreted as a form of “interference” by their native English co-teachers. Both KETs and NETs were found to be lacking in any form of training on how to co-teach, which seemed to have caused the difficulties in taking proper steps to teach collaboratively. Based on the results, some suggestions are provided.