The Interplay of Language Planning in the Peace Corps/Korea TEFL Program

Abstract

This paper is aimed at looking critically at the interplay between the status planning and acquisition planning in the Peace Corps/Korea TEFL Program conducted in Korea from 1966 till 1981. In the case of English in Korea, it is modernization that should be added to Hornberger’s (2006) existing policy goals of status planning such as officialization, nationalization etc. As such, modernization was accepted by both the U.S. and Korea as a keyword of the program particularly in accordance with the modernization theory fully-fledged during the 1950s and 1960s. As far as the concept of modernization is concerned, however, it is pointed out that the U.S. was more interested in a sweeping societal change of Korea in its nation-building process, whereas Korea was more concerned with its economic development in terms of Peace Corps’ newly introduced English education. The dichotomy in Language Planning and Policy (LPP) between the two macro-institutions gave rise to a few major controversies or conflict of interests between the Peace Corps/Korea and the Korean schools, ending in de facto only a status quo of English education in Korea, despite PCVs’ far-reaching audio-lingual oriented emphasis on spoken English.