Toward Post-Instrumental English Education in Korea

[김태영]

Kim, T.-Y. (2026). Toward post-instrumental English education in Korea: Generative AI, educational selection, and AI-mediated multilingual literacy. Secondary English Education, 19(4), 19-54.

This theory-building position article examines how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), neural machine translation, and real-time speech technologies are changing the public rationale for English education in South Korea. Rather than predicting the disappearance of English education, it argues that direct English proficiency is no longer the only reliable route to international information, communication, and mobility. Drawing on research on technology normalization, AI literacy, Global

Englishes, Korean English education, motivation, assessment, and digital inequality, the article develops post-instrumental English education as a framework for a context in which English retains practical, symbolic, relational, and institutional value but may no longer justify the same advanced target for all learners. To date, English has functioned in Korea as a communicative resource, an entrance-examination subject, a private educational commodity, and insurance against uncertain future disadvantage. GenAI may reduce the costs of limited proficiency in routine tasks, yet it can also widen verification gaps, shift linguistic authority toward U.S.-based commercial platforms, and deepen inequality. The article therefore proposes a layered public model combining foundational independent English, critical AI-mediated multilingual literacy, and publicly accessible pathways to advanced proficiency. It concludes that curriculum, assessment, teacher education, and university admission should be systematically coordinated around differentiated capability, accountable mediation, and learner agency. 

Key words: Generative AI, Post-Instrumental English Education, Insurance-Based English Learning, AI-Mediated Multilingual Literacy, Educational Selection

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