KSL Programs at Yonsei Univ.

 On this post, I want to take a look into the KSL programs at Yonsei University. In KLI (Korean Language Institute) program on campus, there are about 1,500 students learning Korean. Holy Mother! Yes, you can guess how many instructors are working there - 157 teachers. It's just a small tiny land of all foreigners. It indicates that these Korean learners have fed the school more than Severance Hospital has that Yonsei owns as one of biggest general hospitals in the country. Of course, the students are all over the world from neighboring countries like Japan and China to European and Americas. It's just crazy to bump into one onother in the halls without purpose and to stand in a long line in a cafe or a store at the building during the break. The system of the program runs in this way below:

• Number of Weeks : 10 weeks (per term)
• Hours of Instruction : 200 hours (4 hours/day X 5 days/week X 10 weeks)
• Class days : Monday to Friday
• Class Hours : 4 hours Morning session (9:00 am to 1:00 pm) or Afternoon session (1:40 pm to 5:30 pm)
•  Tuition: 1,600,000 won (about $1,600 per term)
• Number of Levels: 6 Levels (1 to 6 as advanced): Each term is for one level.
• Ideal Number of Students (per class): 12 at maximum 
• Duration of Each Class: 50 minutes   9-9:50/ 10:10:50/ 11:10-12:00/ 12:10-1:00

During the first two classes of the day, students take "Intensive" class which focuses on grammar and vocabulary practice. The following class as the third is the students' selection depending on their preferred skill to work on more. For example, there are Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening and Korean Literature. So, this period has students' moving to each room. And the last class is back to the classroom of 1st&2nd periods' to do some more extension activities using the structure and the vocab introduced from "Intensive".  Thus, students have the same teacher for the 1st, 2nd and 4th periods except for the 3rd period's elective one. Graduating from KLI qualifies that you can take a lecture at a university setting.

• The 6 Level Regular Course can be completed in one and a half years.
• The 8 Level Regular course can be completed in two years.
  : The 8 Level Regular Course has been specifically designed for native English speakers. This course provided only in the morning focuses on listening comprehension and speaking ability. Basic grammar and vocabulary will be thoroughly covered for those without any previous knowledge of Korean. Compared to Japanese and Chinese students whose learning speed has shown quite fast, people from Western culture (as we call) choose to learn Korean slowly from the beginning. I heard that their proficiency eventually reaches the higher than students from the 6 level-program do.

Also, I was interested to see the instructors' profiles. To begin with, they must have a Master's at least and their backgrounds are mostly Korean Education, Korean Literature and Linguistics, Korean Culture Study, and General Education. Yeah, that gave me a little moment to measure myself with them.

Anyway, this setting is not quite familiar to me considering where I came from as a second language center in a foreign country, and I wonder how effectively and efficiently this system goes with that copious number of students. I will have an opportunity of observing the classes all day soon.

To be continued after observation...

(Epilogue: GEEZE... WHERE IS MY ENGLISH!)