Understanding how physical education (PE) teachers in a particular culture are socialised into the profession can lead to improvements in PE teacher education (PETE) and professional development. Most research on PE teachers' occupational socialisation has been conducted in the United States and Britain. We believed that the patterns of socialisation for South Korean teachers might be different from those found in these countries. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to describe the impact of occupational socialisation on nine South Korean teachers' reading and delivery of PE. Data were collected with five qualitative techniques and analysed by employing analytic induction and constant comparison. Key findings were that the teachers underwent a unique pattern of occupational socialisation which resulted in seven of them possessing teaching orientations, one being coaching oriented, and one having a non-teaching orientation. The teachers' acculturation led to a high proportion of them being teaching oriented on entering PETE. Traditional PETE was more potent than other forms of PETE and reinforced the teaching orientations of those who experienced it. Innovative school cultures offset and compensated for the weak PETE experienced by some teachers. Suggestions for future research in this line are made.