Challenges and Opportunities

1. Although the potential benefits of Korean language study are significant, generally, Korea and Korean language have maintained a low visibility on the larger University community, thus being overshadowed by Europe and other Asian areas such as China and Japan.

2. Unlike KSL or KFL learners in other regions of the United States, KFL learners in Minnesota generally do not have enough access to the targeted language and culture outside of the classrooms. The instructors have been focused on teaching meaning and language use, however, even though they also give students the opportunities to practice what they learn in the classroom, the learning outcome is still not efficient enough.

3. It is hard to truly understand culture and literature without knowing the language of that culture. In the same way, it is hard to maintain a good language program without offering courses about the culture and literature of that language to keep the interest and maintain the progression of language learning. Since we have a significant number of students in our language classes, it is imperative to offer additional Korean culture and literature courses and support our optimism about building a strong Korean culture and literature program in the near future.

 

 

Language Faculty/Staff:

Hangtae Cho
choxx023@umn.edu

Sang-Seok Yoon
yoonx048@umn.edu

Yunseong Cheon cheon025@umn.edu

Hye Yeong Kim kimxx978@umn.edu

Culture Faculty/Staff:

Ji-EunLee jelee@umn.edu