Communicative language teaching method in Korean education aims to use language as a mean to express their own thoughts to others. This method emphasizes on practical language usage, so it is important for learners to use proper words in real situatio...
Communicative language teaching method in Korean education aims to use language as a mean to express their own thoughts to others. This method emphasizes on practical language usage, so it is important for learners to use proper words in real situations. In this sense, it appears that teaching vocabulary is important. For effective language learning, learners should understand native speakers' beliefs and culture through the language they use. To do this and have a good command of Korean as a native speaker, learners need to know onomatopoeic and mimetic words in Korean. Onomatopoeic and mimetic words make sentences more active, and it alone could make listeners recognize the tone of the speech context and what a speaker wants to say.
We can find not only that people say onomatopoeic and mimetic words should be learned because they are distinguishing parts of Korean, but also that Korean learners have high interest in onomatopoeic and mimetic words through the survey. We can also notice that various media in which learners are exposed to use these words very frequently. However, previous studies viewed that Korean teachers and learners seem to give less importance in learning onomatopoeic and mimetic words because it can only be used in intermediate or advanced levels and it has difficulties in finding proper learning methods.
This study starts from the point that specific studies in onomatopoeic and mimetic words are insufficient compared to it's effectiveness in various ways. Therefore, this study focuses on which vocabularies are needed in teaching Korean and how they should be taught. Among many characteristics of onomatopoeic and mimetic words of Korean, especially learning vocabulary which has morphometric characteristics can give learners interest in learning language and has the advantage in that learners can extend the range of vocabulary much easier. Thus, this study chose onomatopoeic and mimetic words considering morphometric characteristics of the words by learners' level and suggested learning method using practical materials which learners can be exposed to easily. And this study also proposed teaching method that learners can learn vocabulary through inferring from pictures or sounds.