미국에서의 중,고등학생 대상의 한국어 교육과 교수법

Korean language education and pedagogy for secondary school students in the U. S.: A short cut to globalization of the Korean language

The Korean Language Pilot Flagship at the University of Hawaii is mandated by the National Flagship Language Initiative to produce speakers with “Professional Working Proficiency” (Superior Level in ACTFL scale and ILR 3 in US governmental measurement) from recruits with “Limited Working Proficiency.” (Advanced Level and ILR 2). The feeder component of the recruits has to come mostly from secondary schools or heritage homes. The immigrant families and heritage learners are rapidly dwindling (cf. Lee 2001). From this perspective of training feeder recruits to flagship programs, this paper scrutinizes the teaching of foreign languages in secondary schools in the U.S. This paper finds that the secondary education as it is, i.e., teaching languages as foreign languages does not achieve such needs. This article proposes that the secondary education be geared to second language education, namely heritage language education. This gear shifting has to done now while heritage learners are available. They are the resources, which are rapidly dwindling and not likely to be replenished in the near future in the U.S.