Students suggest implementing Korean classes into school curriculum

Sophomore Joowon Lee spent the first four years of his life living in South Korea. While there, he built up his Korean vocabulary and language skills.
Once Lee moved to the United states, he spent countless hours in Korean school, and was able to build up an extensive Korean vocabulary at an extremely young age.

“I watched a lot of Korean shows and dramas, which helped build up a better vocabulary,” said Lee.

He said being bilingual helped him learn to handle “having more than one thing on my plate at once.”
Additionally, Lee said many students here are Korean by birth but do not get the chance to speak it at home.  He believes it would be beneficial for them to learn the language.

“[It’s hard for other students to learn] because their parents cannot speak Korean themselves or the student has no place time to go learn somewhere else,” Lee said.
In addition, Lee said he would like the Korean classes to focus on history and culture.

“Korean classes are useful so students can learn about Korean culture,” he said. Like Lee, sophomore Adrienne Kim speaks Korean proficiently, since she travels to South Korea often, and both her grandmother and father speak to her in only Korean.

“My mom always speaks to me in ‘konglish,’ which is a mixture of both Korean and English,” said Kim.
Kim believes that though Korean grammar is difficult, it is a useful language to know because of all the latest Korean entertainment that has infused itself into Western culture, such as music, like the recent hit “Gangnam Style” by Psy, and television shows.

Additionally, Lee said that because most history classes do not put much focus on Korean history, Korean-based classes would help to understand and appreciate Korean culture.
“Many people think Korea is a small, unimportant country,” Lee said. “If we had classes completely Korean based, they would realize that it actually has thousands of years [of history].”