EFL young learners: their imagined communities and language learning

Abstract

This study explored how South Korean primary school students approach learning English, using the notion of an ‘imagined community’. Twenty students from two primary schools were selected for semi-structured interviews. The data analysis shows that the construction of South Korean students’ imagined communities seems to be influenced mainly by their learning experiences outside school which involve private lessons, English test systems, and parental attitudes towards English, and an emphasis on grammar teaching and learning. The students’ imagined communities are far from the one presented in the national primary curriculum, which focuses on communicative language teaching (CLT). This gap results in students’ poor engagement in the classroom when taking English lessons at state schools. This indicates that educational reform such as CLT needs to be implemented with recognition of students’ learning outside school and the imagined communities envisioned by students.

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