ABSTRACT
The changing role and status of English have led to the transformation and modification of the English education policy and approaches in South Korea. Many changes and developments, however, were made top-down, mostly driven by the Korean government for the sake of its international competitiveness without a sufficient level of understanding of ELF (English as a lingua franca), time for preparation, and a consensus of the stakeholders. Many of them seem to understand the definition of ELF but they have not personalized ELF contexts. There has been a discrepancy between the rhetoric of Korea’s national curricula and classroom reality of English language teaching and learning, and a controversy in the social practices of using English and hiring native English-speaking teachers. This paper addresses some major ELF-related issues and concerns with suggestions to resolve them. They include the representation of ELF in the two most recent National Curricula revised in 2015 and 2022, Korean teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of and attitudes toward ELF, native English-speaking teachers (NESTs), and teacher education.
