Second language teaching with a focus on different learner cultures for sustainable learner development : the case of Sino-Korean vocabulary

Abstract

Second language teaching (SLT) focuses on the cultural backgrounds of different learners. This not only facilitates the construction of knowledge using the learner’s identity, but also helps learners acquire skills for cross-cultural communication, both of which are needed for learners to develop sustainably. Sino-Korean vocabulary is an important element in the representation of Korean culture and in teaching the Chinese language to Korean speakers. In addition, it is a means of promoting the Teaching Chinese as a Second language (TCSL) to achieve sustainable development for Korean learners. Much of the research on Sino-Korean vocabulary has focused on the similarities between Chinese and Korean cultures that facilitate Korean learners’ understanding and use of Sino-Korean vocabulary, but little attention has been paid to the role played by cultural Sino-Korean vocabulary that represent the distinctive Korean culture. We collected a news corpus on six major themes from the NAVER website in Korea from between 2010 and 2020. The keywords were extracted using the TF–IDF algorithm and then transcribed and culled to form a distinctive cultural Sino-Korean vocabulary corpus. We examined the Korean Version of Experience Chinese: Living in China (Ti yan Han yu Sheng huo pian) and suggested that a collection of Sino-Korean vocabulary that are culturally distinctive to the learner’s home country can provide a more pedagogically meaningful addition to the selection of words for TCSL textbooks. These words, based on similarities, further enable Korean learners to acquire a sense of familiarity with, and belonging to, their identity, and thus acquire the Chinese language, and also facilitate expression in intercultural communication. By extracting the distinctive Korean cultural Sino-Korean vocabulary and discovering their value in terms of TCSL educational material, we can promote the sustainable development of Korean learners.