Current Situation and Prospects of Korean Language Education Research for Multicultural Learners in Elementary School

The purpose of this study is to investigate research trends of Korean Language Education for multicultural learners in elementary school in accordance with the analysis of research topic. For the study, a total of 94 academic journal articles and 117 theses, searched in RISS(www.riss.kr), are identified and analyzed in terms of research topic. The results of analysis showed some characteristics as follows. First, as a result of the analysis of the data, it was found that the related researches were actively carried out around 2015. Second, Research topics can be divided into three categories such as General Korean language education, Content of Korean language education, and Methodologies of Korean language education. Third, studies related to the written language such as reading, writing, and lexical education occupied a large part of studies. Fourth, studies on the evaluation are relatively neglected as compared to research on textbook and pedagogy. This study suggests that various research topics should be utilized in Korean language education for elementary school students with multicultural backgrounds in terms of diversity.