Korean Secondary EFL Teachers’ Task Choice in Planning a Reading Lesson

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate Korean secondary EFL teachers’ task type choice during lesson planning for a hypothetical reading class and the factors which influence their decision making. A total of 146 English teachers in middle and high school were surveyed, and the data were analyzed using frequency analysis and multiple response analysis. Also, in-depth one-to-one interviews were conducted with four Korean English teachers: a male middle school teacher, a female middle school teacher, a male high school teacher, and a female high school teacher. The results show what types of tasks they prefer when they are asked to choose a certain task type to teach a unit using a textbook in a hypothetical classroom: prediction task type to teach reading and personalization task type to assess reading skills. The findings also reveal differences between middle school teachers and high school teachers in task type choices. The in-depth interview participants’ detailed uses of task-based language teaching (TBLT) and their interpretations on their TBLT practice were discussed. This study leads to the discovery of Korean EFL secondary teachers’ tendencies and their criteria for task type choices. Therefore, it suggests a different approach to teacher training programs as well as a focus change in future research in spite of some limits of the research.