Date of Graduation

2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)

College/School

School of Education

Department/Program

International and Multicultural Education (IME)

Abstract

In South Korea, there is an abundance of expatriate educators working in the large, private English education industry. Many of these educators work for private language institutes known as hagwons, where they teach English as a foreign language (EFL) to preschool and primary school students. However, due to language barriers and other circumstances, these workers rarely communicate with the parents of their students. Couple this with a lack of knowledge about the history and current state of EFL education in Korea, and many of these educators are left unaware of the goals and expectations that these parents have for their students. The author of this research had a similar experience while teaching in South Korea, and pursued this study in order to give a voice to the parents of these students. For this study, thirteen parents were surveyed regarding the goals and expectations that they have for their children’s English education. The surveys contained eight open-ended questions based around five topics: importance of English education, the importance of achieving communicative competence, the importance of testing, the influence of competition, and the future goals of English education. The conclusion of this research resulted in insight into the goals and expectations that parents of hagwon students have for their children’s education. Although results were split on many of the questions, the majority of the participants interviewed believed it to be important that their children’s English education should be focused on increasing communicative competence of their children.

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