Consecutive Bilingual Instruction: Balancing NNESTs’ Language Use to Benefit EFL Learners in Korea’s Higher Education

Abstract

The NNEST movement has acknowledged NNESTs’ shared mother language with learners for instructional and emphatic purposes. This study points out that such contributions are appreciated but should not justify instruction heavily or exclusively given in the L1 in English language classes taught by Korean NNESTs, which is predominantly practiced in Korea’s higher education. To help NNESTs in the EFL setting pedagogically and meet learners’ communicative needs, this study suggests consecutive bilingual instruction (CBI) as an alternative that balances NNESTs’ use of English and the L1 in the classroom. For the experiment, the researcher provided all instructions in English and then in Korean for the same content consecutively in five English language courses for one semester. Data were collected from a post-course survey (N = 104) and two focus group interviews (N = 12) to examine how CBI was perceived by students. Findings show that students’ confidence and proficiency in English increased through the courses, and over 90% thought CBI influenced their improvement moderately to very strongly. CBI was especially effective for beginner learners. NNESTs struggling with the burden of English-only instruction are encouraged to adopt CBI as a medium of instruction to develop themselves pedagogically and benefit students’ learning. Implementation strategies are also suggested.