Dòng Nội dung
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Challenges of maintaining the mother’s language : marriage-migrants and their mixed-heritage children in South Korea / Mi Yung Park. // Language and Education Vol.33, No 5/2019
UK : Taylor & Francis Group, 2019.
p. 431-444

This study explores the language use of Southeast Asian marriage-migrant mothers in South Korea with their mixed-heritage children, and the challenges related to heritage language (HL) transmission. Drawing on interviews with nine women, the study finds that they encountered multiple obstacles to teaching the HL to their children. Their Korean family members regarded HL learning as a hindrance to the children’s success and discouraged the development of their bilingual and bicultural identities. Moreover, the mothers themselves promoted Korean at home because they believed it was necessary to the children’s academic and social success. Their strong desire for their children to assimilate and conform to the dominant language and culture was influenced by a mainstream society in which mixed-heritage children are vulnerable to social exclusion. As a result, the participants’ children were prevented from receiving rich HL input and lacked fluency in their HLs. This study aims to improve our understanding of the factors that facilitate or hinder HL transmission and development in the context of mixed families in South Korea.

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The construction of the tourist gaze in English textbooks in South Korea : exploring the tensions between internationalisation and nationalisation / Kimberly Vinall, Jaran Shin // Language, Culture and Curriculum Volume 32, No 2/2019
2019
p.173-190

This study investigates how larger ideological tensions related to internationalisation and nationalisation are manifested in local education systems, especially in English textbooks. We begin this exploration with a review of the School Curriculum of the Republic of Korea. Using three textbooks as cases; we examine how they reflect and manage the tensions presented in the Curriculum. We argue that these tensions are managed through the construction of a tourist gaze, which is both directed inwards, in the construction of Koreanness, and outwards, in the construction of a global citizen. Through the medium of English, learners are both tourists, viewing their own culture from the perspective of the ‘other,’ while they are being prepared to be ‘tour guides,’ learning how to explain this perspective to the ‘other’ in the other's language, English. When focused outwards, the tourist gaze constructs representations of foreign cultures because it is through learning English that Korean learners become global citizens and are able to connect to ‘others,’ to make friends, and to travel the world. We conclude with considerations of ways to go beyond the tourist gaze, as teachers and learners use the tensions in more constructive ways – namely, to develop critical cultural competence.

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