English education for young children in South Korea: not just a collective neurosis of English fever!
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Date
2011
Authors
Jahng, Kyung Eun
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Faculty of Education, University of the Free State
Abstract
The aim of this article is to rethink English education for young children in South Korea through exploring
a great variety of complex, interrelated terrains in terms of its emergence and popularity in an era of
globalisation. I critically examine the relevance of discursive and non-discursive conditions derived from
social, political, economic, and cultural forces, for the current emphasis of early childhood education,
with special reference to English education for young children in South Korea. This is expected to provide
international readers with an understanding of the significance of reconceptualising early childhood
English education in countries where English is not the native language, considering its complicated (re)
constructions through power relations embedded in its constitutive discourses. Drawing on Foucault’s
notions of governmentality and Bhabha’s term hybridity, this article explores a set of discourses, such
as instrumentalism, developmentalism, and cosmopolitanism, pertinent to the reproduction of the social
conditions and, simultaneously, to the constitution of subjects around English education. By politicising
early childhood English education in South Korea, I argue that it has not emerged out of a “collective
neurosis of English fever” (Kim, 2002), but is a discursively constructed product in a particular timespace.
Description
Keywords
Reconceptualisation, English education, English as a foreign language, South Korea, English kindergarten, Governmentality, Hybridity
Citation
Jahng, K. E. (2011). English education for young children in South Korea: not just a collective neurosis of English fever!. Perspectives in Education, 29(2), 61-69.