Amy B.M. Tsui: Understanding Expertise in Teaching

The problem with this sort of academic writing is summed up in something one of my favorite professors, 조현용 once said (roughly translated): "Academic writing requires you to write 30 pages for the right to propose a single line."  And that's basically what Tsui has dutifully done here.  I will save you all the trouble of reading the "30 pages" of theoretical underpinnings, research methodologies, and background information, and skip directly to the "single line", the kernel of insight that she had to work so hard to justify proposing:

"The findings of the case studies suggest that the critical difference between experts and nonexperts is not that the former solve more and more problems, because problems often do not present themselves as such.  It is their capability to 'see' what appears to be unproblematic as problems that distinguishes them from nonexperts" (271).

This insightful distinction, not between experts and novices, but between experts and experienced nonexperts, is at the heart of this research.  The ability to problematize, analyze, and improve things that experienced nonexperts would view as "ain't broke" is what makes a true expert, in teaching and presumably across fields.  While I find myself woefully short of expert in many ways, this salient perspective identifies a way forward and offers a way around the trap of becoming just another mediocre white guy teaching English in East Asia.