Speaker
Description
This talk explores how Korean primary English teachers navigate emotional labour, identity tensions, and professional resistance in a rapidly changing ELT landscape. Despite policy discourses promoting communicative and creative teaching, many teachers experience a gap between top-down reforms and classroom realities. These tensions are not merely pedagogical but deeply emotional and ideological. Teachers face pressures to conform to institutional norms while reconciling them with their own beliefs. Their emotional labour often remains invisible and undervalued.
Drawing on multiple studies conducted with Korean teachers, the talk highlights the marginalisation experienced by primary school English teachers, especially within discourses of native-speakerism and hierarchical school cultures. Teachers report emotional exhaustion, isolation, and a lack of recognition, with novice teachers particularly vulnerable. Resistance to change—such as reluctance to adopt creative tasks—often stems not from unwillingness but from deeply held pedagogical beliefs shaped by the national curriculum and textbook-driven instruction. The talk further compares teacher competencies across school levels, revealing that differences in teaching experience, institutional demands, and assessment pressures shape how teachers perceive and enact their roles. While primary teachers struggle with the burden of implementing creativity within rigid systems, secondary teachers often face test-focused expectations that limit pedagogical autonomy. These findings underscore the need to understand teacher agency within varied educational ecologies. Ultimately, the talk argues that empowering teacher voice is essential to sustainable ELT innovation. Supporting emotional well-being and professional agency enables teachers to meet the demands of global readiness more authentically. Reform efforts must engage with the affective and ideological realities of teaching. A humanising, context-sensitive approach to policy and practice is needed. Sustainability begins with those who teach.
Biography
Su Yon Yim (PhD, University of Leeds) is Associate Professor of English Education at the Chinju National University of Education in South Korea. She has been involved in diverse academic research that links real-world educational issues with theoretical insights. Her research interests are in the psychological aspects of language learning and teaching, focusing on language learning anxiety, motivation, and the emotions teachers experience. She has presented her work at major international conferences such as Asia TEFL and AILA, and contributes actively as a journal reviewer. Her recent projects examine the English learning experiences of North Korean defectors, the sociopragmatic challenges faced by pre-service teachers in situational writing, and how native-speakerism continues to shape teacher identity and self-efficacy. Drawing on both qualitative and mixed-methods approaches, she explores how language ideologies and teacher beliefs shape classroom practices. Her work reflects a sustained commitment to advancing English education through research that is both theoretically grounded and attuned to contextual realities.
