A Study of the Situation of the Saturday Korean School in the U.S.

Abstract

This paper is to study the current Korean language programs in Illinois, USA, where is densely populated by Korean students and Korean- Americans. In particular, this study focuses on the contexts of programs, organizational set-ups, observational data on dialogues and interactions, the frequency of language mixing(code switching). Also 1-to-1 interviews with parents, teachers and students, have been conducted to analyze the attitudes toward bilingual related issues. Therefore, this study approaches the issue via quantitative and qualitative data analysis. The result shows that the most programs employ conventional teaching style(lecture) and this con-ventionality prevents bilingual students from learning Korean in an active way and fail to motivate the students.