In Praise of Divergent Teaching Methods in Korean English Education

Abstract

The foremost aim of this study was to investigate the English teaching activities of three different teacher groups through their questionnaires. This study, thus, considered the significance and effectiveness of divergent thinking and behavior in the Korean English classroom. First of all, this study reviewed the definition and methods of divergent production as compared to convergent production in English education as a Foreign Language classroom (EFL), and then investigated three different teacher groups’ teaching trends and inclinations (Korean teachers in public school, Korean teachers in private institute, and Native speaker teachers) via questionnaire provided. In fact, Korean English education has focused on the convergent productions, which are oriented towards deriving the single best answer to a clearly defined question. However, this study argued that it is imperative to reconsider the role of divergent production in the EFL setting. To do so, this study revealed the three different teacher groups’ styles and methods in teaching English (whether they prefer to convergent or divergent production) and it suggested how this divergent production can be adapted in the Korean EFL classroom. For data analysis, the Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 10.0 version were used. For the research questions, Pearson correlations were calculated to examine the correlation among the items. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was utilized to find out any significant group differences in the mean scores of each item. Results generally show that the all Korean teacher groups prefer to use convergent ESL activities and the English native teacher group are partial to access divergent ones in their class- rooms. Meanwhile, all teacher groups agreed about the following three realms: 1) divergent ESL activities can develop ESL learners' creativity; 2) convergent ESL activities can increase ESL learners' abilities for rote learning and memorization; and 3) convergent ESL activities can be regarded as those used easily in ESL classes.