문화이해와 소통을 위한 한국어교육내용

The education contents of Korean for the inter-cultural understanding and communication

The ultimate goal of learning a target language in the classroom is to communicate in a variety of situations. In order to communicate effectively, it is necessary to have language ability as well as comprehension of the target culture. This is because some situations require deeper cultural understanding beyond knowing the language. The purpose of this research is to check whether cultural education which takes place in Korean classrooms enables culturally sensitive communication and helps understanding of target culture by recognizing the differences between the language learners’ cultures and the target culture. In this paper, Korean textbooks will be analyzed and the textbook contents which should be taken into account for the cultural understanding and communication will be presented. To do this, first the previous research regarding cultural education implemented in Korean classrooms will be examined and the relationship between communication and culture will be discussed. This study will first present analysis criteria for the Korean textbook analysis from the perspective of cultural understanding and communication. Next it will accordingly analyze the textbook according to discussed criteria. Finally potential content to be considered for cultural education in Korean classrooms will be presented.