A Study on the Development of the Educational Materials of the 〈General Korean Language〉 for International Undergraduate Students inan Intermediate Level of the Korean Language

Abstract

This is a basic study to develop the educational materials for general Korean language learning for international undergraduate students in the intermediate level. It aims to survey the needs of learners and thereby establish some developmental directions. To achieve this, Iconducted a survey with 306 international students at A University. The results showed that many learners recognized the necessity of textbook development, and that although there was a high preference for e-books, ademand for paper books still existed. Regarding preferred media types, demands were observed not only for familiar media such as movies, dramas and social media, but also for other types of media like newspaper articles and the news in general. Regarding the topics demanded, they included daily life, hobbies, personalities, travel, and social and academic subjects. As for the desired functions to be enhanced, there were high demands for speaking, vocabulary, and grammar, and the balanced demands for listening, reading, and writing. Accordingly, this study proposed that educational materials should be composed in such a way that e-books and paper books coexist, and that the materials should be developed by maximizing the educational value of each. Furthermore, this study suggested that a comprehensive textbook that develops all language functions evenly would be more suitable than educational materials specialized in one function, given the characteristics of learners who need to not only expand their learning experiences with the use of various media, but to also cultivate their communication skills and academic task performance abilities.