Exploring non-native English speaker teachers' classroom language use in South Korean elementary schools

The teaching of English as a foreign language in South Korean public schools has seen the implementation of a number of new innovations. One such innovation, the teaching of English through English, dubbed TETE, is a government-initiated policy that requires public schools to teach English by only using English. Nevertheless, studies reveal that teachers are not implementing the policy. The current study, through a series of observations and interviews, ascertained that teachers were not implementing the government policy at the elementary-school level due to a conflict in government decrees, making it difficult for them to teach English by only using English while maintaining student motivation to learn English. The study reveals the importance that teachers place on the belief that motivation needs to be maintained at all costs, even superseding the need to maximize target language exposure. The paper calls for further studies of teachers who have established techniques to maintain student motivations for learning the target language while teaching exclusively in the target language, as well as touching upon the idea of the need for an alternative to the TETE policy.