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Young-Mee Cho, Hyo Sang Lee, Carol Schulz, Ho-Min Sohn, Sung-Ock Sohn, Integrated Korean: Beginning 1 (322 pages, ISBN 0-8248-2342-7).

Young-Mee Cho, Hyo Sang Lee, Carol Schulz, Ho-Min Sohn, Sung-Ock Sohn, Integrated Korean: Beginning 2 (336 pages, ISBN 0-8248-2343-5).

Carol Schulz, Integrated Korean Workbook: Beginning 1 (211 pages, ISBN 0-8248-2175-0).

Sung-Ock Sohn, Integrated Korean Workbook: Beginning 2 (233 pages, ISBN 0-8248-2184-X).

KLEAR Textbooks in Korean Language Series, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000.

 

Reviewed by Myoyoung Kim
SUNY Buffalo

[This review first appeared in Acta Koreana, 4 (2001): 163-66. Acta Koreana is published by Academia Koreana of Keimyung University.]

There have not been many Korean textbooks available for college students, so this series of textbooks and workbooks are valuable fruits of the labors of a dedicated team of professional Korean language educators. This group of authors have many years' experience teaching the Korean language, especially in the United States, and they are well equipped linguistically. The textbooks cover many of the various topics that could occur in the situations of college life. For instance, different possible situations in the same category are illustrated in model conversations, which provide good examples for would be learners. Culture notes included with each lesson introduce not only traditional, but also modern aspects of Korean life. The explanations are well matched with the lesson topics and provide elaborate information so they compromise one of the best features of the books, which are mainly designed and written for students in the United States (for example, the adoption of American names, and city names in the United States). As for explanation of grammar, the authors hold contrastive perspectives throughout the textbooks. The grammar sections supply very detailed explanation. At the end of each textbook, there are rich indexes of grammar, vocabulary, and appendices of verb conjugations. However, the appendices include both from Beginning 1 and 2 together. It would have been better if grammars from Beginning 1 only were summarized separately in the Beginning 1 textbook. The Korean-English and English-Korean vocabulary glossary is very useful for beginners who are not familiar with consulting a dictionary.

The Beginning 1 volume starts with a great introduction where students can get the most basic and yet the most important background information on the Korean language, including han'gûl. The proportion of each section in the textbooks shows that the authors integrated all five language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing, and culture) as evenly as possible. Although much extended vocabulary from the task/function section in the textbook and speaking activities in the workbook might require more work for students, those two sections are complementary sources for speaking practice. I find that dialogues from Beginning 1 are carefully produced: The first dialogue is to review what students have learned from the previous lesson, and new grammar patterns are introduced in the second dialogue. In this way, students have a chance to recall the material from the preceding lesson and will be ready to move onto the next step. Another good feature of this series is that the workbooks are subsequent volumes of the textbook and are written by the same authors who wrote the textbooks and share similar pedagogical philosophy. The workbooks include more listening activities than previously existing Korean textbooks, which is desirable for beginners and very satisfactory. Audio materials are also provided on the web and that is very helpful.

However, there seem to be some drawbacks. First of all, the model conversations are far too long for beginning students: The range of number of sentences in one dialogue varies from 9 to 18 for both volumes. I also would like to mention the number of lessons. Beginner 1 textbook is composed of actually 8 lessons (han'gûl and 7 lessons) and Beginner 2 has also 8 lessons (Lesson 8-15). Lessons 1 to 8 consist of two separate dialogues and lessons 9 to 15 have three separate dialogues. As suggested in the preface, each level is to be covered in two semesters, assuming five class hours per week. Since Beginner 1 and Beginner 2 are successive volumes and regarded as one level, they should be finished in two semesters, usually 30 weeks in total. As a result, three lessons should be taught in two weeks to complete two books in the suggested time frame. Considering the possibility of other activities such as quizzes and exams and the fact that lessons 9 to 15 have three dialogues each, it is overwhelming for both genuine beginning students and a teacher in terms of keeping pace. This situation gets worse in the second semester where Beginner 2 is taught, mainly due to the degree of difficulty of grammar patterns. In Beginner 1, only one sentence connective '-ko' is introduced in lesson 7 so students are not yet ready to handle a flood of sentence connectives to understand and generate more complex sentences. I found from students' feedback that they feel a big gap between Beginner 1 and 2 in terms of grammar patterns. Thus, if Beginner 1 and 2 are taught for three semesters rather than two, they would be used more effectively for both students and a teacher.

The textbooks have abundant grammatical information, making them encyclopedic. This type of textbook has its own strengths: They give rich information and satisfy some students' academic and cultural interests and curiosity. However, in the last lesson of Beginner 1, many new grammar patterns are presented at the same time (G7.1, B: Deferential styles including different tense and different types of sentence ending, G7.2: The subject honorific including all three tenses). Sometimes excessive explanation of grammar in the books distracts students' focus and causes them to worry about the details. Most beginners want to learn a language for fun, so if a textbook has too much information, it can frustrate students or make them lose their incentive by heavy loads of grammar. Additionally, the authors use many technical terms such as copula and predicate when explaining grammatical aspects.

Grammar is presented in a very analytical fashion. Although the textbooks contain a great deal of grammatical information, more detailed explanations and more examples are needed for some grammatical aspects, especially in the cases where the grammar points are the key points in a lesson in order to help students' understanding and use of the grammar correctly. For example, in G2.2 from L2, present tense informal polite forms are introduced, which are the basic foundation for generating sentences. However, many useful verbs that are used on a daily basis in real life settings such as 'meet, learn, drink, see' are not introduced in the example. Furthermore, on p.188, in G5.7, there is no explicit explanation of how to conjugate the present tense form of the '-hata' verb, which is also a very commonly used form. On p. 192, in G5.9,in the authors' explanation, two verbs 'help' and 'be pretty' are the exceptions for the '§<irregular verb' conjugation because the verbs are monosyllabic. However, among other §<irregular verbs, some verbs such as 'be cold, be hot, be easy' are also monosyllabic. There would be no need to give rules for exceptions. In G7.3 where the grammatical form '-ciyo' is used to seek agreement, examples are all given without mentioning how to use it in different tenses. In G7.4, demonstrative expressions are introduced where adjectival, pronominal, and adverbial forms are all in one section, but not enough examples or exercises are provided. In addition, contracted forms of each set of demonstratives are also given and this is beyond the level of the target students.

In model conversations as well as in workbooks, the use of grammar patterns should be controlled and confined to the ones that have been covered in the lessons because the textbooks are for beginners. If unpredicted sentences are mixed in the grammar notes or questions from workbooks, it is difficult for students to understand them. Native speakers of a language use different types of structures freely, but even a small change can make a big difference for beginners. For example, on p. 59, an object particle is used in a sentence which students have not yet learned. On p. 150, two particles are used in a row after a noun, such as 'wuri.cip.ey.nun (in my house),' which has not been introduced to students, either. Again, both particles '-un/nun' and '-i/ka' are used in one sentence in the examples on pp.120-128 (seyndi.nun cip.i hongkhong.iyeyo). This is very complicated, and new to students. Even though they learned those two particles, they have not been exposed to these types of sentences. Students may get easily confused. Even though this type of sentence is being introduced for the first time in model conversation 1 from L5, there is no explanation in the grammar section, either. This kind of problem can be found in passages from reading activities at times.

Sometimes instructions are not clear and do not match the questions, so that students might not know what to do. In grammar exercises, examples in the box are very important keys for students to answer the questions. Especially, if this workbook is designed for self-study, as the author says in the preface that all types of activities except those for speaking can be used as homework, examples and instructions should direct how to do them very clearly and straightforwardly. For example, pp. 9-29 are about practicing for han'gûl writing. However, the instructions are not clear whether students are expected to write each vowel or consonant, or to write the words given. On p. 60, G2.3 B, command forms, honorific forms, and question/answer forms are all mixed together without explicit instructions. In G3.1 A, questions do not follow the same pattern as what is shown in the example box. On p. 83-84, the names of nations should be indicated under each flag, because students might not recognize the flags. On p. 85, in E.(4), the person shown is a man, but the word given is 'enni,' so it should be changed to 'nwuna'. On p. 109 in F.(5), the picture is confusing. It is hard to tell how many rooms there are with a blueprint type of drawing.

Pronunciation is transcribed in han'gûl. I am wondering if this is necessary. It may rather confuse students than give a guideline for correct pronunciation. For students who are not used to reading han'gûl yet, reading transcriptions written in han'gûl is not only extra work but also there are high possibilities of their reading them incorrectly. Eventually it could adversely affect their spelling ability. On p. 50, in A.(2), the written form and pronunciation transcript in brackets are different, so students may become more confused. On p. 58 from L9 in the textbook, while suggesting a transcription of pronunciation, the authors contrast two words, 'outside' pronounced as [pak'e] and 'only' in negation as [p'ak'e]. However, this difference is only due to individual differences. Some editorial suggestions come to mind. When it comes to use of terms, inconsistency can be observed. In L1-L4, the term 'irregular verbs' is used to refer to sets of verbs that do not follow the general rules of contraction, but two different terms, 'irregular predicates' in 5-7, on p. 144, in G5.9 from the workbook, and 'irregular adjectives' are used when they refer to the same set of verbs. In my opinion, too many pages are allotted to writing practice of voiceless/voiced contrast, vowel length contrast, and romanizing of foreign loan words in han'gûl (pp. 34-40 from workbook 1). Finally, if I may add one more suggestion, the songs in Beginner 2 are outdated and are not age appropriate: Some songs are not well-known, and some are children's songs. If the children's songs were some of the best known ones instead, it would have been more useful for beginners.

As one of many users of these textbooks and workbooks, I would like to express my gratitude to the authors. They put much effort and time into perfecting these books. Their enthusiastic work is greatly appreciated. Despite the shortcomings pointed out above, I have found that the books function as a good guideline for both students and teachers. If there is anything else valuable that I missed, it is due to my own lack of knowledge and experience.

 

Citation:
Kim, Myoyoung. 2001
Review of Integrated Korean, by Young-Mee Cho, Hyo Sang Lee, Carol Schulz, Ho-Min Sohn, Sung-ock Sohn (2000)
Korean Studies Review 2001, no. 12
Electronic file: http://koreanstudies.com/ks/ksr/ksr01-12.htm


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