“although We Still Have a Long Way to Go, I Don’t Think We Will Ever Stop.”a Grassroots Efl Teacher Development Group in South Korea

Founded by eight secondary English teachers in Seoul in the summer of 1988, the Korean English Teachers’ Group (KETG) started as a professional book discussion group. Its first ‘office’ was a small coffee table in the living room of a female teacher’s home. The teachers gathered over the weekend and discussed professional books or sets of articles mainly focused on educational philosophy and sociology. Not only did this small group of teachers discuss overt ideological orientations transmitted through the textbook (e.g. the hegemonic power of Anglo-centric culture and language that reinforces the cultural and social status quo), but also they were proactive regarding sociopolitical issues, such as the democratic movement in South Korea at that time. All the teachers in the group were teachers’ labor union activists and advocates for social change who strongly believed in exerting teachers’ collective power in the process of the democratization of Korea as well as educational policy making. As a result, KETG faced a difficult time when the South Korean government suppressed the teachers’ movement for creating a teacher’s union in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. During the turbulent social educational movement, over 1,500, some of whom were KETG members, were fired and dozens of them even went to jail. With the legalization of the Chonkyojo (National Labor Union of Teachers) in July 1999, however, KETG has emerged as a national grassroots professional organization of Korean English teachers. Its membership