{"pk":38400,"title":"Language Learning Affordances And Constraints Among English Teachers In Japan And Korea","subtitle":null,"abstract":"<p>Every year, many first-language (L1) English speakers move abroad to teach in international contexts. However, studies have not focused on these teachers as language learners themselves or considered how the ecology of L1 English Speaking Teachers (ESTs) workplaces may afford or constrain their access to speaking opportunities within the various communities of practice they participate in. This study attempts to fill that gap by examining the experiences of L1 ESTs in Japan and Korea to determine the roles that the workplace and co-workers play in the development of these teachers’ competence in Korean and Japanese. Quantitative survey data were collected from 40 L1 ESTs based in Korea and Japan, and qualitative interviews were conducted with a subset of 15 volunteers from the larger data set. Results show that various stakeholders such as co-workers and students as well as the physical environment serve as gatekeepers to the L1 ESTs’ legitimate peripheral participation as Japanese and Korean speakers in their workplaces. Affordances for language learning in the workplace included speaking the target language (TL) with coworkers, in the classroom, with students, in social activities with TL speakers, and situational factors like the location of their desks within their workplaces. Constraints, on the other hand, included speaking English with coworkers, social activities with other English speakers, the location of their desks, and TL speakers speaking English to them. </p>","language":"eng","license":{"name":"Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives  4.0","short_name":"CC BY-NC-ND 4.0","text":"Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.\r\n\r\nNonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.\r\n\r\nNoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.\r\n\r\nNo additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0"},"keywords":[{"word":"Native English Speaking Teacher"},{"word":"language learning and teaching"},{"word":"International Language Teacher"},{"word":"Language learning in the workplace"},{"word":"Korean"},{"word":"Japanese"}],"section":"Article","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6rb1895c","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Devon","middle_name":"","last_name":"Renfroe","name_suffix":"","institution":"Carnegie Mellon University","department":"Languages, Cultures, and Applied Linguistics"},{"first_name":"Remi","middle_name":"","last_name":"van Compernolle","name_suffix":"","institution":"Carnegie Mellon University","department":"Languages, Cultures, and Applied Linguistics"}],"date_submitted":"2024-10-23T06:39:22.536000Z","date_accepted":"2025-06-09T16:55:18.308000Z","date_published":"2025-07-16T17:43:00Z","render_galley":{"label":"Final Galley","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/l2/article/38400/galley/36957/download/"},"galleys":[{"label":"Galley v1","type":"other","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/l2/article/38400/galley/36887/download/"},{"label":"Final Galley","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/l2/article/38400/galley/36957/download/"}]}