The rapid increase in globalization has changed the social dynamics of many countries around the world. This has especially been the case for the Republic of Korea. In this qualitative case study, the particular challenges of Anglophone expatriate male spouses married to Korean women are explored. Utilizing questionnaires, narrative frames, semi-structured interviews, and researcher field notes, three themes and five subthemes were found. The three main themes are lack of appropriate government support services, limitations due to low Korean proficiency, and issues of power and inequality between the spouses. The subthemes include communication struggles, daily functioning difficulties, lack of decision-making power, and desire for social acceptance and equality. The results indicate that the needs of Anglophone expatriate male spouses have been largely ignored compared to other subgroups of foreign spouses in Korea as most of the services provided by the government through multicultural centers and other government facilities are aimed towards southeast Asian wives of Korean husbands. Thus, this study concludes that current government policies regarding foreign spouses and multicultural families need to be improved to become more inclusive of the needs of all categories of foreign spouses and multicultural families in Korea. This inclusivity will lead towards greater multicultural family sustainability in the future.
Received: 10 October 2022 / Accepted: 26 December 2022 / Published: 5 January 2023
With the rise of globalization, transmigration becomes more commonplace. Globalization is often accompanied by multiculturalism that constitutes an important fabric in societies and countries around the world. This has been the case in South Korea. Multiculturalism has resulted in many shifts and challenges within the Korean family dynamics. Multilingualism is an important characteristic that uniquely identifies many multicultural families. Regardless of the unique traits of each multicultural family, what seems to be the common denominator within these families of emergent bilingual children is that translanguaging is practiced for various purposes both inside and outside the home environment. Through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and narrative frames, this qualitative case study explores Anglophone fathers’ perceptions of their bilingual children’s language proficiency, the translanguaging practices of Korean-English bilingual families in Korea, and the impact of translanguaging practices on bilingual children’s self-identity development. Three conclusions can be drawn based on the results: Parents of emergent bilingual children generally value high proficiency in both languages, translanguaging is often practiced for communicative purposes, and translanguaging has an important effect on emergent bilinguals’ self-identity development. Implications are drawn regarding the importance and necessity of translanguaging practices both inside and outside of the home environment.
The current rate of unprecedented global environmental degradation demonstrates that there is an urgent need to more strongly integrate Environmental Education in educational institutions around the world. For almost 40 years, Environmental Education has been implemented in various forms and depths in classrooms worldwide. English-as-a-Foreign Language classrooms in particular are becoming increasingly used as the medium for teaching environmental and sustainable education. However, the increase in global environmental degradation over the decades is evidence that current approaches in teaching environmental science and sustainability concepts is heavily insufficient. Part of the reason seems to be that many language teachers struggle to find the most effective ways to integrate Environmental Education concepts with improving students’ language proficiency skills. Thus, there is a need for a practical framework to guide teachers for effective implementation of environmental and sustainability concepts in the English-as-a-Foreign Language classroom. In this paper, the historical background and current issues associated with Environmental Education are presented, the benefits of combining Environmental Education with English-as-a-Foreign Language are explained, and a global need for English-as-a-Foreign Language classrooms to adopt an environmentally-responsive pedagogy for practice are discussed.
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