[KS] failed Koreanists littering the streets

Duncan, John duncan at humnet.ucla.edu
Tue Apr 15 10:25:21 EDT 2003


As one of the military men (men of war?!!) who managed to acquire a
reasonable ability to communicate in Korean, I would like to give my point
of view on this issue.

First, the Defense Language Institute used to produce something in the range
of 70-80 graduates per year.  Although I have no statistics to back me up,
my impression is that very few (and I mean very, very few) of them ever
acquire more than a rudimentary knowledge of colloquial (not to mention
academic) Korean--indeed the vast majority of them are content simply to
master enough military vocabulary to get by on their jobs for the short time
they are in Korea.  I saw scores of them arrive in Korea, attempt to use
their DLI Korean in ordinary situations, and simply give up.  This lack of
enthusianism was reinforced by the general atmosphere on U.S. military
bases.  Admittedly, what I witnessed was in the late 60s and early 70s, but
the lack of DLI graduates in the Korea field (broadly defined) to this day
makes me believe that little has changed over the past 20-30 years.  The few
military men who ended up proficient in Korean were the exceptions, not the
rule.  Speaking for myself, and I would like to think for the few others,
our motivation had a lot less to do with some sort of sense of military
mission than it did with absolute disgust with the military's attitude
towards Korea and Koreans.  At any rate, I think it is safe to say that the
U.S. military has been a great failure in terms of producing significant
numbers of U.S. citizens who are competent in Korea. 

Second, as difficult as Korean admittedly is, it is no more difficult than
Japanese.  Yet the number of North Americans who speak, read, and write
Japanese at a high level far exceeds the number who can do the same in
Korean.  At my university, there are several North American Japan
specialists who first started Japanese as undergraduates but who now have
superb skills in the language.  If Japanese can be mastered, why not Korean?

Although I am not a language teacher, I will venture a few opinions.  One,
the perceived payoff for learning Japanese seems larger than Korean:  more
jobs in academia, more jobs in business, etc.  Or, to put it the other way,
Korea is still seen as a relatively minor economic, political, and cultural
entity--it is up to all of us, not just language teachers, to change this.
Two, as already mentioned, the attitude of  teachers is problematic. Quite
aside from the attitudes of teachers in Korea, teachers of Korean in North
America seem to communicate, often unconsciously, that the mastery of Korean
by a non-native speaker is an impossible task.  This is often compounded by
the classroom situation in which heritage learners greatly outnumber "pure"
beginners and in which teachers tends to cater to the needs of the heritage
learners at the expense of the minority of pure beginners.  Three, at UCLA,
and I am sure elsewhere, some ethnic Koreans are not accepting of non-ethnic
Koreans in the classroom--more than one of my non-Korean students at UCLA
has told me of negative reactions from Korean-American classmates.  This, of
course, runs counter to the typical postitive reaction of ordinary Koreans
when they encounter a non-Korean who speaks their language well, but
identity politics are strong among Korean-Americans, especially the 1.5
generation in L.A. and perhaps elsewhere.

Finally, I would like to say that Korean is not impossible.  Several of us
who are considered to have native or near-native abilities in Korean did not
start learning the language until we were in our late teens or early
twenties--Ross King is a prime example.  It can be done, given the
motivation, the support (of which I had plenty outside of the classroom,
once I was in Korea) and, perhaps most importantly for academic purposes,
the kind of quality language training programs that are offered in Japanese
and Chinese at such places as the IUC in Yokohama and the center at National
Taiwan University.  Such programs still do not exist in Korea, despite the
efforts of such schools as Yonsei, Koryo, Sogang, and SNU.  Perhaps it is
time to establish something like the IUC in Korea.

John Duncan


-----Original Message-----
From: jrpking at interchange.ubc.ca [mailto:jrpking at interchange.ubc.ca]
Sent: Monday, April 14, 2003 5:51 PM
To: koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
Subject: Re: Re: [KS] failed Koreanists littering the streets


Lee JooBai wrote: 

> Professor Ross King writes of certain exceptions.
>(in other words, not counting missionaries, Peace Corps grads, and 
> >soldiers & spies). This is a serious indictment of the current 
> state of language teaching in our field.

> Immediately, all of them strike me as men with a sense of mission.
> We have the men of god, men of peace, men of war, and
> men of ...?
> But is there something special about their experiences or
> constitution that makes for their less difficult acquaintance
> with Korean?

I don't think Korean is any 'less difficult' for this group or that the
members of these groups are somehow better language learners than the rest
of us -- they are just given better resources and opportunities to go about
learning it: missionaries have a training network that provides the
opportunity for extended in-country study, and are backed up by reasonably
well organized and reasonably well funded home institutions. And of course
they have God on their side. Mind you, I've met a lot of missionaries with
rubbish Korean, too, but they still do a lot better than anybody who comes
out of a North American university program. Peace Corps members, too, had
well organized language training, and the opportunity for extended
in-country study (typically AWAY from Seoul, always a good thing). But of
course that route is now defunct. As for soldiers and spies, if you are
familiar with the Defense Language Institute, you will know that they run
classes of at most 6 students, often offer one-on-one training, and in
general (even though their administrators are always moaning about finances
at conferences) have at their disposal vast government and military
resources (plus salary incentives) that university Korean language teachers
can only dream of for their students and programs. 

And as you rightly mention, all of these groups (one presumes) are
characterized by a high motivation and a sense of purpose -- very important
in language learning. They're not just learning Korean as 'their fifth
class' as most of my UBC students are.

In any case, these groups all invest heavily in Korean language training,
and have at least a vague sense of the magnitude of the investment required.
But North American universities, North American Korean American communities,
and the organizations/ foundations/ governments/electorates that support
them, don't have a clue and/or don't give a damn, and are not making the
investment. This lack of investment is understandable and not all that
surpising in all but one case: the South Korean foundations. 

It is part of our job as Koreanists to raise awareness about Korea and to
pound home to those who would listen (in fact, even to those who would not)
that learning Korean is a whole lot different from (and a whole lot more
expensive than) learning French or Spanish. 

In the case of South Korean foundations (and their government sponsors), one
would assume that they DO in fact realize how very much in the Korean
national interest it is for North American students of all ages to be
learning Korean, and that under the new Korean administration they might try
to increase what, at present, is a wholly insufficient level of support for
Korean language study overseas. 

But sometimes I wonder if even the Korean government funding organizations
fully realize what is at stake and how expensive it is to get this right. My
feeling lately over here in Seoul is that many of them (and their Korean
professoriate advisors) have given up on North Americans ever learning
Korean, and would rather spend their limited resources on 'cheaper'
countries where students are more enthusiastic about learning Korean:
south-east Asia, the former USSR, and China, in particular.

Ross King
Associate Professor of Korean, University of British Columbia
and 
Dean, Korean Language Village, Concordia Language Villages





More information about the Koreanstudies mailing list