[KS] failed Koreanists littering the streets

Tue Apr 15 12:08:02 EDT 2003

I would have to agree with you John and your points.  I am a twenty three 
year old Korean adoptee who has been studying for the past year and a half.  
My teacher was skeptical at first, but as of late I have begun to retain 
Korean more though not to the point of fluency.  The main problem has been 
teachers with a true fluency in English.  So a lot of it is figuring it out 
on your own, which basically leads to more time.  However, I did live in 
Korea for three years before coming to America and I still have problems 
with certain English words so I assume Korean is somewhere in my mind.

In terms of outside help, it is extremely important to use Korean on a daily 
basis.  Just like I tell my ESOL students at college.  It was an 
intimadating task to practice with ethnic people because of the expectaion 
that I speak Korean and well.  So, when I didn't, I had some explaining to 
do which some Koreans, finding that I was adopted, ignored me.  But most 
have been very kind and supportive.

Lately though, it has become a matter of confidence when speaking and using 
Korean.  It is very interesting teaching English to East Asian students 
while simultaneously relearning Korean and Japanese.  It is easy to see the 
intrinsic parts that constitute differences and similarities.  And my 
students find it easier to be with me because I am Asian and have mastered 
the language.

Learning Korean and Japanese is not impossible, but like you said, it takes 
effort and committment.  I've also heard that Korean is harder compared to 
Japanese and Chinese.  But, I feel that they all have their pluses and 
minuses in terms of difficulty.

M. Tae Keats

>From: "Duncan, John" <duncan at humnet.ucla.edu>
>Reply-To: Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
>To: "'Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws'" <Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
>Subject: RE: Re: [KS] failed Koreanists littering the streets
>Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 07:25:21 -0700
>
>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
>
>

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