“It’s not like this here”: teaching a Youth Lens in South Korea

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to identify challenges in a first attempt at teaching the Youth Lens in a secondary English classroom in South Korea.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper includes the author's observations of a senior English class in an international school in South Korea.

Findings

The author advocates that intersections of time, geography and culture have a significant influence that cannot be ignored when teaching about adolescence. Additionally, when bringing a Youth Lens into the classroom teachers need to be prepared to fully embrace its embedded questions of power between youth and adults.

Originality/value

This paper extends existing academic conversation on a Youth Lens to include both an international setting and instances in which the teacher is not of the majority demographic in the classroom.

Citation

Murfield, R. (2020), "“It’s not like this here”: teaching a Youth Lens in South Korea", English Teaching: Practice & Critique, Vol. 19 No. 3, pp. 317-330. https://doi.org/10.1108/ETPC-03-2020-0018