A study of Korean language learning strategies of Indian Students = A study of Korean language learning strategies of Indian Students

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

With a rapid growth in number of Indian students learning Korean language, the need to study the demands, leaning styles, strategies, personalities of these Indian students is to be more focused. However, till today, there are not many researches dealing with such area studies.
Also with the shift in teaching and learning methods from teacher-based methodologies to the student-centered approach, communicative techniques are gaining importance, which brings all the more reason for us to study the factors working upon the language learning process of an individual. What tricks do they use for learning a language and what else can be taught to them to assist their own learning process?
This was the key start of this particular research, the question was to deal with finding out the speaking strategies used by the learners in different stages of learning Korean language.
The theoretical background of this research is based on Oxford(1990)’s theory of learning strategies and its classification. Undergraduate Indian students learning Korean language at Jawaharlal Nehru University were chosen as the target population and a survey based questionnaire method was used to investigate the year-wise use of speaking strategies.
It was interesting to note that the results brought out the very justified characteristics of Indian multilingual and multicultural learning environment and its influences on the selection of learning strategies among the Indian students. The study shows that in the first year of learning Korean language, students are more dependent and aware of the learning strategies they must use. However, with the gradual increase in the level of proficiency, the students tend to have more mature and self independent way of learning but are showing minimum use of these learning strategies.
Indian students have shown a remarkable use of social strategies, they are confident in working in groups and are quite communicative in expressing their problems and issues related to the language learning process. They are more receptive towards learning about new culture and customs, as the class itself comprise of students with different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
Hence, this paper successfully investigated its main aim of finding out the learning strategies of Indian students and also brought out some of the very importance factors of Indian learning environment affecting the student’s individual learning process. With the hope that this research shall provide a base to the future studies related to teaching of Korean as a foreign language to Indian students, a more detailed and advance research will be carried out in near future.