Decoding "Good Language Teacher" (GLT) Identity of Native-English Speakers in South Korea

Abstract

This study investigates the concept of teacher identity of native-English speakers in South Korea by examining public texts, mainly English immersion camp advertisements and teacher recruitment materials. To this end, a social semiotic multimodal analysis was employed to scrutinize how these public narratives and visual images, populated with non-neutral discourses, construct a certain image of teacher identity and, as a result, perpetuate societal ideologies. The findings underscore how the discourses constructing good English teacher identity rely on a combination of multiple ideologies, but the overriding effect is often the same: nativeness, closely connected to nationality, acts as a token for language proficiency, making actual teaching qualifications and/or experience secondary. Overall, this study argues that English teacher identity across sites of language teaching and learning needs to be revisited insofar as such deeply entrenched language ideologies have inevitable impact on language education and the preparation of students as global citizens.