Student 1 was the newcomer who has studied in Y school for only several weeks, and he participated in the class
very actively asking questions to the teacher (Line 2). The questions that Student 1 asked, “Teacher, what is this
fruit in the picture?”, could demonstrate his identity (McKay & Wong, 1996; Menard-Warwick, 2007; Norton, 2000) as a
North Korean who has never seen an orange before and was in fact a good stepping stone that could involve the
other students into the classroom discussion. However, his active participation was not very welcomed by the
teacher. Although the teacher had been working at Y school for about 8 years, he treated the student like ordinary South
Korean students and added an unnecessary comment, “Don't you know orange?”, which could possibly intimidate
Student 1 (longer pause before he answered the question). Even though Student 1 tried to guess the object, orange,
grounded in his previous knowledge (Line 4), the teacher did not willing to help him by giving him a simplified answer
(Line 5).
A participatory EFL curriculum for the marginalized: The case
of North Korean refugee students in South Korea
Mun Woo Lee...