Internal and external forces: Technology uses among English language teacher educators in South Korea

Abstract

Surprisingly little has been written about the technology-related roles and practices of teacher educators. Even less is known about the adoption of technologies by teacher educators in the field of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL), even in the technology-rich nation of South Korea. The purpose of the present in-depth instrumental multiple case study was to explore internal and external forces in the integration of digital technologies into the pedagogical practices of TESOL teacher educators at a university in South Korea. Data collected over 20 weeks included four rounds of semi-structured interviews and two sets of classroom observations for each of the five focal participants, interviews with an administrator, written reflections, field notes, photographs, and document review. Five key forces were identified that worked in tension with voluntary use of technologies to mediate their extensive use in the teacher educators’ practice. This study contributes to research gaps on the roles and technology-related practices of TESOL teacher educators. TESOL program administrators and teacher educators will particularly benefit from the light shed on teacher educator cognitions and praxis in this study.