The purpose of this study was to find out what would be necessary abilities in individuals' communication activities between Korean culture and mother culture as intercultural subjects and to suggest the content and methods of Korean culture education...
The purpose of this study was to find out what would be necessary abilities in individuals' communication activities between Korean culture and mother culture as intercultural subjects and to suggest the content and methods of Korean culture education that could enhance such abilities. First of all, this study established the concept of Korean culture in cultural and educational perspectives. Culture generally has borderlines, interconnections and acquisitiveness and this study recognized that these three traits of culture would need new ways of interpretation in cultural and educational terms.
This study reinterpreted borderlines as a meaning of 'connection' and 'continuance' rather than its conventional meaning of 'division', thus emphasizing that it would be connected with every unit of culture. In terms of interconnections, a cultural phenomenon could be understood and interpreted in various dimensions; therefore, it has been confirmed that it would be necessary to have various perspectives and many-sided approaches in dealing with cultural phenomena. As for the acquisitiveness of culture, it has been known that there were huge differences in its acquisition process between mother and foreign culture; hence, the study argued that it would be very important to consider learners’ mother culture when educating Korean culture.
Based on the concept of culture established through the aforementioned process, this study assumed the model of a cultural body to find out what meaning the occurrence of intercultural communicative activities would have. While the existing discussions on intercultural communication have focused on individual face-to-face communication, the model of a cultural body suggested in this study would signify the concept, in which varied cultures with diverse dimensions met with and interact with each other, thus individuals' (learners from the cultural and educational point of view) encountering with the products of culture, performance, views, communities and other individuals wanting to communicate anew within the model of a cultural body in various ways. Here it would be individuals (learners) who could lead a variety of encounters and interactions and they would need a driving force for doing it actively, which could be defined as an intercultural communicative ability.
In order to verify the model theory of a cultural body and to find out what the intercultural communicative abilities were made up of, this study examined 120 volumes of data written by 70 foreigners with regards to culture. Through this examination, it could extract the factors constituting intercultural communicative abilities. Intercultural communicative abilities could be defined as an ability that could make intercultural agents (people) actively think, judge and act between mother culture and other cultures and it turned out that it was composed of the abilities of mother culture, universal culture, a knowledge information ability for the cultures that they wanted to communicate with, a sympathy tolerance ability for the cultures in question, an intercultural behavior ability and an intercultural linguistic ability.
In the stage following the emergence of the factors of the intercultural communicative abilities, there could be a question of ‘then, what should we teach in Korean culture education?’ One of the noticeable answers to this question was ‘Korean culture in this divided Korean peninsula.’ The reason that Korean culture during this period of division has had some meaning in Korean culture education was that there have been demands of individuals particularly as intercultural agents. After investigating the data related to culture written by foreigners above, most of them found Korean authoritarian hierarchical culture and the so-called hurry-hurry culture most difficult to understand and had trouble in understanding and participation. Based on the existing discussions shown in the field of Koreanology, modern Korean authoritarian hierarchical culture and hurry-hurry culture were thought to be the phenomena largely affected by the system and practice formed after the division of Korea. Thus, it has been confirmed that it would be necessary to have a teaching-learning for the division of Korea and its subsequent entire Korean culture during this period based on the division of Korea and Korean War in order for them to have an in-depth understanding and emotional sympathy of these cultures. Therefore, it has been required to arrange objective content categories and themes to set up Korean culture in the period of division as the content of culture education.
In order to organize the main content of Korean culture during the period of division, the study analyzed 8 Korean films selected as recommended films for Korean culture education. The films analyzed realistically reproduced the main events and the lives of historical figures based on the view of the period, thus becoming efficient data for culture analysis. Meanwhile, by adopting films as the subjects of analysis, the study ensured that the relevant data had a possibility to be used as data in the teaching-learning practice. As a result of analyzing the content of the films from cultural point of view, the study could extract the detailed content of Korean culture during the period of division. Korean culture during this period was mostly classified into eight themes such as Korean War, a demilitarized zone, separated families, liberation and division, anti-communism, South Korean military, US Armed Forces stationed in Korea and economic activities.
Next, the study set an objective of Korean culture education during the period of division and organized the constituent standards of culture education content to materialize this objective, by considering the component factors of intercultural communicative abilities. As for the improvement of such abilities, it has been confirmed that the following factors should be added to the content of Korean culture education during the period of division: learners' mother culture, universal & cultural context, fundamental structure in society, cultural dynamic & diversity, individuals' lives and values, all sorts of human emotions shown in communities, intercultural issues and contemporary daily culture. By using these eight standards, the study re-organized the specifically detailed themes of Korean culture during the said period, thus completing the content of Korean culture education in the given period (Ⅳ-2).
In the teaching-learning practice, the study analyzed the learners' mother culture based on the design of college electives for Chinese students studying in Korea, arranged the content of mother culture and added it along with that of Korean culture during the period of division into the teaching-learning content, thus suggesting Korean culture education for the enhancement of intercultural communicative abilities. In order for learners to form the context of Korean culture - mother culture - universal culture and to participate in intercultural communication based on this, this study designated the teaching-learning stages as Korean culture, mother culture and universal culture successively and suggested each activity and assignment in each stage, through which learners could activate the component factors of intercultural communicative abilities. Furthermore, it included in the teaching-learning practice the course of letting learners play an active role in communication, by enabling them to actually resolve intercultural issues. Finally, the study was complete by suggesting the overall operation plan and the teaching-learning plan per unit of a 16-week basic general education elective entitled 《An Understanding of Korean Culture during the Period of Division》.