ABSTRACT
In South Korea, English has been a mandatory primary school subject since 1997. As elsewhere in Asia, language-in-education policy in South Korea has been influenced by globalization, particularly in that English proficiency is seen as essential for increasing the nation's economic competitiveness, but it has also been influenced from the bottom up, with political pressure from families perceiving English as indispensable to their children's education. Although the national curriculum asks for communicative language teaching in student-centered classes with English as the medium of instruction, the local research has demonstrated that adhering to these guidelines has been an ongoing challenge for teachers. Despite significant investment into public school teachers' professional development, teaching communicatively and using English as the language of instruction have been widely resisted. With this in mind, this chapter follows up on reviews of local research, beginning with a critical look at how and why people become primary school English teachers in Korea by discussing the washback from the teacher employment exam and the issues related to the teacher assignment and rotation system. In the conclusion, suggestions are offered for the future direction of primary English teacher education based on the points raised in this chapter.
