KF뉴스레터-Multimedia Korean Cultural Resources for KFL Students in English-Speaking Countries

Multimedia Korean Cultural Resources for KFL Students in English-Speaking Countries

In recent years, Korea's pop culture has come to gain widespread popularity throughout much of the Asian region. Known as Hallyu (Korean Wave) to the local peoples of these countries, the wave first reached the shores of Japan and China. Soon thereafter, it spread to Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Hong Kong, and more recently to Mongolia, the CIS countries, and the Middle East as well.

Since the mid-1990s, the Hallyu phenomenon has generated a remarkable craze for Korean pop music, movies, fashion trends, and food among the younger generations of these countries, where Korea's entertainment figures are treated like national celebrities. As a consequence, there has led to a sharp surge in demand for Korean-language education among foreign learners, both abroad and at home.

However, the Korean Wave has not been as successful in other regions of the world, most notably the U.S., Europe, and Australia, where ironically interest in Korea's language and culture had already existed. As such, a key factor has been the lack of Korean language and cultural resources in foreign languages. In response to this situation, during the past decade, several projects have been undertaken to develop textbooks in targeted languages. As a result of these efforts, several Korean-language textbooks for various languages have been developed and published, but so much more still needs to be done in other languages.

Despite the fast-growing number of such textbooks that has recently become available, very few include in-depth information on Korean culture. The majority of these textbooks focus primarily on language instruction or linguistic matters, while essentially ignoring the keen interest for cultural content, in both text and multimedia formats. The CD-ROM, "Multimedia Korean Cultural Resources," developed by Jung Jae-Hoon, Griffith University, Australia, and You Seok-Hoon, Korea University, Korea, and published by the Korea Foundation, is a notable endeavor to fill the void d by the recent textbooks.

In particular, the CD-ROM seeks to serve as a comprehensive educational resource and interface for learners and teachers of the Korean language in English-speaking countries, by providing enriched multimedia cultural content and instructional materials in 72 modules (36 each for student workbooks and for teacher guides) in an easily modifiable ation format. Since these resources can be customized for students at various levels, they are well-suited for self-study as well as teacher-instructed classroom sessions. Learners are able to develop and learn new ideas and concepts about Korean language and culture by combining the resources with their personal knowledge and experience. Teachers can also take advantage of the resources of the student workbook and teacher guide formats to develop class materials, handouts, homework, and tests. The CD-ROM content is designed to be utilized by the students and teachers of both public and private educational systems.

The CD-ROM, which includes in-depth materials on Korean culture for students and teachers in English-speaking countries, is formatted into 12 modules of 3 units each.

1. My Future Plans and Others: My Daily Activities, My Future Plans, You and I
2. Schools in Korea: School System, School Life, School Events
3. Celebrations: Birthday Celebrations, Special Holidays, Memorable Days
4. Seasonal Activities of Korean: Seasonal Sports Activities, Four Seasons and the Changing Natural Environment, Seasonal Customs
5. Food and Culture of Eating: Korean Food, Kimchi and Kkakdugi, Table Manners
6. Culture of Housing and Buildings: Korean Housing, Buildings in the City, Buildings in the Countryside
7. Culture of Playing: Everyday Games, Folk Games, Language Acquisition Games
8. Culture of Clothing: Hanbok, Ceremonial Clothes, Modern Clothes
9. Korean Arts: Korean Fine Arts, Sculptures, Folk Art; Accessories and Knots; Korean Traditional Buildings
10. Technology in Korea: Traditional Science and Technology; The Past and the Present of Korea's Publication Industry; Modern Technology
11. The World Cultural Heritages in Korea: World Cultural Heritages, Writing Heritages, Intangible Cultural Heritages
12. Religious History of Korea: Shamanism and Taoism; Confucianism and Buddhism; Modern Religions in Korea

The CD-ROM developers sought to a comprehensive and customizable database of Korean cultural content and language instructional resources, including a graphic user interface for the convenience of users. Materials are organized in a modular format so that the content can be tailored and presented to satisfy the particular needs of individual users.
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