Abstract
This study investigates young Korean children’s attitudes toward three English varieties: American English (AmE), Singapore English (SiE), and Korean English (KoE). A total of 42 Korean children participated in this study. For data analysis purposes, the results were categorized according to the children’s age and their experience of exposure to formal English learning. In addition to this, 30 Singaporean children were also involved in the study, and their results were compared with the results of the younger group of Korean children. A mixed methodological approach, which included a modified verbal guise technique appropriate for use with children and semi-structured interviews, was also adopted. The results show that 5-year-old Korean and Singaporean children do not prefer one specific variety of English more than the other varieties of English. However, this was not the case for 12-year-old Korean children. These older Korean children preferred AmE and SiE more than KoE, and the “speaker’s pronunciation” was considered to be the critical feature in determining these attitudes. The findings suggest that Korean children’s developing attitudes toward a particular variety of English emerge sometime during their elementary school years.
Highlights
English is the most widely spoken global lingua franca
Do young children’s attitudes toward varieties of English differ according to their English learning experience? To what extent do young Korean children hold a similar attitude towards English varieties as adults before they enter elementary school? If young Korean children perceive inner circle (IC) (AmE) as ‘better’ English than outer Circle (OC) (SiE) and expanding circle (EC) (KoE), is it because they are in the EFL context where American English (AmE) is highly valued? If this is not the case, what would be the possible reason for such a perception? To answer these questions, Singaporean children and older Korean children (12-year-olds) were recruited separately as a comparison group
The results reveal that Korean children who participated in this study, regardless of their enrolment in the English class, did not perceive one English variety as superior to other varieties of English (Figure 2)
Summary
English is the most widely spoken global lingua franca. Despite the wide global use of several English varieties, both English education providers and learners in Korea have prioritized teaching the ‘standard’ variety of English (i.e., American or British), referring to it as native English (Ahn et al 2020). Korean adults are most familiar with American English (AmE), perceiving it as the most potent variety of English and preferring to learn it over other forms of English (Ahn 2017; Byun 2016; Yoon 2007). This study aims to explore the emergence of Korean children’s attitudes toward three varieties of English, including American English (AmE), Singapore English (SiE), and Korean English (KoE). We employed a mixed methodological approach and compared the attitudes toward the three English varieties of 5-year-old Korean children to 5-year-old Singaporean and 12-year-old Korean children
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