The Current State of Korean Language Education in Australian Schools

Context and Purpose

The Korean language is spoken in the Korean peninsula and Korean-speaking communities in other parts of the world. The language:

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  has about 80 million speakers including approximately 150,000 residents and long-term stayers in Australia
  
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  has, arguably, one of the easiest and yet most scientific alphabets in the world, and the only script in human history whose inventor and the exact date of invention are known.
  

The Republic of Korea (South Korea), in particular:

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  has strong economic, political and strategic partner relationships with Australia
  
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  is Australia’s major export market and two-way trading partner
  
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  has multinational companies that are major sponsors of Australia’s biggest and most popular sports such as rugby, football and tennis
  
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  is a leading researcher and manufacturer of high- tech commodities such as semiconductors
  
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  has one of the fastest and highest broadband penetration rates in the world
  
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  has produced a number of heads of world organisations, including WTO, WHO and the current UN Secretary-General
  
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  is the co-founder of the APEC concept with Australia and is one of its firmest supporters
  
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  is a key player of G20, a newly formed group of leading world countries
  
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  has made significant contributions to humankind as recognised by international organisations such as UNESCO.
  

The Korean peninsula has a rich and proud history and is home to a resilient and well educated people with a unique cultural tradition in north-east Asia. To continue to develop the current relationship between Australia and the Korean peninsula for future economic, cultural and social benefit, Australians who communicate at an appropriate level in Korean and possess an in-depth understanding of Korean culture and society are required. Data from 2008 indicates that a mere 0.1 per cent of Australian school students studied Korean or Korea-related subjects and of students at Year 12 nationally, only 0.1 per cent take Korean, of which more than 97 per cent are Korean L1 background or Heritage speakers (Reference to footnote 1) and less than 5 per cent have learned Korean as a second language.

Footnote 1 In this document ‘L1’ refers to first/native speakers of a language who have also mostly or completely been educated in that language; ‘L2’ to speakers who have acquired or are acquiring a second language. ‘Heritage speakers’ speak the language at home but are educated and live in a country where another language is the lingua franca.

Given this context, the Australian Government’s National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program (NALSSP) offers a timely and welcomed intervention to support the teaching and learning of Korean language in each state and territory. Several promising projects and initiatives funded through the NALSSP are currently underway, each with potential to consolidate and advance existing programs, and to support incremental growth of new programs. The project being led by the University of New South Wales under the NALSSP’s Strategic Collaboration and Partnership Fund, establishment of a Korean bilingual school and development of distance education materials for delivery of online Korean programs in NSW are each positive steps forward.

While these developments are cause for optimism, a scan of the key activities and strategies to be funded by states and territories through NALSSP indicates that Korean is significantly underrepresented in relation to the other three target NALSSP languages (Chinese, Indonesian and Japanese), illustrating the vulnerable space that Korean language fills in the Australian school education context.

Key Findings

This report is the outcome of research undertaken to investigate the current state and issues of Korean language programs in Australian schools. It intends to support the NALSSP by providing education systems nationally with baseline data and recommendations for future action supporting Korean language teaching.

Main Issues

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  There is a noticeable ambiguity about the importance and place of Korean language in schools. The current status of Korean as a small candidature language, while at the same time identified as a major priority of the Australian Government, provides policy makers and practitioners with significant challenges. On one level the language is supported nationally through Australian Government initiatives such as the NALSSP and NALSAS (National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools) strategies, yet it receives varied commitment at state and territory education system level and low take-up in schools. Recent evidence of this ambiguity can be found in the Australian Education Review (Lo Bianco 2009) which proposes Korean be categorised as a language of ‘Tier 2’ level importance.
  
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  Provision of, and participation in, Korean language programs nationally is alarmingly low. Currently there are approximately 3,000 Korean Heritage speakers nationally not studying Korean in their secondary years, mainly due to an absence of courses that are suitable for their unique needs. To support the NALSSP target of increasing the number of Year 12 completions by 2020, provision of suitable curriculum for the large untapped pool of Korean Heritage speakers is a priority.
  
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  Mainstream awareness of Korea, and the profile of Korean language, is very low, even in places where a relatively large Korean community has been formed (for example, metropolitan Sydney). This has implications in terms of building demand for Korean language in schools, particularly among L2 learners.
  
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  Strategies that specifically target increasing the L2 student cohort studying Korean are a priority. In contrast to Japanese and Indonesian, at Year 12, Korean is overwhelmingly undertaken by L1 learners with less than 5 per cent of students L2 learners.