Hidden Challenges of Novice English Teachers in a Korean Independent School: Through an Ethnographic Lens

This study aims to unravel challenges experienced by two novice English teachers in a Korean independent school, the steadily growing education sector worldwide. The author spent 13 months in the participants' natural environment, observing and collecting data through observation field notes, interviews, questionnaires, and cultural probes. A grounded theory approach was adopted to guide the recursive data analysis and identify the themed findings--personal factors (e.g., unrealistic expectations) and sociocultural factors (e.g., school policy and structure). These findings suggest that novice English teachers should obtain accurate information about their new school and actively seek formal and informal support from multiple sources. It offers several practical suggestions for novice teachers and school administrators that would help beginning teachers sustain and succeed in the new teaching environment. More research grounded in this ethnographic approach should be done to address this critical issue in an in-depth, contextualized, and sociocultural manner. Keywords: Novice English Teachers, Ethnographic Research, Independent School When the author (hereafter referred to as "the first participant") was an English teacher in one of Korea's independent schools, from 2010 to 2012, five novice English teachers left their profession within two years. In spring of 2013, I began problematizing this issue with two questions: 1) Why is the turnover rate of novice English teachers here so high? and 2) Why aren't school leaders paying enough attention to this issue? I thought a constant turnover in new English teachers could lead to inconsistent or unsystematic teaching and negatively affect students' learning of English. Next, I looked at earlier studies on novice English teachers in English as Second Language (ESL) or English as Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. Several studies have already discussed tensions and challenges experienced by novice English teachers (e.g., Densgombe, 1982; Farrell, 2012; Freeman & Johnson, 1998; Richards & Farrell, 2011; Shin, 2012; Weinstein, 1988). However, I was not able to find any research on challenges of novice English teachers in an EFL independent school context, a rapidly emerging but still unknown one in the field. Moreover, nearly 71% of the studies on L2 teacher issues have been done quantitatively in Korea, which could hardly provide an in-depth understanding of novice English teachers in this unique teaching context (Kim, 2010). To fill these gaps, the current study aims to unravel challenges experienced by two novice English teachers in an EFL independent school context. Toward these ends, I employed the key ethnographic method of participant observation, spending 13 months in the participants' natural environment (i.e., an independent school), observing and collecting data through observation field notes, interviews, questionnaires, and cultural probes. This ethnographic inquiry is expected to make several contributions to the current literature. Theoretically, these findings enhance our understanding of novice language teachers by providing additional cases of independent schoolteachers in the field. Methodologically, this approach sheds light on the importance of adopting an ethnographic lens to address this critical issue in an in-depth, contextualized, and sociocultural manner. Practically, it may offer several suggestions for novice language teachers and school administrators that would help the novice teachers sustain their efforts and succeed in a new teaching environment. Literature Review A considerable amount of literature has been published on challenges experienced by novice teachers in the field of general education. Such studies have attempted to explain a range of issues, such as challenges for preservice teachers (e.g., Corcoran, 1981; Fuller, 1969; Kulik & Mahler, 1987; Silvernail & Costello, 1983; Weinstein, 1980; Weinstein, 1988; Ryan, 1979; Veenman, 1984), the role of mentoring novice teachers (e. …