계승어 사용자로서의 재미동포 미취학 아동을 위한 한글학교 유아반 교실 운영 방안

The Heritage Korean Young Learner Classroon Management of Korean Language Schools

This article is dealing with the characteristics of Korean-American preschoolers who are aged four and five and quarter of the Korean language school population, and the roles of Korean language school. In order to understand them, we have interviewed the teachers and parents of the 4 year-old class of the school. Their abilities of using Korean are definitely related to their parents’ abilities and their desire to educate Korean to them. Moreover, even though the students are only four year-olds, they are superior to use English to Korean. There are some roles of Korean language school. It should be a field to build their identities, to learn and practice Korean, and to experience Korean culture as a mother country. Lastly, it is important for the students and their parents to establish networks of Korean immigrant community in advance before the public education. Unfortunately, there has not been any Korean language education program for Korean-American children. Therefore, there should be efforts to establish appropriate education systems for the children and teachers alike. Especially, the curriculum of the programs for teachers should be focused on making children understand not only general ideas, but also the essence and quality of Korean language. And also, it should be able to show the prototype of Korean language education system for the children.