English Classes in Slumber (eBook)

S.-H. Gyemyong Ahn is affiliated with the Departments of English Education and of Multicultural Education at Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea, where he teaches courses on English linguistics, English-speaking cultures, and multicultural English education. He completed his B.A. in English Education and M.A. in English Linguistics at Seoul National University, and his Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Connecticut. He has published a number of research articles in both national and international journals, including the Journal of Studies in Language, Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics, Language & Communication, Multicultural Education Studies, and Teacher Education Research, among others. His research interests include multicultural (English) education, critical thinking/pedagogy, and action research. He has also co-authored books including Theory and Practice of Yungbokhap Education (2014, Hakjisa) and Yungbokhap Education and Social Reform (2019, Hakjisa). 

Mun Woo Lee is an Associate Professor at the Department of English Education, Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea. She received her B.A. and M.A. in English Education from Seoul National University and completed her Ph.D. as a Fulbright scholar at the Department of Literacy, Culture and Language Education, Indiana University Bloomington. Her research interests include equity in the English education of underrepresented populations and the various issues related to socio-economic class in TESOL. She has published a number of research articles in both national and international journals, including Language and Communication, Language Awareness, the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, System, the Asia-Pacific Education Researcher and ELT Journal, among many others. She is the author of the book Early Study-Abroad and Identities: Korean Early Study-Abroad Undergraduates (2016, Springer) and was honoured with an Emerging Scholar award from Hanyang University.

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This book explains why some Korean high school students sleep during English classes in spite of the emphasized value of English in their society. It examines how this sleeping-in-class phenomenon can be understood by means of such marginalized students' emic outlooks on themselves, the target language, their teachers, schools, and society/culture; and by means of the views of teachers who have experienced such in-class sleepers. To understand the phenomenon more holistically, it pursues a multi-disciplinary approach drawing on studies of demotivation and amotivation, psychological needs, and student experiences of schooling, as well as sociocultural theories of learning and agency and of interpersonal dynamics, among others. On the basis of a multi-modal analysis of interview data from the student and teacher participants, it theoretically interprets the phenomenon at the classroom ('micro-'), school ('meso-') and society-culture ('macro-') levels. Taking a humanistic/existential approach to education, it subsequently presents a number of cultural actions that it advocates implementing in a situation-sensitive manner to help in-class sleepers and their educational institutions awaken from their chronic slumber. Lastly, it presents practical and theoretical implications for more humanistic pedagogy, and global studies of student disengagement, in English-as-a-foreign-language classes.