Course coordinator: Dr Catherine Xiang, CMK.C516

No previous knowledge required. All students welcome but they should: Demonstrate commitment to regular attendance, completion of homework, and all pieces of continuous assessment. Dedicate at least two hours per week for coursework in addition to classes. Admission into the course upon tutor’s approval during the information sessions. For anyone who wants to learn Korean.

Course Aim: To develop the ability to use Korean effectively for purposes of practical communication at survival level. To master the pronunciation of Korean. To have basic knowledge of Korean language: Pinyin spelling, tones, characters, words and syntax. To be able to communicate in a range of daily life situations and travelling to Korea. To establish the language skills and attitudes required to promote and facilitate further study of Korean. To increase cultural awareness of Korea. To prepare students for the equivalent of A1 CEFR.

Communicative Content: The course is focused on the following communicative functions: Greetings. Introducing yourself and others. Asking for and giving personal information. Introducing your family. Talking about date, daily routine, future plans. Talking about birthday and holiday. Asking and giving time. Arranging a date. Making suggestions. Understanding Korean currency. Shopping and bargaining. Ordering food and drinks. Eating out and reading a menu. Using public transports in Korea. Asking and giving directions. Checking into a hotel. Making simple requests. Describing past events. Talking about likes and dislikes. Making a phone call. Describing and solving problems.

Structural Content: This course will introduce the basics of Korean in the following grammatical areas: Form simple questions. Indicating possession. Use of negation. Use of location indicator. Measure words. Indicate future. Indicate past. Verb constructions. Imperative. Comparison. Expressing frequency. The course will also introduce 600 words and 150 Korean characters.

16 hours of classes in the MT. 22 hours of classes in the LT. 2 hours of classes in the ST.

This is a 40 hour-course. Please refer to the LSE timetable for course teaching arrangements.

Integrated Korean: Beginning 1 (KLEAR Textbooks in Korean Language) by Korean Language Education and Research Center (KLEAR), Young-Mee Yu Cho, Hyo Sang Lee and Carol Schulz (15 Dec 2009). Read and Speak Korean for Beginners with Audio CD, 2nd Edition (Read & Speak for Beginners) by Sunjeong Shin (1 Jul 2011). Korean: Beginner's Course (World Language) by Living Language (28 Dec 2007). Basic Korean: A Grammar and Workbook (Grammar Workbooks) by Andrew Sangpil Byon (31 Jul 2008).

Continuous assessment (50%) in the MT, LT and ST.
Oral examination (30%) and in class assessment (20%) in the LT.