Lektoren-Vereinigung Korea: Teaching Italian in Korea

Davide Scalmani

Teaching Italian in Korea

What I would like to do in this brief note is to give some basic information about the actual scenario of the Italian language teaching in Korea. It goes without saying that any foreign language in Korea has to take into account the historically overwhelming position of English and the recently accelerated growth pace of the other Asian languages like Chinese and Japanese.

The place of Italian in Korea

In comparison to other western tongues, the case of Italian has its peculiarities though. Whereas other European idioms can count on a large number of departments, Italian has a comparatively smaller room in the Korean academic system. From a simplistic numerical perspective comparing to the numbers of Koreans studying English, German or French, the students of Italian language could be considered a minority. However, we are encouraged to evaluate our language in Korea for more than an exclusive subject strictly reserved to inhabitants of a fairly distinguished social and cultural niche.

The interest for Italian language has constantly grown since the remote years when the first lecturer was sent by the Italian government in the early 60s. For example, in the last years we have been observing that a rising number of adults attend the Italian language courses operated by the Italian Cultural Institute at the Lifelong Education Center of the Sogang University. The Koreans who come to our courses represent a typically differentiate demand for Italian in this country. They study Italian because they need it, like it, are attracted by its cultural prestige. Many Koreans, in fact, are for various reasons attracted by Italian culture and history; some of them approach the study of Italian language. To this, we should add that speaking Italian language represents actually a professional skill required in fields like fine arts, music, design, restoration, culinary art.

Motivation to study and attitude

It is a matter of fact that language is what identifies primarily our national culture with its unique history as a mainly cultural treasure created by writers and intellectuals long before the establishment of a politically unified state. The achievements of the Italian artists and thinkers have been always going together with the development of the linguistic means which they contributed to shape; and conversely these have been continuously, most unconsciously though, been influenced by the language, in an ongoing virtuous circle of positive feedbacks.

Learners of Italian in Korea need not of course to have the detailed knowledge of the social and cultural milieu that nurtured the distinctive features of an idiom that has made a long way through history by no other means than its luminous reputation. Anyway, Koreans learning Italian have usually a strong motivation. They are diligent students who generally apply to Italian the same pattern of learning foreign languages that had been in fashion in Italy until the 50s. It is the grammatical-translation method, which we do not need to discuss further.

It has been frequently observed by many foreign teachers that cultural differences and especially the educative environment represent the most important factor structuring the improvement of SL courses in Korea. However, the problem is very often one: to persuade our back to school students of the usefulness of other methodology and to prepare them to develop more articulated skills of communication. Not surprisingly, after an initial hesitant phase, the students achieve in general the expected results, while understanding the wider scope that the mastering of a foreign language as Italian can give to their communicative abilities.

A challenging environment

Although always generalizations, like the ones I have here exposed, are drawn at the risk of simplifying the reality, I would rather push the point deeper and add that we have a not so homogenous body of students, as it is frequently taken for granted.

Many of our students, in fact, have been experiencing in the recent years various methodology and ways to study foreign languages.
Although I do not intend to downplay the obvious cultural differences and idiosyncrasies of Korean education, I would not skip the many signs bringing to evidence the birth of an environment, which is more favorable to suggestions coming from experiences matured abroad.

Aside of the general transformation that are changing the face of the Korean society, I just want to focus on the increasing cultural exchange that Korea is having today. A fact that is especially true for the young generation. We know for example that as many as 200,000 children under 15 have gone abroad this summer for studying SL (mostly English).

Going abroad, being in contact with foreigners, working within transnational companies, trying to stay plugged in the global village of communication, meeting international standards when evaluation is needed, are all different ways through which the young generation is pushed to a more direct contact with the world outside Korea. We know a much part of this "outside" has been represented by the Anglophonic world, above all the American constellation of facts and myths. Being aware of this fact and knowing what this situation will cause is what is needed now to understand the context in which Italian language can play its own role. To this purpose, we need to enlarge our scope and to remind the common European background.

A European model in the globalised time

What can be possibly labeled as "European educational model" stands now in a better position to play a major role than in the past. The process of European integration in the educational field has done giant steps. We are now able to offer an integrated European model of learning, which molds together a polyphonic cultural heritage, a highly advanced formative environment, and our characteristic attention for individual needs and potentiality.
Although this is true in general, in Korea still needs to be understood clearly. We should never forget that the "European model" is not well identified among Korean students.

Everyone knows that many young Koreans are given better opportunities to widen the scope of their linguistic knowledge and take advantage of that, even without leaving their country. However, what happens frequently is that those good premises are not sufficiently exploited. Strangely enough, the very same observation can be found true of the young generation of Italian students studying SL: A fact that can be incidentally used to confirm the overall impression that in the days of globalization the gap between two people of the same country belonging to different generations is much wider than the gap between two people of the same generation living 10000 km away from each other.
At the risk of being trite, I must add that education in Korea, like almost every other thing, is rapidly changing. In such an environment, a decisive role is played by the existing models, which are subject to be used in orienting the development.

Assessment and evaluation

Moreover, what is going to affect the process is mainly the way in which the evaluation of the competence and skills acquired by the students is going to be implemented in the Korean educational system. As it is obvious, the way in which knowledge of any subject is certified or measured is the strongest factor orienting the whole structure of teaching and learning.

We can plainly agree that the national test system adopted to evaluate the prospective college students and the ESL tests most popular in Korea are both models that point to a solution which is still distant from the one backed by the EU and the Council of Europe.

Whereas the existing Korean preference goes to achievement tests and underestimates or ignores the role of the creation of meaning, especially in the oral language, the European model is more oriented toward a full assessment on a larger and more comprehensive screening of the communicative abilities.

Our belief is that the "European way" as developed in the "Medium term program of activities 2000-2003" by the European Center for Modern Languages, and in actions like the "European Year of Languages", "Socrates", "Leonardo da Vinci", etc., can contribute to prove the effectiveness of the European approach. That is especially invaluable if the need of a plurality of "second languages" or a tertiary language education, combined with the empowerment of the speaker via the active mastering of a broader communicative set of skills, is recognized as an urgent and vital goal by Koreans.

In this broader prospective, in which diversity should be considered richness, Italian language in Korea could preserve its own characteristic while adjusting to meet the needs of a linguistic advanced and culturally open country.

DaF-Szene Korea Nr. 16