다문화 배경 유아를 위한 언어교육 방법 모색

Language Teaching Method for Multicultural Children: “Focusing on the Language Awareness program”

The purpose of this research is to seek a way to support multicultural children to learn Korean language, which is a school language, while multicultural children adopt multilingual environment and multicultural environment naturally. Recently, Early childhood education sector of Korea has also developed a language program for multicultural children, which has been implemented at a multicultural kindergarten and links with the Nuri curriculum, The integrated curriculum of Kindergarten education and Childcare Center education in Korea. However, there are not enough programs for parents of multicultural families. The involvement of parents with multicultural backgrounds in kindergarten education can help sociolinguistic diversity by not only teachers who are the main mediator of education, but also parents as they work together to understand the language of multicultural children. In this context, the “Language Awareness” program is based on the fact that all languages are useful for language development of infants and children. It is a language teaching methodology for multicultural children through multilingual environment and multicultural approach. In addition, participation of parents in kindergarten education can form a sense of solidarity among children, teachers, and parents, and can help children of multicultural families adapt to kindergarten in Korea. This approach is also helpful for multicultural children to establish a more positive identity by learning their mother tongue with their peers in kindergarten setting. This program contributes to both multicultural children and other children in the kindergarten. Non-multicultural children are also exposed to various languages, allowing them to have a more open-view of their own and other languages, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, thus helping them gain access to other languages and cultural diversity. Through this process, it develops the ability to learn Korean with a comparative perspective that can distinguish phonemic distinctions and syllable differences and similarities in each language.