[KS] Grammar, KFL and KHL

[카루바]

Dear list members, 

 As there have been some book suggestions to the list recently I'll add a few. There are good books out there. I'm sure that many of you are better informed about current publications than I am but..... 

From what I've seen of Ross King and Jaehoon Yeon's <Elementary Korean> it looks right on- 'defunkifying' those morpheme boundaries. 

<Korean Grammar for International Learners>, in English, and Baek Bongja's <oegukeoroseoui hangukeomunbupsajeon> (1999), in Korean, are both grammar guides from Yeonsei. The former is in need of a spelling update. The latter is especially nice provided that students have the meta-vocab to understand the explanations(the Korean language instructors I've mentioned this book to say that students do not). 

Also, Robert Ramsey's translation of Lee Iksop and friends' collaborative effort <The Korean Language> is really informative. 

For a nice undergraduate text in Korean <gukeomunbupnonganui> (1999) ISBN 89- 8060-052-6 9370 by Lee Iksop and Chae Wan is clear, has very little hanmun, and builds on an earlier effort(?1982? gukeomunbupnon). 

For a more advanced look at interrogatives check out Suh Jung-mok's <gukeouimunbupyeongu> ISBN 89-324-0106-1 93710 

For an interesting read on 'tense' Han Dong-Wan's <gukeoui sije yeongu> 89-7626-163-1 93710. 

Suh Jung-mok also has 2 books available that examine and clarify Korean language from a TG perspective(more rules to learn and worth it).

I hope that the above publications prove helpful, 
Rob Carrubba



----- Original Message ----- 
From: <jrpking at interchange.ubc.ca>
To: <Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2003 11:38 AM
Subject: [KS] Grammar, KFL and KHL


Rob Carruba’s posting reminds me of another major shortcoming in KFL teaching these days: grammar (and the rules thereof that linguists keep trying to figure out).

KFL learners (including heritage learners, I would argue) are doubly disadvantaged when it comes to learning the nuts-and-bolts of Korean morpho-syntax ?the mechanics, if you will, of how different verb types attach to endings (and which ones they can or can’t attach to), and how particles attach to nouns and what functions they serve. 

And Lord knows Korean has particles and endings up the yin[g]yang (or should I say, eumyang), with lots of funky stuff going on at the morpheme boundaries.

And if one doesn't get this right in the very first stages (year or two) of study, one can pretty much forget about ever being good in Korean. 

Doubly disadvanted because:
1) their Korean-speaking instructors are rarely able to explain any of this in English, the textbooks they publish in Korea don’t get it right, either, and/or they are governed by a covert language ideology that says ‘a foreign learner can never really, truly, understand this anyway, so why bother getting the details right? Taech’ung uro salja!?

2) the ideology driving most of American foreign language pedagogy is one of ‘action?and ‘performance?and ‘proficiency?that can’t be bothered with the details of structure. So much so that ‘grammar?is a dirty word in language pedagogy circles ?one doesn’t discuss it in polite company, let alone in a language class. 

There is a very interesting critique of this American language teaching ideology in Claire Kramsch’s 1993 book, _Context and Culture in Language Teaching_ (OUP): ‘American foreign language education values action over reflection? ‘Most foreign language teachers in the United States ?value action and communication rather than metacommunication.?She (Professor of German at Berkeley) stresses the importance of teaching ‘metalanguage??using the language classroom not just for foreign language talk, but for talking _about_ the foreign language (and especially about the target culture and key differences between it and the learner’s ?her main point is not grammar, but one can easily extend it this way?. 

Finally, it is also interesting to note that some of the most very recent research on ‘heritage language education?is claiming that it is actually grammar instruction that many heritage learners need. Rich Robin (2002) (Professor of Russian at Georgetown, I think) has written as follows about heritage learners of Russian (2002): “the methodological tide has been pulling away from precisely what heritage learners need the most: explicit instruction in grammar and writing conventions.?

Robin, Rich. 2002. Helping heritage hares with the race. The NCLRC Language Resource, Vol. 6, no. 2.

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