[KS] Revisiting the Failed Koreanist Issue

[jrpking]

Dear Keith and other colleagues: 

I suspect there is some fatigue out there with respect to this topic [so if you're fatigued, hit 'Delete'!], but couldn't resist throwing in another two cents. 

> I. Comparing American and Russian Language Instruction:
> American students typically take a language course per semester (1 hour per 
> day for 5 days) for a total of 5 contact hours per week. 

It's even more pathetic in Canada: 4 hours per week (and only 13 weeks per semester). Barely 100 hours per academic year once you take away holidays and tests. As against 2200-2600 hours needed to reach 2-2 on the DLI scale...

>Russian students 
> have language instuction 4 to 6 hours per day 5 days a week for a total of 
> 20 to 30 contact hours per week. Thus, Russian students enjoy 15-25 more 
> contact hours per week.

True. But then, not every Russian student who has all those hours is as 'good' in Korean as one might hope/expect, and the other danger with this system is that at the end of 5 years (most their programs are 5 years, I believe), you get somebody who knows a lot of language but not much of anything else. In other words, you could argue that this system produces technicians, not broadly and deeply grounded area specialists who also have good knowledge of the target language. (Not that North American schools are producing this sort of person!)

> 1. Should language instruction be more intensive? 

For Korean? Emphatically, yes. At least, the arguments for teaching Japanese and Chinese intensively (in the North American context, just 10 hours per week) apply just as well (if not better) to Korean. But getting Korean taught 10 hours per week as opposed to 5 anywhere in North America is virtually impossible, and I confess I am not aware of a single university that teaches first- and/or second-year Korean 10 hours per week. 

For starters, it would cost twice as much as programs are spending already, and most Korean language programs are poorly funded/'softly funded' to start with. 

Furthermore, if one made Korean intensive at 10 nours per week, we'd lose most our students -- most our students are heritage learners for whom Korean is an elective, 'extra' subject, taken on the side, and NOT as a core subject required for a major (say, in Korean Studies or Korean Language -- two majors that are almost nonexistent across North America). The commitment/motivation for that kind of intensive instruction is not really there on the part of the majority of our learners.

Perhaps, language 
> instruction could be increased to 2 to 3 hours per day more along the lines 
> of the traditional ESL model.

This would cost a fortune, and would never fly in North American institutions. The other obstacle (besides cost) is ideological -- for Americans, in particular, foreign language education is always just a means to an end (Claire Kramsch is good on this, meaning on critiquing American attitudes toward foreign language education). Not something to be taken very seriously. And definitely not something to spend much money on.

> 2. Perhaps, being a Korean Studies majors should be required to spend at 
> least one year in Korea as a student with all coursework transferable back 
> to the home institution, including elective courses and language courses.

Absolutely. But there just aren't that many schools with Korean Studies majors out there yet. The really serious students have to just find (and pay) their own way.

Cheers, 

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