Bilingualism of Korean-Canadian Children: A Multigenerational Ethnic Church

In the Greater Toronto Area

by

Soon Young Jang

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Graduate Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

University of Toronto

© Copyright by Soon Young Jang 2019

ii

Bilingualism of Korean-Canadian Children: A Multigenerational Ethnic Church

In the Greater Toronto Area

Soon Young Jang

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

University of Toronto

2019

Abstract

In the midst of immigrant children’s prevalent subtractive bilingualism, this doctoral inquiry

investigates multiple levels of supporting factors of Korean-Canadian children’s heritage

language learning and the ways they support bilingual learning of these children, by looking at

Grace Church, a multi-generational Korean ethnic church, as a case. This is an ethnographic

study, which involves yearlong classroom observations and interviews with church leaders,

teachers, parents, and children. Additional data sources include curriculum materials, children’s

artifacts, Korean government documents and websites, as well as records of school meetings and

school associations’ conferences. Employing Bourdieu’s theoretical and analytic tools, such as

field, habitus, and capital (1991), this study also examines how the Korean and English

languages are positioned at various levels within and beyond the church. Additionally, due to the

shift made in my positionality from an observer to a participant observer, this study explores the

outcomes of pedagogical changes guided by theoretical underpinnings, such as translanguaging

(García, 2009), culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1994), funds of knowledge (Moll,

1992), and the third space (Gutiérrez, Baquedano-López, & Tejeda, 1999).

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This study unveils that Grace Hangul hakgyo is a field in which the aims of the Korean

government and Korean Canadian immigrants intersect vis-à-vis heritage language education.

For the Korean government, it is ultimately a field for strengthening national resources and for

the congregants of Grace Church, it is mainly for their heritage language and culture

maintenance. In this study, the positions of Korean and English within Grace Church are

revealed in the Korean and English ministries, which are closely linked to immigrant

generations, and in the language use and socialization of children in the grade 3 and 4 focus

class. The positions of Korean and English within Grace Church are unquestionably influenced

by the status of those languages beyond the church, displaying the close relationship between

language and identity at many levels of interacting fields. Finally, this study showcases how

translanguaging, culturally relevant pedagogy, funds of knowledge can be utilized as a means for

creating the third space in heritage language learning contexts, which is an underexamined area

in the field of bilingual education.

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Acknowledgments

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it

springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in

the wasteland” (Isaiah 43:18-19, New International Version).

First and foremost, I thank my Heavenly Father, who planted a love and passion for teaching and

learning in me since I was very young. For the past fifteen years, my life has entirely been

guided by God’s plan and grace, as I could not plan anything or have any hope in my life after

my husband’s passing that took place only a few months before I, with my very young children,

started a new life as immigrants in Canada. The Bible verse I cited above has been a rhema, a

word that God spoke to me, which transformed my grief and hopelessness to thankfulness and

hopefulness, and gave me the courage and strength to live my life to fulfill the vision that God

implanted in my heart.

As an immigrant mother, the linguistic and cultural gap between home and school that every

immigrant child experiences quickly became a theme of inquiry. Subsequently, supporting the

learning of these linguistically and culturally diverse children has been at the core of my vision

as an educator, parent, and researcher, and my doctoral thesis is the fruit of this vision. My

Heavenly Father helped me to directly and indirectly meet so many scholars, professionals,

parents, and children, orchestrating all the details and endeavours in conceiving, carrying out,

and writing about this doctoral research. Glory be to God, my Father! I give thanks to Him!

Now, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the participants of my study. Without the

interest and support of church leaders, teachers, parents, and children at Grace Church

(pseudonym), this study could not have been carried out.

I am very grateful to have had Dr. Shelley Stagg Peterson as my supervisor. My doctoral

research fellowship and assistantship with Dr. Shelley Stagg Peterson gave me the opportunity to

be part of the 6-year-SSHRC-funded project, entitled “Northern Oral Language and Writing

Through Play” (NOW Play, for short), since I joined OISE in 2014. Through this project, I

conducted literature reviews, data analysis, and collaborative writing to publish journal articles

on various topics, which prepared me to carry out my own research. Dr. Shelley Stagg Peterson

is a remarkable mentor. Her prompt and constructive feedback every time I submitted a thesis

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chapter was tremendously helpful, and I sincerely appreciate the unceasing encouragement and

guidance she gave me throughout my doctoral journey.

I also thank Dr. Antoinette Gagné and Dr. Jeff Bale, who served on my thesis committee. Dr.

Antoinette Gagné invited me to her office a few times, asking me about the progress of my

research, carefully listening to me. She always reminded me of the importance of my study and

provided me with ideas, resources, and tips at various stages of my research. Through Dr. Jeff

Bale’s invitation to his Heritage Language Reading Club, I had an opportunity to share my

thoughts and experiences with other colleagues, and to further expand my knowledge on the

topic of heritage language. The feedback that I received from Dr. Gagné and Dr. Bale from the

thesis committee meetings helped me to realize some important areas that I had overlooked, and

as a result, my thesis is now presented in a more cohesive manner.

My special thanks go to Dr. Hyun-Sook Kang, who served as my external examiner, and Dr.

Katherine Rehner, who served as my internal examiner. I deeply appreciate the insightful

feedback and encouraging comments that Dr. Kang and Dr. Rehner provided to me. Particularly,

the following statement made by Dr. Kang in her appraisal highlighted the significance of this

study: “[because there is] relatively scant research [that] examined the role of an ethnic church

and its community in the intergenerational transmission of a heritage language … the topic of

this dissertation project is timely and is expected to make a significant contribution to the field of

education in general and the field of language and literacy education in particular.”

In addition, I would like to acknowledge a few scholars who inspired me to begin this journey of

supporting linguistically and culturally diverse children. These professors are internationally

renowned scholars in the field of bilingual education. Firstly, the decades of devoted work by Dr.

Jim Cummins, now Professor Emeritus at our institution, greatly influenced my research. His

work enabled me to not only see the relationships between power, language, and identity in our

society, but also to understand the importance of utilizing students’ pre-existing linguistic

resources and repertoire as a means for acquiring additional languages.

Dr. Sarah J. Shin is a scholar who investigates Korean-American children’s bilingualism. As a

1.5 generation Korean-American, her work is drawn from her own experiences as a parent and an

academic, which helped me to easily connect with my own immigrant experiences. I met Dr.

Sarah J. Shin not only through her books and journal articles, but also through a SSHRC-funded

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international conference that took place at the University of Calgary in 2013, entitled I AM 2013:

Interdisciplinary Approaches to Multilingualism. Dr. Shin and I met and became close during

this three-day conference, and after my presentation, which was based on my master’s study, she

carefully suggested I pursue my doctoral research at OISE, University of Toronto. That

suggestion resulted in my move from British Columbia to Ontario to begin my doctoral studies at

OISE in the fall of 2014. Without her suggestion, I would not have thought of crossing the

country to continue on my academic endeavours and could not have celebrated this day.

Dr. Monica Heller, one of the professors at OISE, is another established scholar in the field of

bilingual education. Her work is largely influenced by Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist and

anthropologist, and her critical lenses and expertise in ethnography greatly shaped the way I

designed my study and the way I analyzed my data. Dr. Monica Heller also provided me with her

insight when we met at the early stage of my proposal writing.

I am very grateful to have met Dr. Ruth Hayhoe through the course, International Academic

Relations, a course from the Comparative, International & Development Education program, my

other area of specialization. Dr. Ruth Hayhoe is a renowned scholar in the area of Higher

Education and her extensive knowledge on the international relations theories expanded my

scope vis-à-vis power relations among the countries and globalization. Whenever I met Dr. Ruth

Hayhoe, she was always full of caring and cheerful words.

In the field of Early Childhood Education, the work of Dr. Roma Chumak-Horbatsch and Dr.

Judith Bernhard has had a substantial impact on my research since I conducted my master’s

study. Their focus on the needs of immigrant children and families in early childhood education

programs has been pivotal in my own research. When I met Dr. Chumak-Horbatsch, I was

brainstorming about the area of my doctoral investigation. I shared a few ideas that I was

exploring, but then Dr. Chumak-Horbatsch emphasized the significance of seeing what good

things are happening here at the site and suggested I examine Korean ethnic community rather

than the mainstream school setting. That advice played a significant role in not only choosing my

research topic, but also my research site. Dr. Judith Bernhard was an external examiner for my

master’s thesis. Her passion and endeavours to support young immigrant children and their

families are found in her wide range of research activities and publications.

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Now, I would like to name some of my colleagues who shared my doctoral journey together,

working and often travelling together for our scholarly activities. Firstly, I am thankful to have

had our NOW Play research team members, Shakina Rajendram, Alison Brooks, Alesia Malec,

Nazila Eisazadeh, Jayson SanMiguel, Christina Tjandra, Audrey Madsen, and Jade Kim.

Especially, I thank Shakina for her generosity, as she lent me mini cameras and audio recorders

that she found in Malaysia for her own research. Without her generosity, there is no way I could

have captured all the interactions of students and teachers in the focus class for my research! I

also thank Dr. Inchull Jang and Dr. Jin-Suk Yang for the support they gave me as doctoral

students who went through this challenging journey ahead of me.

My doctoral work has been fully supported by my family members. My sincere thanks go to my

father, Young Hwan Jang, my mother, Soon Ja Jeon, my mother-in-law, Hwa Mi Oh, my

brother, Seok Jang, my sister, Mi Young Jang, her husband, Hoon Park, and their children, Ju

Won Park and Ian Park. Although they are all in Korea, they kept me in their prayers, helping me

to get through all the stages of my doctoral journey.

Last but not least, I would like to thank my two sons, Seung Ho (Charlie) Choi and Seunghyuk

(Joshua) Choi, for their incredible support, love, and patience, and for keeping me in their daily

prayers. They are the ones who closely walked this journey with me, giving me smiles, boosting

my strength, and (most importantly!) helping me out with house chores and giving me a hand

whenever needed. Joshua, thanks very much for doing the dishes and folding laundry! Charlie,

thanks so much for being my techie and proof-reader! Charlie and Joshua, without you, I could

not be here today. So, I am giving my one thousand hugs and kisses to you. Just a little more than

I usually give you on other ordinary days!

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................... viii List of Tables ................................................................................................................................ xii List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. xiii List of Appendices ....................................................................................................................... xiv Chapter 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1

1.1 Bilingualism in a Country of Linguistic Diversity, Canada .............................................. 1 1.2 Reducing the Linguistic and Cultural Gap Between Home and School ............................ 2

1.2.1 Culturally Relevant Pedagogy ................................................................................ 3 1.2.2 Funds of Knowledge ............................................................................................... 4 1.2.3 The Third Space ...................................................................................................... 5

1.3 Immigrant Children’s Subtractive Bilingualism and Language Loss: A Language Gap

Within Immigrant Families ............................................................................................... 6 1.4 Research Questions ............................................................................................................ 8

Chapter 2 Literature Review and Theoretical Framework .................................................... 10 2.1 Language Ideologies: Assimilationist and Pluralist ........................................................ 10 2.2 Misconceptions about Bilingualism: The Dominance of Monolingual Assumptions ..... 12 2.3 Translanguaging as a Pedagogical Tool .......................................................................... 16 2.4 Heritage Languages (HLs), Heritage Language Learners (HLLs), and Heritage Language

Programs ......................................................................................................................... 18 2.4.1 Heritage Language Schools in the United States and Canada .............................. 19 2.4.2 Korean Heritage Language Schools in the United States and Canada ................. 21 2.4.3 Language Policy, Heritage Language Programs, and Korean Heritage Language

Maintenance in Canada ......................................................................................... 24 2.5 Korean Immigrants in Canada ......................................................................................... 26

2.5.1 Korean Immigrants’ Strong Aspiration Toward Education .................................. 27 2.5.2 Korean Ethnic Churches for Korean Immigrants: A Site of Inquiry .................... 28

2.6 Bourdieu’s Theoretical and Analytic Framework ........................................................... 29 Chapter 3 Methodology ......................................................................................................... 34

3.1 An Ethnographic Case Study ........................................................................................... 34 3.2 Research Site ................................................................................................................... 36 3.3 Entering Fieldwork and Positionality .............................................................................. 37 3.4 Research Participants ....................................................................................................... 38 3.5 Data Collection ................................................................................................................ 39

3.5.1 Observations and Fieldnotes ................................................................................. 39 3.5.2 Interviews .............................................................................................................. 40 3.5.3 Curriculum Materials and Children’s Artifacts .................................................... 40 3.5.4 Korean Government Documents and Websites .................................................... 40 3.5.5 Attending School Meetings and Associations Conferences ................................. 41

3.6 Data Analysis ................................................................................................................... 41 3.7 Limitations: Validity and Reliability ............................................................................... 43

Chapter 4 Findings ................................................................................................................. 44 4.1 Overview .......................................................................................................................... 44

Part One Korean Ethno-Nationalism, Globalization, and Hangul Hakgyo ............................ 45 4.2 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 45

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4.3 Korean Ethno-Nationalism and Globalization: The Birth of the Overseas Koreans

Foundation (OKF) .......................................................................................................... 46 4.4 Hangul Hakgyo: Background and Its Current Status ...................................................... 49

4.4.1 Hangul Hakgyo in Ontario and Hangul Hakgyo Associations in Canada ............ 50 4.4.2 A Snapshot of the 7th CAKS Conference in Toronto: Promoting Korean

Linguistic and Cultural Capital for Global Competency ...................................... 52 4.5 Summary .......................................................................................................................... 55

Part Two Grace Church: Bilingualism in the Multigenerational Korean Ethnic Church ....... 56 4.6 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 56 4.7 Adult Ministries: The Co-Existence of Parallel Monolingualism and Translanguaging 57 4.8 Variations of the 1.5 Generation: Positioning their Linguistic and Cultural Capital ...... 60 4.9 Children’s KM Ministry: De Facto Bilingual and Bicultural Program ........................... 63 4.10 Grace Hangul Hakgyo: A Hub for Heritage Language and Culture Learning ................ 65

4.10.1 Hangul Hakgyo Meetings: Seeking Effective Teaching in the Midst of

Challenges ............................................................................................................. 66 4.10.2 Hangul Hakgyo Teachers: Immigration and Linguistic Trajectories................... 70 4.10.3 Hangul Hakgyo Teachers: Helping Students to Build Korean Linguistic and

Cultural Capital ..................................................................................................... 72 4.10.3.1 Boosting Motivation to Learn................................................................. 72 4.10.3.2 Language Teaching and Learning via Cultural Mediums ...................... 73 4.10.3.3 Writing-Focused Instruction for Lower Grades and Speaking-Focused

Instruction for Upper Grades .................................................................. 76 4.10.4 Hangul Hakgyo Parents: Immigration Trajectories and Zeal for Their Children’s

Language Learning ............................................................................................... 80 4.10.4.1 Boram’s Mother, Mrs. Kwon: The More Linguistic Capital, The Better80 4.10.4.2 Zoe’s Mother, Mrs. Cho: English and French for Bilingualism, and

Korean for Talking with Grandma ......................................................... 81 4.10.4.3 Soobin’s Mother, Mrs. Hwang: “English Is Essential in the Global

Village” ................................................................................................... 82 4.10.4.4 Sora’s Mother, Mrs. Zhang: Korean Mandarin Bilingual Parent, Aspiring

to Raise a Multilingual Child.................................................................. 84 4.10.4.5 Joohan’s Mother, Mrs. Kim: “Your Roots Are in Korea”...................... 85 4.10.4.6 Yechan’s Mother, Mrs. Bae: “Korean Is the Language that Speaks My

Full Emotions” ........................................................................................ 85 4.11 Summary .......................................................................................................................... 86

Part Three The Grade 3 and 4 Focus Class: Working Toward Bilingualism and Biculturalism

.................................................................................................................................................. 88 4.12 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 88 4.13 Classroom: Teachers, Students, and Textbooks .............................................................. 88

4.13.1 The Linguistic Capital of the Focus Class Teachers: Mr. Park & Jin Soo .......... 88 4.13.2 The Linguistic Capital of the Focus Class Students ............................................. 89 4.13.3 Mr. Park’s Classroom Routine and Textbooks ..................................................... 91

4.14 Patterns of Language Use and Textbook-Controlled Pedagogy ...................................... 92 4.14.1 Mr. Park Speaks Korean and Students Speak English .......................................... 92 4.14.2 Mr. Park’s Textbook-Controlled Pedagogy and IRE Discourse Pattern ............. 94 4.14.3 Students’ Engagement in Textbook-Controlled Pedagogy ................................... 95

4.14.3.1 Zoe: Least Competent Korean Speaker .................................................. 96 4.14.3.2 Boram: Most Competent Korean Speaker .............................................. 98

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4.14.4 Limitations of Textbooks: A Hindrance to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy ....... 100 4.14.5 Mr. Park’s Endeavours to Connect with Students During Textbook Instructions

and Translanguaging ........................................................................................... 102 4.15 The Shift in my Positionality ......................................................................................... 104

4.15.1 What I Learned from the Follow-Up Interview with Mr. Park: “I Need Help” 105 4.15.2 No Prompt Help Means Staying in Textbook-Controlled Pedagogy ................. 106

4.16 Teacher Learning Through Collaborative Implementation ........................................... 107 4.16.1 Pairing Up Students for Speaking: An Invitation to Utilize Linguistic and

Cultural Capital ................................................................................................... 107 4.16.1.1 Pairing Up: Yechan and Joohan ........................................................... 108 4.16.1.2 Pairing Up: Zoe and Minjee ................................................................. 109 4.16.1.3 Pairing Up: Soobin and Boram ............................................................. 109 4.16.1.4 Mr. Park’s Feedback on Pairing Activities ........................................... 111

4.16.2 Language Expert and Non-Expert Together in Activity Implementation.......... 112 4.17 Pedagogical Changes: Creating the Third Space ........................................................... 114

4.17.1 Creating Space for Translanguaging and Giving Instructions for Language Use

............................................................................................................................. 115 4.17.1.1 Example 1. Interviewing in Their Preferred Language and Presenting in

Korean .................................................................................................. 116 4.17.1.2 Example 2. Making Bilingual Menus with Partners and Presenting in

Korean .................................................................................................. 116 4.17.1.3 Example 3. Reading in Korean and Writing a Journal in Their Preferred

Language .............................................................................................. 118 4.17.2 Creating Space for Bilingual and Bicultural Competency .................................. 119

4.17.2.1 Example 4. Learning About Family Relations in Both Languages ...... 120 4.17.2.2 Example 5. Learning About Languages and People: Canada and Korea

.............................................................................................................. 123 4.17.3 Creating Space for Voices of Students and Identity Positioning ........................ 125

4.17.3.1 Example 6. Identity Positioning as Korean-Canadians ........................ 125 4.17.4 Creating Space for Multimodality....................................................................... 128

4.17.4.1 Example 7. Watching An Interview Video in Korean and Talking About

It ............................................................................................................ 128 4.18 The Positions of Languages in the Classroom and Socialization .................................. 131

4.18.1 The Dominance of English in the Classroom ..................................................... 131 4.18.2 No English Speaking, Not Fitting In ................................................................... 132

4.18.2.1 Bringing Something Special to School ................................................. 133 4.18.2.2 1.5 Generation’s Trauma: Linking Boram’s Experience with Stories from

Paul and Mrs. Kim ................................................................................ 134 4.18.3 Helping Peers with Korean without Saying a Word ........................................... 135 4.18.4 Wanting to Fit in and Belong: I, Too, Can Speak and Write English! ............... 137

4.19 Summary ........................................................................................................................ 139 Chapter 5 Discussion and Implications ............................................................................... 141

5.1 Supporting Factors of Korean-Canadian Children’s Heritage Language Learning ...... 141 5.1.1 Supporting Hangul Hakgyo: Korean Ethno-Nationalism ................................... 142 5.1.2 Operating Hangul Hakgyo: Korean Heritage Language and Culture Maintenance

............................................................................................................................. 146 5.2 Positions of Korean and English within and beyond Grace Church ............................. 148

5.2.1 Languages, Immigrant Generations, and Identity Positioning ............................ 148

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5.2.2 Languages, Socialization, and Identity Positioning ............................................ 151 5.3 Pedagogical Changes from the Positionality Shift: Creating the Third Space .............. 153

5.3.1 The Need for Pedagogical Changes .................................................................... 154 5.3.2 The Pedagogical Changes: Creating the Third Space ......................................... 155 5.3.3 Positionality, Power, and Reflexivity ................................................................. 157

5.4 Implications for the Korean and Canadian Governments .............................................. 161 5.5 Implications for Korean Language Schools and Korean Canadian Immigrants ........... 162 5.6 Implications for Korean Heritage Language Teaching.................................................. 163 5.7 Future Studies ................................................................................................................ 164 5.8 Concluding Remarks ..................................................................................................... 165

References .................................................................................................................................. 167 Appendices ................................................................................................................................. 186

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List of Tables

Table 1 List of Participants................................................................................................. 39 Table 2 Immigrant Generations (I.G.) of the Focus Class Students and their Parents ....... 90 Table 3 Classroom Routine ................................................................................................ 91 Table 4 Common Patterns of Language Use in the Focus Classroom ............................... 93 Table 5 Titles of the Activities ......................................................................................... 115

xiii

List of Figures

Figure 1 Immigrant Children’s Bilingual and Bicultural Development ................................ 7 Figure 2 The SUP and CUP Models .................................................................................... 13 Figure 3 Multiple Layers of Fields Within and Beyond the Church-Based

Heritage Language School .................................................................................... 32 Figure 4 Structure of Chapter Four ...................................................................................... 44 Figure 5 Pictures from the 7th CAKS Conference .............................................................. 53 Figure 6 Pictures from the Lunar New Year’s Day Event ................................................... 69 Figure 7 Art Displays of Mrs. Hwang’s Class at the Vancouver Korean School

Art Exhibition ........................................................................................................ 75 Figure 8 The Continuum of Students’ Korean English Bilingual Competency .................. 91 Figure 9 Examples of Students’ Writing in the Textbook ................................................... 96 Figure 10 Examples of Zoe’s Writing in the Textbook ......................................................... 98 Figure 11 Textbook Writing Exercises ................................................................................ 101 Figure 12 Example of an Activity and Instruction Sheet..................................................... 114 Figure 13 Examples of Student Activity Sheets: Making Breakfast ................................... 117 Figure 14 Examples of Student Activity Sheets: Reading Logs .......................................... 119 Figure 15 Examples of Student Activity Sheets: Our Family ............................................. 122 Figure 16 Examples of Student Activity Sheets: Canada & Korea ..................................... 125 Figure 17 Identity Positioning as Korean-Canadians .......................................................... 127 Figure 18 Boram’s Activity Sheet: Our House .................................................................... 139 Figure 19 Examples of Student Activity Sheets: After Watching an Interview Video ....... 214

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List of Appendices

Appendix A Interview Questions for Teachers........................................................................ 186 Appendix B Interview Questions for Church Leaders............................................................. 187 Appendix C Interview Questions for Parents .......................................................................... 188 Appendix D Interview Questions for Children ........................................................................ 189 Appendix E Information Letter and Consent Form for Teachers ............................................ 190 Appendix F Information Letter and Consent Form for Church Leaders ................................. 194 Appendix G Information Letter and Consent Form for Parents (as well as their children) ..... 198 Appendix H Activity Examples ............................................................................................... 203

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Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Bilingualism in a Country of Linguistic Diversity, Canada

As an immigrant mother who has two children growing up in Canada, I am cognizant of the

importance of bridging a linguistic and cultural gap for these children who move between so-

called ‘simultaneous’ worlds (Gregory, Long, & Volk, 2004; Kenner, 2004), noting that

children’s learning takes place not only in the mainstream school, but also in the home and ethnic

community.

With increased international migration, linguistic diversity is not new to many countries,

including Canada. “Canada is a country of linguistic diversity. The nation is becoming more and

more a multilingual society in the wake of growing numbers of immigrants whose mother tongue

is neither English nor French” (Statistics Canada, 2013, p. 18). According to the 2011 National

Household Survey, 96.8% of the 6.8 million immigrants in Canada reported one mother tongue

and 72.8% of them stated that their mother tongue was one other than English or French

(Statistics Canada, 2013). As Canada has been welcoming an average of 257,000 newcomers

each year since 2006, which is “the highest sustained level of immigration in Canadian history”

(Government of Canada, 2014, para. 3), Canadian cities are becoming progressively diverse both

linguistically and culturally.

As a result of these demographic changes, more and more immigrant children undergo their

second language learning in the host countries. In the last few decades, numerous scholarly

studies have empirically proven the significance of first languages (L1s) when acquiring an

additional language (Cummins, 2011; Swain & Lapkin, 2005) together with the multiple benefits

of bilingualism, such as “divergent thinking, creativity, early metalinguistic awareness, and

communicative sensitivity” (Baker, 2011, p. 161). However, immigrant children’s bilingualism

has been largely misunderstood and immigrant children’s home languages are viewed as a source

of academic underachievement (Cummins, 1996, 2000, 2009; Shin, 2005). The idea that our

brains store languages separately and that those languages work independently, rather than

interdependently, negatively contributed to our understanding of bilingualism and bilingual

education (Cummins, 1980, 1996). Consequently, bilingualism was seen as the source of

2

linguistic insecurity, academic incompetence, low self-esteem, and even split identity (Baker,

2011).

Additionally, there has been the long-standing misconception that national unity is built around a

single language and thus, minority languages have repeatedly been viewed as barriers to nation

building and as hazards to the unity of nation-states (May, 2008). According to May (2008), the

aftermath of this political ideology has been “an ethnically exclusive and culturally and

linguistically homogeneous nation-state” (p. 18), overlooking the multiethnic and multilinguistic

reality. In Canada, the Official Languages Act of 1969 gave English and French equal status as

official languages (Joshee, 2007). However, as said by Ley (2006), it created “the conventional

national assimilation model of Anglo- and Franco-conformity” (p. 4), which pays no attention to

the languages of citizens other than Anglo and Francophones.

Bilingual education has largely been driven by political agendas and public opinions, rather than

by consistently validated and corroborated theories and research (Cummins, 2000). The field of

education continues to benefit dominant groups while the linguistic and cultural capital of non-

dominant groups continues to be undermined and ignored, creating divisions and inequities

(Benson & Kosonen, 2013).

As a result, the field of language and literacies education is still predominantly English-only

monolingual and immigrant children are often regarded as ‘culturally and linguistically

deprived,’ ‘linguistically handicapped,’ ‘semilingual,’ and ‘at-risk’ (Bartolomé, 2009) due to the

linguistic and cultural gap between home and mainstream school. Numerous researchers and

practitioners have documented the challenges that immigrant children face through their

classroom research (e.g. McCollum, 1989; Michaels, 1981; Schoenhals, 1994), and in the last

few decades, a number of research-based concepts have been developed in an effort to support

the learning of culturally and linguistically diverse children.

1.2 Reducing the Linguistic and Cultural Gap Between Home and School

Research-based concepts, such as culturally relevant pedagogy, funds of knowledge, and the

third space, have been developed as a way to construct pedagogical spaces in which taken-for-

3

granted instructions and activities are questioned, and more inclusive and transformative learning

opportunities are created. This section underlines how these approaches utilize languages and

cultures of non-mainstream students in order to build on their prior knowledge and expand their

learning.

1.2.1 Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

In her study of teachers in a low-income, urban community who were successful in supporting

African-American students, Ladson-Billings (1994) showed the importance of classroom

practices built upon students’ cultural and communicative practices. Ladson-Billings (2014)

proposed a culturally relevant teaching approach with these characteristics: academic success,

cultural competence, and sociopolitical consciousness. Academic success is defined as “the

intellectual growth that students experience as a result of classroom instruction and learning

experiences.” Cultural competence is defined as “the ability to help students appreciate and

celebrate their cultures of origin while gaining knowledge of and fluency in at least one other

culture,” and sociopolitical consciousness refers to “the ability to take learning beyond the

confines of the classroom using school knowledge and skills to identify, analyze, and solve real-

world problems” (p. 75).

Similarly, Gay (2000, 2002) suggested culturally responsive teaching as a way to enhance the

school achievement of ethnically diverse students. She defines culturally responsive teaching as

“using the cultural characteristics, experiences, and perspectives of ethnically diverse students as

conduits for teaching them more effectively” (2002, p. 106) and identifies five critical elements

of this pedagogy: developing knowledge about cultural diversity; designing culturally relevant

curricula; building learning communities; communicating with ethnically diverse students; and

responding to ethnic diversity in the delivery of teaching. This teaching approach is built upon

the assumption that when academic learning is situated within the lived experiences of students,

their learning becomes more meaningful to them, subsequently resulting in better academic

outcomes.

Building on the notion of culturally relevant pedagogy, Paris (2012) proposed a new term,

culturally sustaining pedagogy, to underline the dynamic and changing nature of culture after

having observed this phenomenon in youth, who often cross ethnic and linguistic boundaries

4

(Paris, 2009, 2011). Thus, Paris (2012) and Paris and Alim (2014) caution against the tendency

to link language and culture to specific ethnic and racial groups (e.g. Spanish for Latina/o

students, Hip Hop for Black students) and highlight the importance of embracing pedagogies that

help students not only to maintain heritage language and culture, but also to become

“linguistically and culturally flexible across multiple language varieties and cultural ways of

believing and interacting” (Paris & Alim, 2014, p. 96).

As an instrument to reduce the cultural gap between home and school and to sustain linguistic

and cultural pluralism, these culturally relevant teaching approaches embrace “the pedagogical

bridges that connect prior knowledge with new knowledge, the known with the unknown, and

abstractions with lived realities” (Gay, 2002, p. 113, emphasis in original).

1.2.2 Funds of Knowledge

The concept of funds of knowledge has been utilized to describe socially accumulated and

culturally developed bodies of knowledge and skills vital for household or individual functioning

(Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992). Refusing the prevailing views of working-class

families as socially disorganized and intellectually deficient, the notion of funds of knowledge

affirms and validates the resourcefulness of minority students and their families.

Problematizing the idea of cultural relevancy as adding cultural artifacts to classrooms, Riojas-

Cortez (2001) asserts that cultural heritage goes beyond material objects and presents funds of

knowledge as observable culture and as a resource for concept and skill development. Through

her micro-ethnographic research of young children in a two-way bilingual preschool classroom,

she identifies cultural elements, funds of knowledge, displayed during socio-dramatic play:

language (e.g. codeswitching), values and beliefs (e.g. sleeping arrangement), and the importance

of education.

Likewise, Riojas-Cortez, Huerta, Flores, Perez, and Clark (2008) employed a sociocultural

approach and funds of knowledge as a theoretical framework to explore the scientific literacy

development of preschoolers. This study illustrated how Mexican American parents and young

children organize science concepts and knowledge acquired from everyday activities found in

their homes through the Family Institute for Early Literacy Development. Parents were informed

5

of the type of scientific knowledge that schools expected children to bring from home, and based

on that information, parents were able to discuss those concepts and work collaboratively with

their children in the learning process (e.g. cooking with children and writing Home Health

Remedies journals together using their home language). Researchers concluded, “When parents’

experiences and home learning are valued, teachers will discover that children from culturally

and linguistically diverse backgrounds bring a science knowledge base that can enrich the

science curriculum and help them make connections to the science content standards” (p. 535).

As seen in the studies above, applying the notion of funds of knowledge in the classroom means

that positive pedagogical change is “socially arranged by using the students’, teachers’, and

communities’ sociocultural resources, their funds of knowledge” (Moll, 1992, p. 24).

1.2.3 The Third Space

The term, the third space, has been conceptualized to refer to discursive spaces in which

“alternative and competing discourses and positionings transform conflict and difference into

rich zones of collaboration and learning” (Gutiérrez, Baquedano‐López, & Tejeda, 1999, p. 286).

The idea of the third space is built upon the belief that diversity, difference, and their subsequent

hybridity are resources for generating new learning spaces rather than causes of problems or

conflicts.

In their three-year ethnographic study, researchers (Gutiérrez, Baquedano‐López, & Tejeda,

1999) reported how Ms. Rivera engaged students in her second and third grade Spanish

immersion classroom. In this class, there was no separation of students by language use or

language ability. Students participated together in discussions both in Spanish and English, based

on questions raised by themselves. Students in this class had ongoing access to each other’s

linguistic, cultural, and intellectual resources. Also, curricular themes and contents were often

drawn from students themselves. For example, when one student called another student a

‘homo,’ challenging mutual respect in the classroom, Ms. Rivera brought the notion of ‘homo’

into the classroom discussion, which led the class to decide to learn about the human

reproductive system. With parents’ consent, Ms. Rivera and the students generated an age-

appropriate unit. Using this example, the researchers underlined, “Conflict in this community

became the catalyst for expanding learning in the Third Space” (p. 292).

6

As seen in this example, according to Gutiérrez, Rymes, and Larson (1995), in the third space, a

wide range of linguistic and sociocultural resources and experiences of students are validated and

operated, and as facilitators, teachers position students from a peripheral to a more primary role

in classroom activities, regarding them as contributors. Subsequently, in the third space, rule-

governed, monolingual, and monocultural instructions are challenged, and meaningful social

interactions are developed as co-constructing learning tools. Consequently, in the third space,

children develop a toolkit, namely, “a set of linguistic, cognitive, and sociocultural tools and

practices that enhance learning” (Gutiérrez, Baquedano-López, & Turner, 1997, p. 376).

In brief, the concepts and practices I have presented above all reject the cultural deficiency

explanation of immigrant children, that is, children from minority language or cultural

backgrounds do not perform well in schools because of their linguistically and culturally poor

home environment (Davis & Golden, 1994). Rather, educators and researchers who endorse

these culturally and linguistically reflective and inclusive practices are fully cognizant of the

need to reduce the linguistic and cultural gap between home and school in order to enhance the

learning of immigrant children. However, while these pedagogical approaches, culturally

relevant pedagogy, funds of knowledge, and the third space, were developed as a means to

reduce the linguistic and cultural gap between home and school, these concepts have been

employed mostly in research on the mainstream school context, and rarely utilized in the heritage

language school of immigrant children who are growing and learning in the host country.

1.3 Immigrant Children’s Subtractive Bilingualism and Language

Loss: A Language Gap Within Immigrant Families

While numerous studies have reported immigrant children’s challenges that come from the

linguistic and cultural gap between home and school, concerning immigrant children’s

bilingualism, a great deal of research has documented their subtractive bilingualism and language

loss (e.g. Fishman, 1989; Shin, 2005; Wong Fillmore, 1991). Pacini-Ketchabaw and Armstrong

de Almeida (2006) assert that despite the numerous benefits that children’s bilingualism brings,

by far, the predominant outcome of immigrant children’s bilingualism is subtractive, in which

children’s home languages are subtracted or replaced by an additional language (English). As

7

said by Shin (2005), language shift takes place when immigrants “come in contact with a

language that offers greater practical and economic rewards” (p. 36).

According to Wong Fillmore (1991), immigrant children’s desire for socialization (an internal

factor) and the force operated by society against diversity (an external factor) contribute to the

loss of immigrant children’s home languages. Further, Fishman (1989) observes that there is

almost always a complete shift in language use from a home language to a dominant language

within three generations, resulting in communication gaps within families (Cummins, 1979;

Kim, 1989; Shin, 2005).

Hence, while many studies highlight the benefits of bilingualism and the significance of home

language preservation, according to Nemeth (2009), “the how-to manual has not yet appeared”

(p. 37). The notions of subtractive bilingualism and language loss both indicate that there is a

linguistic gap within immigrant families across their generations.

Figure 1 Immigrant Children’s Bilingual and Bicultural Development

As illustrated in Figure 1, immigrant children are exposed to languages and cultures of home and

ethnic community as well as mainstream school and society. They develop bilingual and

bicultural competency as they grow up, and heritage language school plays a vital role in

developing and maintaining their ethnic culture and language. Considering that immigrant

children’s bilingualism is largely subtractive (Fishman, 1989; Pacini-Ketchabaw & Armstrong de

Almeida, 2006; Shin, 2005; Wong Fillmore, 1991), it is crucial to explore the factors that

contribute to immigrant children’s heritage language learning, thus, that support their additive

bilingualism, in which children learn their second language at no cost to their home language

8

(Lambert, 1974, 1990). Aligned with the additive bilingualism perspective, this study explores

Korean-Canadian children’s learning at a heritage language school in which most learners move

between two linguistic and cultural worlds.

1.4 Research Questions

The purpose of this study was to investigate the language and literacy learning of Korean

immigrant children in a heritage language school, where a number of factors play a role, such as

teachers’ beliefs about classroom language use and their curricular goals and instructional

methods, parents’ attitudes and expectations with respect to their children’s bilingualism, and

children’s various levels of bilingual competency. Set in a multigenerational Korean ethnic

church that operates a Korean language school, this study explored the following questions:

1. What are the supporting factors of Korean-Canadian children’s heritage language

development and maintenance within and beyond the church, and in what ways do they

provide support?

2. How are the Korean and English languages positioned at the various levels within and

beyond the church?

My research took an unexpected turn and my positionality was shifted from an observer to a

participant observer who became involved in the activity planning and implementation in the

grade 3 and 4 focus class. Consequently, I added a third research question during my data

collection stage:

3. What pedagogical changes are made and how do these changes alter children’s engagement

in classroom activities when a researcher is repositioned from an observer to a participant-

observer?

This yearlong ethnographic case study addresses these questions through a wide range of data

sources, such as interviews, classroom observations, records of school meetings, and document

and artifact analysis (e.g. Korean government documents and websites, Korean news, classroom

materials, students’ worksheets). In this study, I unveil how a multigenerational Korean church,

with Korean and English ministries under one roof, supports Korean-Canadian children’s

9

bilingual development. I identify how the Korean and English languages are positioned within

and beyond the church by exploring the language practices of church attendees, and teachers and

students in the Korean language classroom. Furthermore, I reflect on some of the changes made

in the pedagogical space of the grade 3 and 4 focus class due to my positionality shift.

10

Chapter 2 Literature Review and Theoretical Framework

This literature review chapter begins by presenting two prevailing language ideologies and the

underlying assumptions about monolingual dominance, which inform language policy and

practice at individual, group, and societal levels. Then, I describe the concept of translanguaging,

which supports bilingual speakers’ cross-linguistic transfers as a legitimate pedagogical tool.

Next, I discuss various definitions on heritage languages (HLs) and heritage language learners

(HLLs), and review heritage language programs in the U.S. and Canada. After that, I explore

Korean immigrants in Canada, more specifically their immigration history, aspiration toward

education, and intimate connection with ethnic churches. Lastly, I introduce Bourdieu’s (1991)

thinking tools, such as field, capital, and habitus, as the theoretical and analytic framework of

this study.

2.1 Language Ideologies: Assimilationist and Pluralist

Silverstein (1979) defines language ideologies as “sets of beliefs about language articulated by

the users as a rationalization or justification of perceived structure and use” (p. 193). Research

stresses that “language ideologies are always socially situated and tied to questions of identity

and power in societies” (Blackledge & Pavlenko, 2001, p. 246), and identities are constantly

negotiated by patterns of power relations in societies (Cummins, 1996). Hence, the field of

bilingualism and bilingual education is not ideologically neutral, as it is linked to identity

construction and power relations.

According to Baker (2011), the social and political issues regarding bilingual education tend to

revolve around two contrasting ideological positions, assimilationist and pluralist.

Assimilationists view society as universalistic (Huntington, 2004), and consider immigrants’

acculturation and cultural unity as a societal goal and as an individual’s goal for success and

participation in society (Banks, 2005; Huntington, 2004). Assimilationists insist upon a

monolingual and monocultural nation, and claim that bilingual education produces segregation,

which impedes language minority children’s learning of the dominant language (Baker, 2011).

They further argue that bilingual education teaches children to have a distinct sense of ethnic and

11

national identity contributing to immigrants’ ‘hyphenated’ (e.g. Chinese-American or Ukrainian-

American) dual identity rather than a unified single identity (e.g. American; Salaberry, 2009). As

language is closely connected to power and identity at individual, group, and societal levels,

assimilationists see minority languages as a threat to national unity. Linguistic assimilation is

essential as a means of the social, political, and economic integration necessary for equality and

political harmony. As a result, assimilation, in the name of national unity, produces dominant

language monolingualism, as seen in the English-only mainstream programs, at the expense of

ethnic identity formation and maintenance, and family relationships of language minorities

(Baker, 2011).

In contrast, pluralists regard the function of ethnic groups as essential in socializing individuals

within a society, as it is within their own cultural groups that individuals acquire their languages,

beliefs, and life styles (Banks, 2005). Pluralists assume that different language groups can live

together in harmony (May, 2008), and consider that bilingualism fosters cultural enrichment and

cross-cultural understanding (Baker, 2011). Pluralist ideology aims to construct acceptance for

multiple languages, through provision for the maintenance of languages existing in the society

and reinforcement of multilingualism on the part of members of the polity (Ricento & Burnaby,

1998). Thus, pluralists tend to claim an individual’s autonomy to learn and use two or more

languages, supporting ‘promotion-oriented language policies’ (Wiley, 2013, p. 71), that is,

educational language rights should be promoted by the government, state, or agency.

According to Schmidt (2000), the ideology of assimilationists postulates a monocultural and

monolingual country that does not exist in reality; thus, the ensuing outcome is the continuous

inequitable subordination of language minority groups by the dominant group. Schmidt (2000)

continues to argue that pluralists are also unrealistic in their assumption that an egalitarian

society of multilingual and multicultural communities can be attained through “individualistic

rights-based free choice measures” (p. 209) and encouragements to the dominant to respect

linguistic and cultural diversity. Thus, the matter of assimilation and pluralism is not about

language, but about power in societies. Consequently, the language ideologies of different

constituents, such as policymakers, members of language majority communities, and members of

language minority communities, are often in disagreement with each other and with research

showing the effectiveness of bilingual programs that support the development and maintenance

12

of minority language speakers and communities (Freeman, 2008). An example of ideological

conflict is found in the transitional bilingual education program, whose aim is to develop

competent English language skills in minority language children as quickly as possible, so they

can move to the mainstream English-only classroom. In other words, in transitional bilingual

education, majority language literacy is promoted at the cost of minority language literacy,

resulting in subtractive bilingualism. This program contrasts with two-way bilingual education,

in which both languages are used as a medium of instruction, supporting the maintenance of their

first language and the academic development while learning in a second language (Baker, 2011).

In two-way bilingual education, biliteracy is fostered, leading to additive bilingualism. These

language ideologies shape the types of language and literacy education implemented in a

particular local context. The tenets of these perspectives influence bilingual education policies,

programs, and practices, some challenging and others verifying the status quo, and transforming

the power relations of the community (Freeman, 2008).

2.2 Misconceptions about Bilingualism: The Dominance of Monolingual Assumptions

Owing to the growing international migration, our society is becoming increasingly linguistically

diverse and bilingualism is becoming an everyday reality for many people around the world. In

the last few decades, numerous empirical studies have corroborated the operation of cross-

linguistic transfer and various benefits of bilingualism. However, the field of language and

literacies education is still largely driven by a monolingual surmise, that is, ‘languages should be

kept separate’ (Cummins, 2007, 2008, 2014), which is termed as the “two solitudes” assumption

(Cummins, 2007, p. 224). English-only programs are the norm for children whose home

languages are other than the dominant language, and even in bilingual programs, monolingual

instructions are the norm.

According to Lewis, Jones, and Baker (2012), bilingualism had been seen as a source of mental

confusion until a wide range of empirical studies from many countries demonstrated the benefits

of dual language capability. Proponents of linguistic determinism, whose vision is that “the

language one speaks determines one’s view of the world once and forever” (Pavlenko, 2005, p.

436), suggested that people of different languages have distinctive thought processes, and thus,

13

bilinguals would be doomed to have problems, for example, attempting to speak Language A

while thinking in Language B (Macnamara, 1991). Hence, in this view, separation of languages

is essential (Piccardo, 2014).

This monolingual assumption is pronounced in the ‘balance effect’ hypothesis (Macnamara,

1966), which presumed that “there was only so much linguistic capacity available and therefore

sharing it between two languages would lead to lower levels of proficiency in each compared to

unilingual speakers” (Cummins, 1980, p. 92). Baker (2011) stresses that this idea is similar to the

‘two language balloons in the head’ idea, which signifies “what many of the public intuitively

think about bilingualism” (p. 164). In this view, when “one of the bilingual’s ‘linguistic balloons’

gets inflated, less room is left for the other” (Cummins, 1980, p. 92), resulting in confusion,

frustration, and failure.

In order to provide a theoretical framework for research into the developmental interrelations

between language and cognition in the bilingual child, Cummins (1979) proposed ‘the linguistic

developmental interdependence hypothesis’ and conceptualized Separate Underlying Proficiency

(SUP) and Common Underlying Proficiency (CUP) models, illustrating two different notions of

bilingual proficiency (see Figure 2 below). According to Cummins (1980, 1996), those who

argue for English-only programs implicitly assume the validity of the SUP model of bilingual

proficiency, which suggests that proficiency in L1 is separate from proficiency in L2 and thus,

there is no transfer between these two languages, and there is a direct connection between

exposure to a language (at home or school) and accomplishment in that language. Thus, from this

view, the development of L2 proficiency through L1 instruction makes little or no sense.

Figure 2 The SUP and CUP Models (Cummins, 1980, 1996)

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On the contrary, in the CUP model, both languages operate through the same central processing

system, and experience with either language can foster the development of the proficiency

underlying both languages, given ample motivation and exposure to both either in school or

communities (Cummins, 1980, 1996). Thus, the CUP model suggests transfer of concepts,

language structures, and learning strategies across languages (Cummins, 2009), and in effect,

extensive research validates correlations between first and second language skills supporting the

CUP model. Cummins (1979, 1996, 2000) reviews numerous studies that validate his

interdependence hypothesis in great detail and I include some of the exemplary studies below.

Modiano's (1968) study, regarded as “one of the best controlled studies” (Cummins, 1979, p.

236), found that Mexican Indigenous children who were taught to read in the vernacular (L1) and

later in Spanish (L2) scored considerably higher in Spanish reading after three years than

children taught to read only in Spanish. In a similar vein, while studying the school achievement

of minority Francophone children in Manitoba, Hébert (1976) reported that the percentage of

instruction received in French (L1) had no impact on the achievement of English (L2) but was

strongly linked to French achievement. Ramirez and Politzer (1976) correspondingly revealed

that the use of Spanish (L1) at home led to higher levels of Spanish skills at no cost to English

achievement while the use of English (L2) at home had a detrimental effect on Spanish

development but no improvement in English.

Additional evidence for the interdependence of L1 and L2 skills is found in the evaluations of

bilingual programs. In relation to French immersion programs for Anglophone students in

Canada, Lambert and Tucker (1972) and Genesee (1979) found high correlations between L1

and L2 reading skills in French (L2) and English (L1). While examining bilingual students of

Eastern Aragon in Spain, Huguet, Vila, and Llurda (2000) observed a close connection between

the knowledge of Spanish and Catalan in students, which emphasizes that those who know more

Catalan also have a higher knowledge of Spanish, and vice versa. The interdependence of L1 and

L2 in reading was explored by Calero-Breckheimer and Goetz (1993). The students in this study

showed that Spanish-English bilingual readers could transfer reading strategies from their L1 to

L2 and that their comprehension in both languages was positively associated with the use of

strategies. Based on this result, Calero-Breckheimer and Goetz (1993) assert, “if bilingual and

ESL programs are to succeed in producing competent English readers, care should be taken to

15

nurture the development of strategies in their native language and their transfer to English” (p.

198).

Based on the studies that empirically support the interdependence hypothesis, Cummins (2009)

identifies five types of transfer: concepts, metacognitive and metalinguistic strategies, pragmatic

aspects of language, meaning, and phonological awareness. Cummins (1996) then argues that “if

bilingual children are deficient in English, then they need instruction in English, not in their L1”

(p. 109), which rationalizes the maximum exposure or time-on-task method, is completely

erroneous. The interdependence hypothesis and its supporting studies disprove monolingual

assumptions, which justify negative views on minority students’ L1s in acquiring English, their

L2. This notion provides a dialogical space for pedagogical strategies that enable students to

utilize their L1s as a tool for building on their prior knowledge, and to invest their identities in

the course of their learning (Cummins, 2009). While Cummins (2009) acknowledges that there is

substantial research that validates the operation of cross-linguistic transfer, he laments that

“monolingual instructional strategies still predominate in both English-only and bilingual

programs” (p. 267).

The prevalent monolingual assumption in bilingual education, that ‘languages should be kept

separate,’ has been characterized as two solitudes (Cummins, 2005, 2008), parallel

monolingualism (Heller, 1999), and separate bilingualism (Blackledge & Creese, 2010). These

terms represent a view of bilinguals as ‘two monolinguals in one person’ that Grosjean (1989)

warns against, as shown in the title of his article, Neurolinguists, Beware! The Bilingual is Not

Two Monolinguals in One Person. Thus, this widespread belief, which is opposed to extensive

research findings that corroborate the operation of cross-linguistic transfer, impedes the full use

of bilinguals’ linguistic repertoires as a practical and logical communicative means as well as

pedagogical apparatus.

The idea of language separation or monolingual assumption can be found in how codeswitching

(switching languages for at least a phrase or a sentence) or language mixing (inserting single

lexical items from one language into another) is commonly perceived (McLaughlin, Blanchard,

& Osanai, 1995). Baker (2011) stresses that some monolinguals have negative attitudes toward

codeswitching, regarding it as “a communication deficit or a lack of mastery of both languages”

16

(p. 106), and some bilinguals also use a monolingual approach by keeping their languages

rigorously separate. Similarly, moving between languages has usually been frowned upon in

educational settings, with educators and students often feeling embarrassed about its practice

(Creese & Blackledge, 2010). However, a great deal of research endorses mixing or switching

languages as a common and useful communicative means for any bilinguals in many bilingual

settings (Genesee & Nicoladis, 1997; McLaughlin, Blanchard, & Osanai, 1995; Shin, 2005).

Recently, more and more scholars embrace the notion of translanguaging as a pedagogical tool

for teaching and learning.

2.3 Translanguaging as a Pedagogical Tool

The term, translanguaging, originates from the Welsh word, trawsiethu. As a means to develop

two languages positively and also to enhance efficient content learning in Welsh-English

bilingual classrooms, Cen Williams (1996) suggested trawsiethu, referring to “the planned and

systematic use of two languages inside the same lesson” (Baker, 2011, p. 288). Ofelia García

(2009) then extended Williams’s meaning of translanguaging by stating that it is a systematic,

tactical, and sense-making communicative means for any bilingual speakers and listeners. García

(2009) underlines that bilingual children frequently use both their languages for learning, even

when this is secretive, and claims, “Translanguaging is indeed a powerful mechanism to

construct understandings, to include others, and to mediate understandings across language

groups” (p. 307).

Later, Otheguy, García, and Reid (2015) further developed the definition of translanguaging as

“the deployment of a speaker’s full linguistic repertoire without regard for watchful adherence to

the socially and politically defined boundaries of named (and usually national and state)

languages” (p. 281). Similarly, García and Wei (2014) articulated that “translanguaging is an

approach to the use of language, bilingualism and the education of bilinguals that considers the

language practices of bilinguals not as two autonomous language systems as has been

traditionally the case, but as one linguistic repertoire with features that have been societally

constructed as belonging to two separate languages” (p. 2). As shown in these definitions,

translanguaging concerns one’s full linguistic repertoire rather than socially and politically

defined language labels such as English, French, Spanish, and Korean (Otheguy, García, & Reid,

17

2015). This shows that the notion of translanguaging rejects monolingual assumptions and is

congruent with the position of Cummins’s (1979) Common Underlying Proficiency (CUP)

model rather than the Separate Underlying Proficiency (SUP) model that I explained previously.

According to García (2009), translanguaging that is endorsed by classroom teachers and students

creates an alternative pedagogical space that maximizes students’ language repertoires and

learning. It is a movement away from the full compartmentalization of languages. Lewis, Jones,

and Baker (2012) explain that translanguaging has some potential educational gains. Firstly, it

may foster a better understanding of the subject matter. Considering that prior knowledge is a

foundation for further learning and that there is cross-linguistic transfer between two languages,

translanguaging builds learning in a most effective way (Baker, 2011). Secondly,

translanguaging may help students with the growth of the weaker language as it attempts to

develop academic language skills in both languages. Thirdly, translanguaging may facilitate

home-school collaboration. If a child can communicate to his/her parent in their home language,

the parent can assist the child with their schoolwork. Fourthly, it may foster the integration of

students along the bilingual continuum. If English learners are in the same class with students

whose L1 is English and if both languages are strategically used, then students can develop their

second language skills alongside content learning (Baker, 2011; Lewis, Jones, & Baker, 2012;

Maillat & Serra, 2009). In the following, García and Wei (2014) claim that translanguaging

should be given space in the field of education, especially bilingual education, as it disrupts the

power dynamics between majority and minority languages by accepting that translanguaging

practices are the norm for bilinguals and by allowing both languages to be utilized as a means for

learning for both language majority and minority students.

We argue that bilingual education, in the forms of the past, has done little

to destroy the hierarchies among languages and people, to ameliorate the

lives of language-minoritized students, or to generate learner

subjectivities able to engage in, and value, the translanguaging practices

which are the norm in bilingual communities. We suggest that

translanguaging can be used in education, and particularly in bilingual

education, as a transformative practice in order to provide a trans-space

of change and an interdisciplinarity of knowledge and understandings (p.

44).

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2.4 Heritage Languages (HLs), Heritage Language Learners

(HLLs), and Heritage Language Programs

There is no consensus as to what constitutes a heritage language (Shin, 2013; Wiley, 2005a).

While in the U.S., the term, heritage languages (HLs), refers to immigrant, refugee, indigenous,

and former colonial languages that speakers have personal connections with (Fishman, 2001;

Wiley, 2005a), HLs in the Canadian context mean minority languages that are brought by

immigrants, referring to all the languages with the exception of Aboriginal languages, English,

and French (Cummins & Danesi, 1990). While the term ‘heritage language’ has been used by

many, García (2005) and Baker and Jones (1998) caution that the term points more to historic

heritages. For this reason, in Canada, heritage language programs offered in mainstream schools

have undergone a name change from ‘heritage language’ to ‘international language,’ reflecting

“a more forward-looking global focus” (Duff, 2008, p. 82). In this regard, Bale (2016) critically

raises a question of who the intended beneficiary for this program is: heritage learners, or

English-monolingual students with no cultural or linguistic connection to the language in search

of learning enrichment.

The lack of agreement on what constitutes a heritage language is also found in the number of

other terminologies that refer to HLs. Trifonas and Aravossitas (2018) list these terms:

community languages (Wiley, 2005b), languages of origin (Makarova, 2014), ethnic languages

(Saint-Jacques, 1979), languages other than English (Clyne, 1991), immigrant languages

(Statistics Canada, 2012), ancestral languages (Eisenlohr, 2004), and home languages (Yeung,

Marsh, & Suliman, 2000). While a HL is generally regarded as a language spoken in the home

that is different from the language of the mainstream society, Polinsky and Kagan (2007) regard

HLs as incompletely acquired home languages due to the language shift from the home language

to the dominant language. This definition echoes the prevalent phenomenon of immigrant

children’s subtractive bilingualism.

According to Trifonas and Aravossitas (2018), the discussion around HL terminology involves

consideration of who heritage language learners (HLLs) are. When defining HLLs, Carreira

(2004) is concerned about three characteristics: 1) the learner’s place in the HL community

(whether or not the learner is a member of the community), 2) the learner’s connection to the

19

heritage language and culture through his/her family background, and 3) the learner’s

competence in the HL. This illustrates that the matter of determining HLLs is not only about

their connection to the language, but also to the culture of the community.

In relation, Kelleher (2010) defines the term, HLL, as “a person studying a language who has

proficiency in or a cultural connection to that language” (p. 1) and Van Deusen-Scholl (2003)

describes HLLs as those who “have been raised with a strong cultural connection to a particular

language through family interaction” (p. 222). Furthermore, Hornberger and Wang (2008)

describe HLLs as “individuals with familial or ancestral ties to a language other than English

who exert their agency in determining if they are HLLs of that language” (p. 6). These

definitions show that various factors can determine who HLLs are: their relationship to the HL

and the culture of the language minority community, proficiency in the HL, and lastly, their

identity positioning, that is, whether or not they identify themselves as HLLs. This means that

HLLs are a diverse group of language learners with different needs, which is important for

parents, teachers, and policy makers to be aware of as it has implications for curriculum and

teacher development (Trifonas & Aravossitas, 2018).

2.4.1 Heritage Language Schools in the United States and Canada

Heritage language schools have existed for more than 300 years in the U.S. (Fishman, 2001) and

for over 100 years in Canada (Cumming, n.d.). In the U.S., Fishman’s study of heritage language

schools in the 1980s learned that 145 languages were taught in about 6,500 heritage language

schools outside the public domain (Fishman, 2001) and in Canada, approximately 200 languages

other than English, French, or Indigenous languages are taught in schools and post-secondary

institutions and by community groups (Cumming, n.d.).

Currently, heritage language education at the K-12 level in the U.S. and Canada exists in the

form of foreign (or international) languages or bilingual education in public schools, or in the

form of community-based weekend schools (Shin, 2013). Yet, all these programs are

disadvantaged in terms of funding provisions and number of languages provided (Cummins,

2005; Shin, 2013). For example, while many other countries start mandatory foreign language

instruction in the elementary grades, schools in the U.S. and Canada generally do not provide

foreign language classes until middle school or high school. Besides, foreign language teaching

20

in public schools is not rigorous enough to support additive bilingualism (Shin, 2013).

Furthermore, while immersion programs provide enriched learning opportunities by using the

target language as a medium of instruction, in the U.S., only 14% of public elementary language

programs offer heritage language immersion instructions (Shin, 2013), and in Canada, only

several provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan) offer heritage

language bilingual schools, in which language options are limited to merely a few, such as

Mandarin, Ukrainian, Hebrew, German, Spanish, Arabic, and Russian (Cummins, 1992; Duff,

2008).

According to Baker (2011), the more inclusive practice of heritage language education is found

in schools and classes organized by immigrant language groups and communities. Fishman

(2001) states that heritage language schools were established by ethnic communities to help the

learning of their languages and cultures. Heritage language schools are also called community,

complementary, ancestral, ethnic, immigrant, non-official, or second/third language programs in

other parts of the world (Duff & Li, 2009). These heritage language programs have been

supported by foreign governments and religious institutions (churches, mosques, temples,

synagogues), fostering after-school programs, weekend schools and religion-based programs

(Baker, 2011).

McGinnis (2008) stresses that the number of heritage language schools in Korean communities

has grown. In the U.S., Korean heritage language schools have over 100 years of history, as the

first one was established in 1906 by Christ United Methodist Church in Hawaii (Kim, 2014).

Owing to the shorter immigration history, the first Korean ethnic church in Canada was founded

in 1965 in Montreal (Yoo, 1999). Korean heritage language schools were established shortly

after, as in the case of Alpha Korean United Church, the first Korean ethnic church in Toronto,

which opened its first Korean language school in 1973 (Lee, 2012). According to Seo (2018),

there are currently 4,454 Korean ethnic churches in the U.S. and 483 in Canada, and many of

these churches operate Korean language schools.

While there is a growth in number of Korean heritage language schools in the United States and

Canada, several studies have documented the challenges that these voluntary community schools

experience. According to Lee (2007), many Korean heritage language schools are established by

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Christian organizations, and some by local Korean societies and parent associations. They mostly

find classroom space in church buildings, while some rent school facilities. They usually run on

weekends for about 2-6 hours, teaching the Korean language, history, and culture. Some large-

sized schools teach students by age or language proficiency level, but many small-sized schools

teach all students in a single class, not being able to accommodate by age or language

proficiency level (Park, 2011).

Furthermore, most teachers at Korean heritage language schools do not have teaching

credentials. Teachers are welcomed regardless of their educational backgrounds or experiences,

and it is beyond reality for Korean language schools to be equipped with teachers who majored

in the Korean language, history, or culture. This is primarily due to the fact that most of these

teachers are volunteers and even if they are paid, their remuneration is minimal (Lee, 2007; Park,

2008).

Likewise, Sohn (2001) points out various demanding conditions of Korean heritage language

schools, such as the insufficient funding from the Korean government for each school, the

inadequacy of systematic teacher training, the lack of recognition of students and parents on

Korean language schools, and the shortage of classroom materials, for example, audio-visual

aids. Most recently, the absence of a standard curriculum for Korean heritage language schools

has been criticized by some scholars (Choi, 2008; Jung & Kim, 2009; Park, 2011).

2.4.2 Korean Heritage Language Schools in the United States and Canada

While there is a scarcity of literature on Korean heritage language schools, a handful of studies

were carried out in this context. Emphasizing that there is a need to study the roles of ethnic

churches for language and literacy learning, Oh (2007) conducted ethnographic research at a

Korean ethnic church in Philadelphia. He found that the Korean-American ethnic church served

multiple functions: nurturing parishioners’ spirituality; providing ethnic fellowship; supporting

cultural identity; and providing education in Korean language and culture. Analysis of classroom

observations showed that teachers’ discourse largely reflected transmission-oriented instruction

and the IRE (Initiation-Response-Evaluation) pattern. He asserted that his insider view allowed

him to see the classroom discourse as a form of language socialization, which followed culture-

specific Korean literacy instruction. He then underlined the importance of pedagogical

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approaches that examine both contextualized (whole/meaning-focused) instruction and

decontextualized (parts/form-focused) instruction as a way to foster the bilingual learning of

Korean-American students.

Another study was conducted at a Korean-American church in Philadelphia. As a wife of a youth

pastor, and a Sunday school teacher herself, Pak (2005) explored parents’ goals and perceptions

toward learning Korean, as well as the language use in the classrooms. Being a non-Korean

married to a Korean, Pak (2005) carried out interviews in English. A Korean-English bilingual

youth pastor interviewed Korean-speaking participants and then transcribed and translated the

interviews for Pak. Interview analysis showed that parents’ goals of learning Korean were

closely related to their ethnic identity maintenance. From classroom observations and recordings,

Pak (2005) also learned that classroom pedagogical approaches involved teacher-directed

activities, primarily using textbooks. Teachers controlled students’ language use, insisting on the

use of Korean in class. She concluded that within the Korean language school, the Korean

language had much more power than English, in contrast to the power relation between English

and Korean in American mainstream society.

Han (2014) observed four Korean-American young adolescent learners attending a church-based

Korean language school in the southwestern USA. This study showed that the attitudes of these

learners toward the Korean language varied depending on their adolescent social and ethnic

identity construction and their parents’ language ideologies. This study also identified the

functions of code-switching used by the participating students and their teachers. Han (2014)

found that the teachers code-switched to English for elaborating, concurrent translation, drawing

attention, and admonishing. They code-switched to Korean for honorifics, requesting appropriate

manners, content words or phrases. Code-switching functions used by the students in Korean

included entertainment (e.g. saying the Korean infantile word, ‘poop’), emphasis, and argument,

and in English included rebellion, requesting information, and complaints about tasks. Yun

(2009)’s study also examined the use of code-switching among Korean children in the USA. She

recorded 42 hours of student interactions in a Korean ethnic church and at a family resource

centre. Her analysis showed that while boys mostly used Korean and girls largely used English to

construct their identities, their code-switching practices reflected multiple identity markers such

as ethnicity (Korean versus American), age, along with language proficiency. In another study,

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Park (2008) found, through interviews and classroom observation, that Korean students’

identities were predominantly influenced by parents’ ambitions for bilingual learning and social

inclusion or exclusion in the heritage or host culture. He concluded that globalization drove the

English-learning fever among Koreans, and that Korean children growing up in the USA were

experiencing the dual burden of being accustomed to two different cultures and languages.

Han (2011) examined the language attitudes and practices of Korean-American families through

a survey of 40 parents who were temporary residents and immigrants, at a Korean language

school in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. She found that parents’ reasons for sending their children

to the heritage language school depended on their residential status. Unlike parents who were

holding a temporary resident status, immigrant parents regarded their children’s oral language

development and Korean identity formation as their priority. Han (2011) also conducted three

case studies with Korean immigrant families with 3 to 5-year-old children, using observations,

interviews, and photographs of children’s work. From these studies, she concluded that although

each family had different immigration backgrounds, they all wanted their children to build their

identity as Korean-Americans.

One longitudinal study was carried out to learn about bilingual and biliteracy practices of three

siblings (age 7, 4, and 2 at the time of beginning the study) within diverse communities,

including the home, school, church, playground, heritage language school, and neighborhood.

Over the six years of her ethnographic data collection, Ro (2010) observed that these three

siblings used less and less Korean. She asserted that their exposure to the Korean language at

home and at the Korean language school was not sufficient for their heritage language

development. She also found that despite the participating parents’ emphasis on the importance

of becoming bilingual, their three children were not motivated to learn Korean, identifying

themselves as American rather than Korean or Korean-American. She then concluded that

students from diverse backgrounds must receive “synergistic socio-cultural and instructional

support from researchers, policy-makers, educators, and parents, especially in the most

influential place: home” (p. 324).

Lastly, claiming that very little is known about the roles of Korean ethnic churches, particularly

for younger generations growing up in Canada, Park (2010) explored how Korean ethnic

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churches support heritage language and cultural identity in Montreal. As a church member, a

heritage language teacher, and a Sunday school teacher, Park (2010) collected ethnographic data

over the course of four months, which included interviews (with students, parents, and pastors),

observation (8 hours on Sunday worship service, 2 hours on a Korean language class, 12 hours

on the Bible study class) and group discussions (with teenaged students and young adults). Park

found that Korean ethnic churches in Montreal played significant roles for maintaining the

heritage language and culture for these Korean-Canadian students, performing beyond their

religious roles. Park (2010) then emphasized that within ethnic churches, institutional

infrastructure for the heritage language and cultural identity maintenance is already in place and

thus, all ethnic church members should better use their existing institutional resources.

In sum, while these studies shed light on different themes, such as language attitudes, language

loss, globalization, identity, classroom discourses, and code-switching at Korean language

schools, the common findings of all these studies underscore that Korean ethnic churches play a

substantial role in supporting Korean immigrant children’s heritage language learning and

maintenance, as well as their ethnic identity development. Out of the eight studies I presented

above, seven were conducted in the USA and only one was carried out in Canada. By

investigating a multigenerational Korean church in the most linguistically and culturally diverse

city in Canada, my research builds on these existing studies and contributes to the literature on

Korean heritage language education. It also contributes to extant knowledge on heritage language

education in general, in light of language practice (e.g. parallel monolingualism,

translanguaging), classroom discourses, pedagogical approaches, socialization, Korean ethno-

nationalism, and globalization.

2.4.3 Language Policy, Heritage Language Programs, and Korean Heritage

Language Maintenance in Canada

Whereas the United States has never had an official language, Canada has two official languages

(Gourd, 2007). Quebec’s Quiet Revolution in the 1960s led the nation to create the Royal

Commission on bilingualism and biculturalism in 1963 and to enact the Official Languages Act

in 1969 (Egbo, 2009; Ley, 2007). Along with the vigour of Québécois nationalism, and the

increasing voices of Canada’s Indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities, the Multiculturalism

Act (Bill C-93) was adopted by Parliament in 1988 (Dewing, 2009). Subsequently, Canada is “a

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multicultural country within a bilingual framework” (Egbo, 2009, p. 187). Acknowledging

Canada as a bilingual and multicultural nation, several provinces, such as Alberta, British

Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan (Cummins, 1992; Duff, 2008) have allowed languages

other than English or French as mediums of instruction in public schools.

Ontario is home to the greatest number of immigrants in Canada. In 2011, 53.3 per cent of the

total number of visible minorities lived in this province. Of all immigrants in Ontario, 7 out of 10

resided in Toronto (Statistics Canada, 2013). Hence, Toronto is the most multicultural and

multilingual city in Canada. In Ontario, the heritage language program has been offered since

1977. This program, currently called the International Languages Elementary (ILE) Program,

takes place outside of regular school hours and requires a minimum of 23 students to operate a

language class (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2012). A good number of languages are taught

through this program. For example, over 40 languages were offered through the Toronto District

School Board during the 2018-2019 school year (TDSB, n.d.).

Toronto is home to the largest number of Korean immigrants in Canada. Compared to Korean

immigrants in the United States, Korean Canadians have a relatively short settlement history.

Whereas the settlement of Korean immigrants in the United States started in the early 20th

century, the migration of Koreans to Canada began only in the 1960s (Kim, Noh, & Noh, 2012;

Kim, 2014). As a result, most studies on Korean immigrants were carried out in the United

States, and there is a significant shortage of studies in the Canadian context (Jeon, 2012; Min,

2010, 2012; Park, 2010). According to Jeon (2012), there were only two studies (Kim, 1992;

Park & Sarkar, 2007) that explored Korean Canadian’s heritage language maintenance by the

time she conducted her own study. Based on my literature search, I learned that Jeon’s research

is one of the four studies that investigated this theme (Jeon, 2012; Kim, 1992; Park, 2010; Park

& Sarkar, 2007). Among these, a single study (Park, 2010) was conducted in a church-based

Korean language school, which I already included in section 2.4.2. Therefore, in the following, I

present a brief summary of these three studies:

Park and Sarkar (2007) examined Korean immigrant parents’ attitudes toward heritage language

maintenance for their children and their endeavours to support their children’s heritage language

maintenance in Montreal. Through a questionnaire and interviews with nine parents, they learned

26

that the participating parents considered the Korean language important for their cultural identity,

job opportunities, and effective communication with grandparents. Most participating parents

responded that they relied on church activities to provide their children with a Korean-speaking

environment outside the home. The ways how the parents supported their children’s heritage

language maintenance included speaking only in Korean at home, reading Korean books with

their children, and watching educational videos.

Through questionnaires and language tests of Korean students (grade 7 and 8, N = 92), Kim

(1992) learned that the students’ attitudes and motivations to learn and maintain their heritage

language were closely linked to their patterns of Korean language use and their proficiency level

in the language. He also found that parents’ attitudes toward the Korean language played a role

in these students’ attitudes and motivation. Lastly, Jeon’s study (2012), which involved a survey

of 137 second and 1.5 generation Korean Canadian youth, concluded that the intergenerational

transmission of the Korean language among Korean-Canadians was weakening.

While the small number of studies available to learn about the Korean Canadian’s heritage

language maintenance reflects the very short settlement history of Korean immigrants in Canada,

at the same time, these studies show that Korean Canadians share similar experiences with their

counterparts in the United States concerning their heritage language maintenance. Korean

Canadian parents consider their heritage language crucial for their identity, family relationships,

and job opportunities; however, as found by Jeon (2012), younger generation Korean Canadians

are experiencing a language shift from Korean to English. In other words, the experiences of

Korean immigrants living in an official bilingual country do not seem to be different from the

ones of Korean Americans.

2.5 Korean Immigrants in Canada

The migration of Koreans to Canada took place officially when Canada abolished national origin

as a criterion for immigration in 1962, and diplomatic relations between South Korea and Canada

began in 1963 (Kim, Noh, & Noh, 2012). However, according to Yoo (2002), very few

immigrants came from South Korea in the 1960s, and those who came during that time were

study or work permit holders who stayed temporarily. Canada received a large number of Korean

immigrants only after Canada opened its first embassy in South Korea in 1973. South Korea’s

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poor economic conditions, political insecurity, and military dictatorship in the 1970s accelerated

permanent migration to Canada, peaking in 1975 with 4,331 migrants. After this peak, the South

Korean government made changes in the emigration policy to restrict the movement of affluent

Koreans, more specifically, military officers, high-ranking government officers, and persons

possessing properties worth more than $100,000 USD. The Korean government also limited the

amount of money that each person could take with him or her, which resulted in a lower

migration rate until the mid-1980s (Yoon, 1997). The migration pattern of Koreans is closely

correlated with the economic growth of Korea during the late 1980s and the trade relations

between South Korea and Canada that grew in the 1990s, as well as the 1997 Asian financial

crisis, or so-called, International Monetary Fund (IMF) crisis. These factors dictated decreasing

or increasing numbers of immigrants in each period (Kim, Noh, & Noh, 2012).

According to Statistics Canada (2016), Korea was one of the top 10 countries of birth of recent

immigrants between 2011 and 2016. The population growth of Korean immigrants in Canada is

significantly faster than the overall population. For instance, between 1996 and 2001, the number

of people who reported they had Korean origin grew by 53% whereas the overall population

increased by only 4% (Lindsay, 2001). The majority of Korean immigrants live in metropolitan

areas such as Toronto and Vancouver, and their populations reached 67,430 in Ontario and

49,480 in British Columbia out of the total number, 137,795, at the time of the 2006 census

(Statistics Canada, 2010).

2.5.1 Korean Immigrants’ Strong Aspiration Toward Education

Korean immigrants are generally highly educated (Kim, 2002; Nah, 1993; Shin, 2005) and this is

also shown in the Profiles of Ethnic Communities in Canada (Lindsay, 2001). For example, in

2001, 37% of Canadians who had Korean origin were university graduates, compared with only

15% of the overall adult population. Korean immigrants have strong aspirations toward

education (Bang, 2009; Lee, 2003; Nah, 1993; Shin, 2005) because, for Koreans, education is not

only a means of success but also a measure of one’s self-worth (Lee, 2003). Thus, Korean

parents are deeply concerned about their children’s academic achievement. Their children’s

academic failure could severely damage the child’s self-esteem and the family’s honour (Kim,

2002; Lee, 2003).

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Korean parents’ strong aspirations toward education are congruently revealed in their motivation

for immigration to Western countries such as the United States and Canada (Lee, 2003; Shin,

2005). According to Lee (2003), Korean families immigrate for one of these two reasons: 1) In

the host countries, their children could receive a better education and 2) the Korean parents

themselves could pursue further studies at university. Due to this connection between the goal of

immigration and children’s success in school, to Korean parents, their children’s failure to go to

a good university often means a failure of their immigration (Shin, 2005).

However, despite their high level of education and aspirations toward education, Korean parents

face multiple challenges with respect to educating their children in the host country, primarily

created by the lack of English proficiency. Their limited English means limited employment

opportunity in the host country, and this largely affects their sense of worth and adequacy as their

children’s primary educators. More specifically, although most Korean parents are college-

educated professionals, they generally do not maintain the same profession in the host country

due to their inability to communicate effectively in English. Korean immigrants commonly turn

to self-owned small businesses, which do not demand high levels of English proficiency (Kim &

Yu, 1996; Min, 1984; Shin, 2005). In addition, the lack of English proficiency often makes them

feel helpless in providing guidance in their children’s learning (Nah, 1993).

2.5.2 Korean Ethnic Churches for Korean Immigrants: A Site of Inquiry

Currently, there are about 483 Korean Christian churches in Canada (Seo, 2018) and church

participation by Korean immigrants is relatively extensive (Kim, 1978; Park, 2010). As noted by

other researchers (Han, 2011; Han, 2014; Oh, 2007; Pak, 2005; Park, 2010), Shin (2005) stresses

that Korean churches serve Korean immigrants beyond the spiritual realm: “Aside from

satisfying the spiritual needs of its members through worship and fellowship, the Korean church

also provides a place for its congregants to socialize with fellow émigrés and find peace of mind

and relief from anxiety of living in a culture that is often hostile to immigrants” (p. 57). In

addition, many Korean immigrants exchange information and practical help that are critical to

their immigrant life, such as information about opportunities in employment, housing, and

schooling. Furthermore, many Korean churches operate Korean language schools for children

and provide assistance in translation and interpretation in English (Park, 2010; Shin, 2005).

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Owing to the unique roles they play for Korean immigrants, Korean ethnic churches become

crucial sites for examining Korean immigrants’ experiences, particularly vis-à-vis immigrant

children’s heritage language learning. Additionally, as claimed by Park (2010), most studies on

Korean immigrants are conducted in the U.S. context, and there is a lack of studies in the

Canadian context. Similarly, based on his review of the four-decade literature on Korean

Americans (Min, 2010), Min (2012) articulates that research on Korean immigrants in the U.S.

started in the early 1970s, producing 110 books and nearly five hundred journal articles;

however, because of a shorter immigration history, research on Koreans in Canada started

considerably later, in the early 1990s. In his foreword of the first scholarly book on Korean

immigrants in Canada, Korean Immigrants in Canada: Perspectives on Migration, Integration,

and the Family, although he does not give details on the literature, Min (2012) affirms that

“[t]here is no social science book focusing on Korean Canadians, and only five or six dozen

journal articles have been published up to now” (p. xi). Therefore, there is a pronounced need for

exploring the lives of Korean Canadians and the roles of Korean churches in Canada. This study

attempts to address this need by examining a Korean language school operated by a

multigenerational Korean church in the Greater Toronto Area, home to 64,755 Korean immigrant

families (Statistics Canada, 2011). Consequently, this study fills a gap in the literature on Korean

immigrants in Canada, particularly in relation to Korean immigrant children’s heritage language

learning and bilingual development.

2.6 Bourdieu’s Theoretical and Analytic Framework

In order to explore the interrelationship of various factors that play a role in the language and

literacy learning of Korean immigrant children in the heritage language school, Bourdieu’s

theoretical and analytic tools are employed in this study. Bourdieu’s social theory offers a means

to understand crucial features of the educational research field and at the same time, provides

educational researchers with a rich conceptual tool for their practice. More specifically,

Bourdieu’s key concepts such as field, habitus, and capital, which he regarded as thinking tools

(Grenfell, 2003; Grenfell & James, 2004), operate as invaluable interpretive instruments when

employed to discover “the unconscious and the invisible in education” (Flynn, 2015, p. 20).

Thus, Bourdieusian thinking tools have enabled me to uncover how curricula, expectations,

goals, and practices vis-à-vis language and literacy learning are situated and interconnected.

30

Bourdieu uses various terms to refer to social contexts. A field or market is defined as “a

structured space of positions in which the positions and their interrelations are determined by the

distribution of different kinds of resources or ‘capital’” (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 14, emphasis in

original). According to Bourdieu (1990, 1991), capital becomes capital when it is accepted as

such in a field. There are different forms of capital, such as economic capital (e.g. material

wealth, property), cultural capital (e.g. knowledge, skills), social capital (e.g. a network of

kinship), and symbolic capital (e.g. prestige).

With respect to language, Bourdieu (1991) stresses, “Linguistic utterances or expressions are

always produced in particular contexts or markets, and the properties of these markets endow

linguistic products with a certain ‘value’” (p. 18, emphasis in original). In other words, in a given

linguistic market, some products are regarded more highly than others, and the linguistic

competence of speakers prominently depends on the capacity “to know how, and to be able, to

produce expressions which are highly valued on the markets concerned” (p. 18). Different

speakers own different quantities of linguistic capital, the capability to generate appropriate

expressions for a particular market, and the distribution of linguistic capital is associated with the

distribution of other kinds of capital (e.g. economic capital, cultural capital), which define the

social location of an individual.

Bourdieu's terms, field (or market) and capital (or resource), are important in this study as these

concepts allow me to see my research site as a field in which individuals are positioned

differently depending on the capital they possess. The Bourdieusian concepts, such as linguistic

and cultural capital, have enabled me to explore how the Korean and English languages are

positioned by teachers, parents, and children within the heritage language classroom and school.

More precisely, with these thinking tools, I was able to see my research site, a multigenerational

Korean ethnic church, as a linguistic market in which there was an uneven distribution of

linguistic capital, and to discover how different linguistic products were positioned and how

linguistic capital was distributed in the language and literacy learning of Korean immigrant

children.

Bourdieu (1991) explains that a field is constantly “the site of struggles in which individuals seek

to maintain or alter the distribution of the forms of capital specific to it” (p. 14). Thus, for

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Bourdieu, in a field, individuals unceasingly pursue distinct goals of either maintaining the status

quo or transforming it, hence, resulting in ongoing struggles in the field. The concept, habitus, is

inseparable from the field, as the field molds the habitus, which is “a set of dispositions which

incline agents to act and react in certain ways” (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 12). The habitus is formed

unconsciously following expectations of the environment in which agents live and work (Flynn,

2015), and it generates practices, perceptions, and attitudes (Bourdieu, 1991). The relationship

between habitus and field is explained as follows:

On the one side, it is a relation of conditioning: the field structures the

habitus, which is the product of the embodiment of immanent necessity

of a field …On the other side, it is a relation of knowledge or cognitive

construction: habitus contributes to constituting the field as a meaningful

world, a world endowed with sense and with value, in which it is worth

investing one’s practice. (Wacquant, 1989, p. 44)

Thus, the field and the habitus can be thought of as structure and agency, which mutually shape

and are shaped by each other operating in a way that is closely tied and correlated. An associated

term is doxa, which refers to taken-for-granted beliefs and values established in practice between

a habitus and the field to which it is accustomed (Bourdieu, 1990). Another important

Bourdieusian term is symbolic power. Language can be a mechanism for exercising symbolic

power that is rarely seen as manifest physical force. Instead, it exists as an invisible form that is

endowed with legitimacy because the exercise of power through symbolic exchange is fully

dependent on collective belief, meaning that groups and individuals, either the dominant or non-

dominant, acknowledge the hierarchical relations of power and its legitimacy, failing to perceive

that the hierarchy is “an arbitrary social construction which serves the interests of some groups

more than others” (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 17).

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Figure 3 Multiple Layers of Fields Within and Beyond the Church-Based Heritage Language School

As illustrated in Figure 3, a church-based heritage language school is not a field of a single layer,

but a field of multiple layers that interact with each other. Informed by Bourdieu’s explanations

on field and habitus as well as doxa and symbolic power, I explore the closely-tied relationship

between the field (classroom that belongs to the heritage language school and the ethnic church

community, as well as the wider society) and the habitus (teachers’ dispositions that affect their

practices), and learn about doxa (taken-for-granted beliefs about language and literacy learning)

and how symbolic power is exercised in the classroom interactions. Looking at a heritage

language school through Bourdieu’s lenses has enabled me to look at how languages are

positioned in the multi-layers of the field and how they affect teachers’ and children’s language

practices.

According to Grenfell (2003, 2009), Bourdieu’s terms should never be employed as stand-alone

concepts, as they only make sense in relation to each other. For example, field and habitus need

to be considered more than simply context and agency, as these thinking tools enable us to

examine the local context and its relation to the larger context, asking “why does this happen and

what can we do about it?” (Flynn, 2015, p. 26). Grenfell (2003) further claims that it is essential

to see “the language used to discuss the language of learning as contesting for legitimate versions

of the structure of pedagogy” (p. 17), implying that language and literacy learning and classroom

discourses are not ideologically neutral.

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Although the Canadian context of Korean heritage language schools operated by the ethnic

church has rarely been explored, it is likely a site in which various beliefs, ideologies, attitudes,

and practices in relation to language and literacies all play a role. Heritage language teachers,

parents, and children are situated in the ethnic community as well as the larger society. Their

upbringings and education either in Korea, in Canada, or both, are major factors that shape their

beliefs, attitudes and practices concerning bilingualism. Heritage language teachers and children

have goals and expectations to meet, not only from the heritage language school and church, but

also from the parents. Borrowing Bourdieusian terms, the multiple layered field of this church-

based Korean language school shapes and is also shaped by the habitus of immigrant children,

parents, and teachers. Subsequently, a church-based heritage language school became a site for

exploring multiple layers of the field, and how it affects the habitus of teachers, parents, and

children in relation to heritage language learning and bilingual development.

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Chapter 3 Methodology

3.1 An Ethnographic Case Study

Ethnographic case study is the methodology used in this research. According to Merriam (1998),

a qualitative case study is “an intensive, holistic description and analysis of a single entity,

phenomenon, or social unit” (p. 34). She defines a case as “a thing, a single entity, a unit around

which there are boundaries. I can ‘fence in’ what I am going to study” (Merriam, 1998, p. 27).

Grace Church, my research site, is a social unit that I ‘fenced in’ as a case to study. My case

study is ethnographic, which focuses on institutional culture, teaching methods, and classroom

interactions (Hamilton & Corbett-Whittier, 2013; Merriam, 1998). As Bloome (2012) similarly

puts it while describing ethnography, my study pursues “a holistic, cultural description of the

multiple dimensions, aspects, domains, institutions, activities, practices, and settings of a social

group” (p. 9). As a qualitative research approach, ethnography enables researchers to see

language and literacy development as well as teaching and learning practices as they naturally

occur in sociocultural contexts (Heller, 2008; Purcell-Gates, 2011). Ethnography is suitable for

“questions that ask why, how, what is happening, and what does it look like” (Purcell-Gates,

2011, p. 136, emphasis in original) and underlines the significance of situating the study within

the larger sociocultural context. Thus, while exploring how the language school and teachers

within the church support the language and literacy learning of Korean-Canadian children, I have

constantly been considering the larger sociocultural context that is interacting with these

multilayered and complex practices.

The underpinning postulation of ethnographers concerning the nature of language and literacy is

interpretivist. Interpretivism is defined as “a scientific stance, which assumes that knowledge is

socially constructed” and it is often contrasted with positivism, which refers to “a stance, which

assumes that reality exists objectively and can be empirically discovered” (Heller, 2008, p. 249).

Taking an interpretivist stance, I have been looking carefully at the languages people use and the

ways they use it in order to explore social identities and social relationships, cultural practices

and events, and shared meanings (Bloome, 2012).

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According to Geertz (1973), “doing ethnography is establishing rapport, selecting informants,

transcribing texts, taking genealogies, mapping fields, keeping a diary, and so on. But it is not

these things, techniques and received procedures that define the enterprise. What defines it is the

kind of intellectual effort it is: an elaborate venture in, … ‘thick description’” (p. 6). Thick

description is defined as “the researcher’s task of both describing and interpreting observed

social action (or behavior) within its particular context” (Ponterotto, 2006, p. 543). In order to

attain a ‘thick description,’ I gathered data from multiple sources, such as prolonged

observations, fieldnotes, interviews, curriculum materials and artifacts, Korean government

websites and documents, and Korean newspapers. These data were observed holistically as I

sought the viewpoints of participants (Mackey & Gass, 2005; Purcell-Gates, 2011).

According to Mason (1996), observation refers to “methods of generating data which involve the

researcher immersing [him or herself] in a research setting, and systematically observing

dimensions of that setting, interactions, relationships, actions, events, and so on, within it” (p.

60). Thus, practices and accounts are generally approached through observation, “the hallmark

technique of ethnographic research” (Heller, 2008, p. 257). The positions of ethnographers

during observation vary depending on the design of the study; however, traditionally,

ethnographers collect data as a participant-observer in the community of study (Purcell-Gates,

2011). As Purcell-Gates (2011) notes, with me as an ethnographic researcher, the relationship

between participant and observer can be seen as a continuum, locating myself at varying points

along this continuum throughout my fieldwork. My positionality has changed over time, as my

research site often needed me to fully participate as a classroom teacher or a teaching mentor.

Taking a participant-observer position, my observation was accompanied by fieldnotes, “the

backbone of ethnographic data collection” (Purcell-Gates, 2011, p. 145), audio, as well as visual

recordings. Interviews, generally a part of ethnographic data collection, enabled me to learn

about insider information and to explore subjects in greater detail (Purcell-Gates, 2011). Since

ethnographers gather data from numerous sources, triangulation, “the use of a combination of

methods to explore one set of research questions” (Mason, 2002, p. 190), is built into this

methodology. According to Johnson (1992), triangulation “reduces observer or interviewer bias

and enhances the validity and reliability (accuracy) of the information” (p. 146).

36

3.2 Research Site

Grace Church (all names are pseudonyms), one of the Korean churches in the GTA, was selected

as the research site. There were several reasons for this selection. Korean immigrants are one of

the fastest growing visible minority groups in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2016) and their large-

scale migration to Canada is a recent phenomenon (Park, 2012). In 2006, 90 per cent of Korean

Canadians were first generation, 8.3 per cent were second generation, and 0.8 per cent were third

generation immigrants (Jeon, 2012). These statistics illustrate their relatively short immigration

history. However, according to Jeon’s study (2012), which involved a survey of 137 second and

1.5 generation Korean Canadian youth, their language use patterns, exposure to media, and

literacy practices suggest that the intergenerational transmission of the Korean language among

Korean Canadians is deteriorating. This finding is startling, as this shows a similar pattern to

counterparts in the United States (Shin, 2005), whose settlement history is nearly 60 years longer

(Kim, 2014; Lee, 2012; Yoo, 1999).

Consequently, Grace Church, a Korean ethnic church with multiple generations of congregants,

was chosen to explore the language use of Korean Canadian immigrants across generations.

Additionally, because Grace Church was located in the Greater Toronto Area, home to the

largest number of Korean immigrants in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2010), this church had a

large congregation that reflected the history of Korean Canadian immigrants, which enabled me

to obtain a wide range of insights and to pursue a deeper inquiry.

Grace Church was established in the early 1980s and has grown to house a large congregation.

This church has two ministries: KM, referring to Korean Ministry, and EM, referring to English

Ministry, thus offering service in Korean and English. This church operates a Korean language

school, Grace Hangul hakgyo (Hangul is the name of the Korean alphabet and hakgyo means

school), for students from kindergarten to grade 8 from September to June, following the

mainstream school calendar. The classes run on Sundays for one hour before the main KM

service, and children join Sunday school right after the Korean language class while their parents

attend the adult service.

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3.3 Entering Fieldwork and Positionality

I am a member of this church. I have been attending this church since I moved from British

Columbia in 2014 to pursue my doctoral studies at OISE. However, I had never visited the

Korean language school until I decided to conduct my study at a Korean church. One day in May

2016, I first contacted Pastor Anna, the Sunday school pastor, to ask if it would be okay to visit

the Korean language school. She gave me contact information for the Korean language school

director, Da-Yoon Kim. Then, I made a phone call to introduce myself and my study to the

director, and to learn about the context of the Korean language school, such as what age groups

they served, how many classes they offered, and how often and how long the classes were

offered. Mrs. Kim told me that she had been teaching the junior and senior kindergarten class

since she took over the director position two years ago. The director invited me to her classroom

one Sunday morning before the church service and I explained the details of this study to her.

The walls were lined with numerous bookshelves that were filled with children’s books in

Korean. During my visit, there were a number of kindergarten children in the classroom,

although it was not their regular class hour. While talking with the director, I helped her to

photocopy worksheets and wipe down the tables with paint marks. I told Mrs. Kim that this study

would involve year-long classroom observations of a focus class and interviews with teachers,

parents, children, and church leaders. I also informed her that once she agreed to participate,

there would be information letters and consent forms for participants. A few days later, she

called and told me that she would be interested in participating in this study and suggested we

meet again.

Before the 2016-2017 school year began, Mrs. Kim, Pastor Anna and I met, and I gave them

detailed information on my study, what it entailed, and showed them information letters and

consent forms for participants. Then, Mrs. Kim invited me to a school meeting in late September

2016 and informed the teachers about my study. During the meeting, Mrs. Kim addressed

various things, such as the use of high school student volunteers as TAs in each class, and

classroom resources that she prepared for the teachers to use. There were five teachers at the

meeting and they were given information letters and consent forms. All five teachers responded

that they would participate in interviews, but none of the teachers at that time told me they would

be interested in participating as a focus class teacher. About a week later, one of the teachers,

38

Min Sung Park, the teacher of the grade 3 and 4 class, told me he was willing to participate in the

study as the focus teacher. Then, I got ready to distribute information letters and consent forms

for the parents of the class. Mrs. Kim informed all the parents of this class about this study by

emailing my information letter to them. Then, for the first few weeks, I greeted and talked with

each parent about my study at the door when parents dropped off their children. Eventually, I

received consent from all the parents of this class.

Throughout the school year, my positionality changed. I positioned myself more like an observer

when I first started fieldwork; however, there were times when I was asked to teach on the spot

due to Mr. Park’s illness or other occasions that kept him from coming to church. Also, after a

few months of observing the class and building rapport with the focus teacher and students, Mr.

Park started to show his frustration in teaching and asked for help. Subsequently, I started to

work with him to plan and implement activities to support students’ learning, utilizing my

expertise in language teaching. This fully immersed me in the curriculum planning and

implementation of this class, locating me more like a participant. After I completed my data

collection in June, I thanked all my participants: the director, Sunday school pastor, teachers,

parents, and children. Lastly, I told Mrs. Kim, the director of the school, that I could come back

as a teacher if there was a need. In early September 2017, Mrs. Kim contacted me and told me

that she was looking for teachers who could volunteer for the upcoming school year. Currently, I

am teaching the class of grade 1 and 2 students.

3.4 Research Participants

As listed in Table 1, the participants of this study included church leaders, teachers, parents, and

students. To learn about the ways how they supported Korean-Canadian children’s heritage

language learning, two church leaders and five teachers at the Korean language school were

interviewed. In order to explore how a teacher at the Korean language school supports students’

heritage language learning and how students are engaged in this class, the interactions of the

focus teacher, Mr. Park, the teaching assistant, Jin Soo, and his students in the grade 3 and 4

class were observed. To further learn about their immigration backgrounds, which affect their

language practices and beliefs, I also interviewed Mr. Park and Jin Soo, as well as some of the

class’s students and parents.

39

Table 1 List of Participants

Church Leaders

Anna Yoo Sunday school pastor

Da-Yoon Kim

Korean language school director

Korean Language School Teachers & TA

Hani Jeong Junior & senior kindergarten teacher

Yu Rim Song Grade 1 & 2 teacher

Min Sung Park Grade 3 & 4 teacher/Focus teacher

Joohee Hwang Grade 5 & 6 teacher

Jung Mi Lee Grade 7 & 8 teacher

Jin Soo Yun Teaching assistant in the focus class

Grade 3 and 4 Focus Class Students & Their Parents

Boram Jiyoung Kwon

Zoe Irene Cho

Soobin Joohee Hwang

Sora Xiu Ying Zhang

Joohan Da Yoon Kim

Yechan Ji Sun Bae

3.5 Data Collection

In the following, I list all the data sources of this study. These multiple data sources enabled me

to answer my research questions, and at the same time, strengthened the validity and reliability of

this study.

3.5.1 Observations and Fieldnotes

During the 2016-2017 school year (from September 2016 to June 2017), I observed classroom

interactions of the grade 3 and 4 focus class and took fieldnotes during my observations. I also

video-taped and audio-recorded the interactions of the classroom using four mini-cameras that

captured small group interactions, and one main camera that captured the whole classroom’s

interactions, along with four audio recorders I placed on each table as backup recording devices.

For those times when I took over the class, I took my fieldnotes right after the class was over. I

had about 30 minutes until I joined the church service, so I was able to write down how the class

went and what things stood out for me. When I got home after each class, I watched all five

videos to learn about students’ engagement levels and styles in activities, their language uses and

socialization (whom they interact with), as well as the focus teacher’s strategies to support

40

students’ language learning. Then, I added what I noted from watching the videos to my

fieldnotes.

3.5.2 Interviews

As a Korean English bilingual, I have full access to both languages. Semi-structured interviews

were conducted either in Korean or in English, depending on the participants’ preference.

Interviews with church leaders, teachers, parents and children were carried out in order to learn

about the goals and expectations of the school in relation to Korean-Canadian children’s

language and literacy learning; the ways that teachers, church and parents supported children’s

language and literacy development; and what linguistic resources they brought to the heritage

language classroom. Each interview took place at church or at their homes, based on the

participants’ preference, and the length of interviews was between 1 hour and 2.5 hours. The

interview protocols are in Appendices A-D. In addition, a few spontaneous and unstructured

interviews were conducted with a Sunday school teacher, Mike, and two university students,

Paul and David, who were also members of Grace Church. These interviews helped me to learn

about their views on the notion and variations of 1.5 generation immigrants. Interviews were

accompanied by audio recordings and fieldnotes.

3.5.3 Curriculum Materials and Children’s Artifacts

Curriculum materials were examined to learn about goals and expectations vis-à-vis children’s

language and literacy development. Children’s artifacts were explored to see how they engaged

in different mediums of classroom materials and activities.

3.5.4 Korean Government Documents and Websites

As a means to explore ways in which the Korean government supports Korean-Canadian

children’s heritage language learning, I examined websites and documents generated by the

Korean government. The governmental bodies that I explored are the Overseas Koreans

Foundation (OKF) and the Korean Education Centre in Canada (KEC), operated by the

Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Toronto. These two bodies work closely in

supporting Korean language schools.

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Currently, the Korean language school at Grace Church is funded by the Overseas Koreans

Foundation (OKF). The school director makes orders on the OKF website annually for classroom

materials and textbooks, and picks them up from the KEC. This Korean language school was one

of the 69 schools that were supported by KEC for the 2015-2016 school year (KEC, n.d.-a).

3.5.5 Attending School Meetings and Associations Conferences

I attended all the meetings that took place in this school during the 2016-2017 school year.

Additionally, I attended annual conferences hosted by the KCSA (Korean Canadian Schools

Association of Ontario) and the CAKS (Canadian Association of Korean Schools). Meetings and

conferences were accompanied by my fieldnotes.

3.6 Data Analysis

During my yearlong fieldwork, writing and reading (and re-reading) fieldnotes was pivotal not

only for describing or interpreting, but also for analyzing the data I collected from multiple

sources. I wrote fieldnotes during classroom observations and interviews as well as at school

meetings and conferences I attended. As soon as I returned from the site, I went to my computer

while my memories were still fresh and transferred my handwritten notes to computer-typed

fieldnotes. During this process, I often added details to my fieldnotes as I recalled what I heard

and saw. For classroom observations, I watched all five video recordings of micro interactions in

class and added specific details that I was able to notice with the help of these cameras. I also

added notes after examining students’ workbooks or worksheets. According to Mills and Morton

(2013), this type of process is essential to “‘[fill] in the gaps’ in an empirical record” and “to

actively construct understandings” (p. 86, emphasis in original).

As a Korean and English bilingual who can comfortably move between these two languages, I

was able to use the language that my participants used, for example, during interviews. My

interviews were generally conducted in Korean when interviewees were first or 1.5 generation

immigrant parents whose home language was Korean. While interviewing second generation

immigrant parents whose home language was English, I carried out interviews in English.

Therefore, my handwritten fieldnotes largely reflected the language(s) of my participants,

although there were times when I wrote in English while listening to my Korean-speaking

42

participant, simultaneously translating. Then, while transferring my handwritten notes to

computer-typed notes, I predominantly used English, recording the accounts and experiences of

Korean-speaking participants in English. All of the interpretive and reflective notes that I added

to my fieldnotes in the process of analysis, which were mostly written in parentheses or in

colours, were also written in English.

The process of my data analysis involved ongoing reflection about the data, asking analytic

questions derived from my research questions as well as the data that were already collected, and

writing reflection notes throughout the study (Creswell, 2009). The reading of my data involved

three levels, that is, literal, interpretive, and reflexive levels (Mason, 2002). While I read the

curriculum materials—which are mainly in the form of workbooks—more or less literally in

order to understand ‘what is there,’ I read fieldnotes I took from observations and interviews at

interpretive and reflexive levels. During my interpretive reading, I was mostly concerned about

what I saw as my participants’ interpretations and understandings, and accounts of how they

made sense of language and literacy learning. My reflexive reading enabled me to explore my

role and perspective in the process of generating and interpreting data.

My data analysis involved cross-sectional indexing, which devises “a consistent system for

indexing the whole of a data set according to a set of common principles and measures” (Mason,

2002, p. 150), which meant that I was using the same lens to explore patterns and themes that

appeared across my data. This process allowed me to distance myself from “the immediacy of

the initially striking or memorable elements, and therefore to gain a more measured view of the

whole” (p. 151), to locate and retrieve information, themes, and examples in an orderly manner

in the data, and to see if and how well the data addressed my research questions and theoretical

concerns.

The coding categories were determined based on the areas that I wanted to explore and on how

these areas were represented in my data. While analyzing the data, I sought instances that were

related to these areas and developed further coding categories. During this process, I familiarized

myself with the data by reading them over and over, developing and adding new categories

simultaneously, while constantly cross-checking with my research questions.

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3.7 Limitations: Validity and Reliability

Aiming to understand and interpret social events and phenomena in certain contexts, qualitative

researchers do not seek generalizability of results. Instead, they strive to obtain credibility by

making their findings credible to their research population (Mackey & Gass, 2005). I strove to

minimize my bias, and to provide credible interpretations of the viewpoints of participants

through member checks.

According to Purcell-Gates (2011), validity in ethnographic research is defined as “the degree to

which one’s data and interpretation correspond to the ‘way it is’ within the phenomenon being

investigated” (p. 140). Triangulation is essential to ensure validity of analysis. In my study, the

rich and in-depth data obtained from multiple sources, such as observation, interviews,

curriculum materials and artifacts, enabled me to depict and interpret what was happening in the

classroom more accurately. This, consequently, confirmed the validity of the data, and created a

‘thick description,’ which is crucial to achieve a type of external validity, that is, transferability

(Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Although qualitative research findings are hardly transferable from one

context to another, through ‘thick description,’ ethnographers help others to see the similarity of

context and “provide insights into issues of concern that others can take away and ponder,

applying them as seems appropriate to their own situations” (Purcell-Gates, 2011, p. 143).

My classroom observations throughout an entire school year helped me to build relationships

with participants, so that “behaviours [could] coalesce to constitute patterns” (Purcell-Gates,

2011, p. 141). Conducting ethnographic research is an arduous task demanding time, skills, and

relationship building. By being fully committed to all these, I could ensure the validity and

reliability of my study.

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Chapter 4 Findings

4.1 Overview

Chapter Four, which is comprised of three parts, presents the findings of this study. As shown in

Figure 4, there are multiple layers of fields (Bourdieu, 1991) that are interacting with each other

within and beyond this church-based heritage language school. Part One presents the findings

vis-à-vis the macro level supporting factors of Korean-Canadian children’s heritage language

learning, the Korean government and the Ontario government. In this part, I primarily talk about

how the Korean government supports Korean language schools overseas, which they call Hangul

hakgyo (Hangul is the name of the Korean language and hakgyo means school). I also mention

the Korean language programs operated by the Ontario government as one of the international

languages they offer.

Figure 4 Structure of Chapter Four

In Part Two, I present the findings that I learned from Grace Church and its Korean language

school, Grace Hangul hakgyo. I show how the Korean and English languages are positioned

within this multigenerational church, and how the church and the school support the heritage

language and culture learning of Korean-Canadian children. Part Three focuses on the grade 3

and 4 class that I observed. In this part, I show how the focus teacher, Mr. Park, supports the

Korean language and literacy learning of his students and how the Korean and English languages

45

are positioned within this classroom. Additionally, I explain the shift made in my positionality,

that is, although I positioned myself more like an observer at the beginning of my research, due

to Mr. Park’s request for assistance, I got positioned (and repositioned myself) more like a

participant observer during the course of data collection. Then, I demonstrate various

pedagogical changes that were collaboratively made by Mr. Park and me, and how these changes

altered children’s engagement in classroom activities.

Part One Korean Ethno-Nationalism, Globalization,

and Hangul Hakgyo

4.2 Introduction

I thank you very much for teaching Korean, the language that has our

people’s spirit, in spite of many difficulties. In the past, maintaining

Korean was very hard because the status of Korea was not very high

internationally. Nowadays, I often hear [from Koreans who grew up here

in Canada], “I feel ashamed because I lost the opportunity to learn

Korean. So, I really want my children to learn Korean.” Besides, owing

to Hallyu (the Korean Wave), the general public [non-Koreans] also learn

the Korean language these days. The best way to learn about Korea is to

learn the language. It seems Korea is the only country that supports the

language learning of minority people [living as immigrants in the host

countries]. However, if we take a look at individual schools, our support

doesn’t seem to be sufficient. Keeping ethnic identity as Koreans and

maintaining the Korean language is for both Canada and Korea. Thus,

please keep your commitment to teaching our language, our roots, to

future generations. I wish you all the best in everything you do. (Jeong-

Sik Kang, Consul General, at the 30th Regular General Meeting &

Teacher Conference, November 12, 2016, my translation)

After the session, Understanding Music Therapy to Increase the Effects of the Korean Language

Teaching and Learning, teachers were asked to stand up and sing the national anthems of Korea

and Canada. Then, the Consul General of the Republic of Korea in Toronto welcomed the

teachers with his speech at the 30th conference hosted by the Korean-Canadian Schools

Association of Ontario (KCSA). In the spacious room full of teachers at a large Korean

restaurant in Toronto, he acknowledged the challenges that teachers faced while teaching the

46

heritage language and thanked them for their hard work. He also highlighted the continuous

support that the Korean government had been giving to schools and teachers. According to the

Consul General, keeping the Korean ethnic identity through learning the Korean language was

crucial not only for Korea, but also for Canada. While sitting at a table with other teachers, I

wondered what he meant by this. I may have understood and even agreed that it was good for

Korean Canadians to keep their ethnic identity through learning the Korean language. Then, in

what ways was it good for Canada? As this thought passed through my mind, I noticed the flags

of Korea and Canada that were put side by side on the wall by the conference organizers.

In this part, I present how the Korean government has been supporting Hangul hakgyo (Hangul

is the name of the Korean language and hakgyo means school): What is Hangul hakgyo by the

definition of the Korean government, and how was their assistance initiated and with what goals?

In what ways has the Korean government been helping Hangul hakgyo? Then, what does it look

like in the context of Ontario? How many Hangul hakgyo associations do we have in Canada and

what are their roles? In order to address these questions, I provide some background information

vis-à-vis the relationship between Korean ethno-nationalism and globalization.

4.3 Korean Ethno-Nationalism and Globalization:

The Birth of the Overseas Koreans Foundation (OKF)

For centuries, Korea has been a relatively homogeneous ethnic nation. Thus, ethnicity has been a

key marker of nation and national identity, producing a strong sense of oneness based on shared

bloodline and ancestry (Shin, 2006). Ethno-nationalists believe that “nations are determined by a

shared heritage, which usually includes a common language, a common faith, and a common

ethnic ancestry” (Muller, 2008, p. 20). According to Shin (2006), ethno-nationalism in Korea has

been a political ideology and a form of ethnic identity that is widely prevalent in modern Korea.

In Korea, globalization initiatives were commenced by the Kim Young Sam government, the

first civilian government in South Korean history. President Kim Young Sam (1996) claimed

that Korea was not equipped to meet the new challenges of globalization, and laid out his

globalization policy, segyehwa, as a means “to survive and thrive in this age of increasingly

fierce borderless global competition” (p. 15). President Kim called for fundamental changes in

all aspects of national life toward globalization, including education, legal and economic

47

systems, politics, and news media. Globalization became one of his government’s major policies,

which led to establishing the Globalization Promotion Committee that oversaw the globalization

process (Shin, 2006).

According to Shin (2006), the Korean term, segyehwa, adopted by the Kim Young Sam

government, underscored a Korean way of globalization, as implied in two of his five major

goals of globalization, that particularly addressed issues of national identity and values.

Specifically speaking, the third goal was to promote national unity in the process of

globalization, as President Kim (1996) asserted, “Only when the entire Korean people unite as

one in the pursuit of globalization, rising above class, regional and generational differences, will

we be able to triumph in global competition” (p. 273). Furthermore, in the fourth goal, President

Kim grounded globalization in ‘Koreanization’ by affirming, “Koreans cannot become global

citizens without a good understanding of their own culture and tradition … Koreans should

march out into the world on the strength of their unique culture and traditional values. Only when

the national identity is maintained and intrinsic national spirit upheld will Koreans be able to

successfully globalize” (1996, p. 15). Hence, for President Kim, Koreanization did not conflict

with globalization, but played a key role in its processes.

After Kim Young Sam’s presidential term (1993-1998), the Kim Dae Jung government

accelerated the globalization processes by restructuring corporate governance, increasing

flexibility in labour markets, and refining transparency in financial transactions. Besides, this

government recognized the value of overseas Koreans as human resources and national assets in

the country’s globalization plan, and began operating the Overseas Koreans Foundation (OKF)

under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which was officially established at the end of

the Kim Young Sam government (Cheong, 2003; Shin, 2006).

OKF has been conducting educational and cultural projects for overseas Koreans ever since its

foundation in 1997 with the mission of “help[ing] overseas Koreans keep their ethnic ties and

become model members in the country of their residence” (OKF, 2016, p. 154; OKF, n.d.-a) and

with the vision of “Global Koreans Value-Hub: To Connect, To Enhance, To Collaborate”

(OKF, n.d.-a). OKF organizes educational programs, finances Hangul hakgyo (overseas Korean

schools) and its associations, publishes newsletters named Jaeoe dongpo Shinmun, compiles

48

information databases and directories, and operates a global network called Hansang Network,

which aims to promote business partnerships between Koreans living in Korea and overseas

(OKF, n.d.-a; Park, 2014). On the official OKF website, right below the bold and large letters of

O, K, F, it says, “Korea, the country where the sun does not go down because of emigration! The

force is that of 7.4 million overseas Koreans” (OKF, n.d.-a, my translation).

OKF defines Hangul hakgyo as schools established by overseas Koreans voluntarily with the

goal of teaching the Korean language, history, and culture. OKF finances Hangul hakgyo as a

way to strengthen bonds with the mother country and to support the identity cultivation of

overseas Koreans. In 2013, OKF supported 1,934 schools in 115 countries, spending

approximately $10.6 million, and in 2015, it assisted 1,875 schools in 117 countries, expending

about $12.6 million. In the context of Canada, in 2015, OKF provided financial aid to 65 schools

in Toronto, 26 schools in Vancouver, and 6 schools in Montreal (OKF, 2016).

In the concluding remark of the report, The Status of Hangul Hakgyo Overseas: Based on the

Support Status of Overseas Koreans Foundation, OKF (2016) articulates its mandate and vision

in relation to Hangul hakgyo:

As the immigrant history of Koreans passes over a century and their

localization accelerates, the community of overseas Koreans are facing

generational disconnection and identity confusion. In the meantime,

Hangul hakgyo in 117 countries all over the world have been

contributing to empowering overseas Koreans, to upbringing future

human resources, to diffusing the Korean wave, and to passing our

language on to the next generation. No matter where we are, Hangul

hakgyo has been a catalyst that connects numerous ‘small branches,’

centralizing one ‘root’ [emphasis in original] … Now comes the time of

integration for 80 million Korean people. Our government and OKF will

cultivate Hangul hakgyo as a centre for reciprocal development of mother

country and overseas Koreans community, and will unify these

communities through ppuri gyoyuk (teaching students about their roots).

(pp. 164-165, my translation)

So far, I have demonstrated how ethno-nationalism has been embedded in the globalization

schemes of Korea. While attempting to increase national competitiveness in an ever-growing

global market through globalization, the Korean government has sought to preserve and promote

49

native values and culture as a protective measure to potential threats from globalization (Shin,

2006). OKF is an organization that connects and unifies all Koreans living in and outside Korea,

with the goal of helping to meet national agendas, and Hangul hakgyo is an essential instrument

that passes on the language and culture of Korea to future generations growing up and living

outside Korea.

In the era of globalization in which there is increased international migration, the Korean

government seems to remind every Korean, ‘no matter where we live, we are one from the same

bloodline and ancestry; thus, our collaboration through connection is a natural act in the global

market,’ as implied in their vision, “Global Koreans Value-Hub: To Connect, To Enhance, To

Collaborate” (OKF, n.d.-a). Subsequently, for the Korean government, Hangul hakgyo is an

indispensable tool for the linguistic and cultural connections needed for worldwide collaboration.

Now, there is no question as to why the government has actively been financing Hangul hakgyo.

4.4 Hangul Hakgyo: Background and Its Current Status

According to Article 2.4 of the Act on the Educational Support, etc. for Korean Nationals

Residing Abroad, which was enacted in 2007 and amended in 2015, the term Hangul hakgyo

refers to “irregular schools established by organizations of Korean nationals residing abroad on

their own to provide an education on Korean language, Korean history and Korean culture, etc.

to Korean nationals residing abroad, which are registered with the heads of diplomatic missions

abroad in charge of the relevant regions” (Statutes of the Republic of Korea, n.d.).

Hangul hakgyo literally means school (hakgyo) that teaches the Korean language (Hangul, the

name of the Korean alphabet). However, the definition of Hangul hakgyo given by the Korean

government indicates that these schools are established overseas, suggesting that Hangul hakgyo

refers to ‘Korean language schools overseas’ rather than ‘Korean language schools’ only.

The very first Hangul hakgyo in history was Korean Society Hangul hakgyo, established in 1970

by Korean Methodist Church in Hawaii (Lee, 2007). As the number of overseas Koreans

increased in the 1970s, Hangul hakgyo started to spread all over the world. In 1977, there were

31 schools in the U.S., 9 schools in Germany, and 6 schools in Brazil (Park, 2011). In the last

four decades, the number of Hangul hakgyo has dramatically increased, reaching 1,875 schools

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in 117 countries in 2015. Among the 1,875 schools, 953 schools are from the U.S. and 98

schools are from Canada (OKF, 2016).

The Overseas Koreans Foundation (OKF) has been supporting Hangul hakgyo since its

foundation in the 1990s and has been attentive to its needs. OKF gives funding to Hangul hakgyo

as a way to support their operation costs, distributes textbooks, runs an online website for

learning the Korean language, history, and culture (study.korean.net), funds local Hangul hakgyo

associations when hosting conferences, and invites teachers to Korea for training programs

(OKF, n.d.-a). Besides, as a way to improve teaching quality, OKF implemented a Korean

School Teacher's Certification Program in 2017. The Study Korean website, generated by OKF,

introduces this program as an online education program created for Hangul hakgyo teachers.

OKF asserts that whereas Hangul hakgyo teachers play a crucial role in teaching the language

and culture of Korea, there was no official certification that proved the professionalism and

qualification of Korean language teachers. Thus, through this certification program, Hangul

hakgyo teachers can gain and share a wide range of pedagogical methods and all the fundamental

knowledge needed, the website continues. The regular course takes 18 weeks that involves 31

hours, and two shortened courses take 12 weeks, each involving 22 hours and 19 hours. When

teachers complete all the requirements, they receive certificates issued by OKF (OKF, n.d.-b).

Now, I present Hangul hakgyo in Ontario and Hangul hakgyo associations in Canada.

4.4.1 Hangul Hakgyo in Ontario and Hangul Hakgyo Associations in

Canada

In Ontario, only English or French is utilized as a medium of instruction at school, and heritage

language programs are offered in the name of ‘international languages’ and in the form of after-

school, weekend or summer programs. International Languages Elementary (ILE) Program is a

non-credit program and international languages at the high school level are credit courses

(Ontario Ministry of Education, 2012, 2016). At the elementary level, language classes may be

offered during the regular school day if there is an agreement by all parties—presumably,

parents, teachers, and students—for a 30 minute-extension of class hours (Ontario Ministry of

Education, 2012).

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The Korean language is one of the international languages that the Ministry of Education in

Ontario offers. The Korean Education Centre (KEC) in Canada is a Korean governmental

organization located in the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Toronto. KEC

supports Hangul hakgyo in Ontario and Manitoba, and works closely with Hangul hakgyo

associations in Canada (KEC, n.d.-b). In their newly designed website, KEC introduces all the

Hangul hakgyo they fund. KEC divides Hangul hakgyo into two groups: ‘school-based,’ and

‘religious organization-based or others.’ Currently (2017-2018 school year), there are 36 school-

based Hangul hakgyo, in other words, ILE Korean classes, offered by 15 school districts (KEC,

n.d.-b). These schools are all located in Ontario, as the Korean language is not part of the 10

languages that the Ministry of Education in Manitoba offers as ‘International and Heritage

Languages’ (Manitoba Government, n.d.). KEC also lists 38 Hangul hakgyo under the category

of religious organization-based or others, and Grace Hangul hakgyo, my research site, is one of

these church-based schools. Among these, two Hangul hakgyo are located in Manitoba. Most

school-based Hangul hakgyo offer 2.5 hour-long classes as after-school or weekend programs,

and most church-based Hangul hakgyo run on Saturday or Sunday for about 1-4 hours. In terms

of registration fees, ILE programs charge 20 dollars to cover the cost of materials, but church-

based programs have a wide range of fees, from free of charge to over 100 dollars. Not all

schools call themselves as Hangul hakgyo as some schools name themselves as Hanguk hakgyo

(Korea school), Hanguk-uh hakgyo (Korean language school), or Moonhwa hakgyo (culture

school; KEC, n.d.-b). However, no matter what they call themselves, all of these schools are

classified as Hangul hakgyo and receive funding and classroom materials from the Korean

government.

According to Korean online news outlets, Korea Daily Toronto (2012) and KimGiJa News

(2015a), the number of school-based Hangul hakgyo in the GTA is decreasing. More

specifically, in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), the number of Hangul hakgyo has

fallen to 10, whereas Chinese schools are reaching 100 and Vietnamese schools about 20.

International Languages Elementary (ILE) Program in Ontario requires a minimum of 23

students to operate a language class. Thus, when school boards receive a request from the

community for language instruction in which more than 23 students want to participate, it is

mandatory for them to offer an ILE program (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2012). In the Korea

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Daily Toronto article (2012), the president of the Canadian Association of Korean Schools

(CAKS), Mi-ae Baek, asserts, “School-based schools need to meet the minimum number in order

to be maintained… Religious organization-based schools are good for learning the Korean

language but it would be desirable to send kids not only to church-based Hangul hakgyo but also

to school-based ones that are nearby” (my translation). The Korea Daily Toronto (2012) points

out that most Hangul hakgyo teachers who are members of the CAKS are from religious

organization-based Hangul hakgyo, and in the KimGiJa News (2015a), a Hangul hakgyo teacher

underscores, “It would be great if we could send our children to school-based Hangul hakgyo

that is run with the tax money that we pay so that we can increase our pride and status as

Koreans. If there is more registration, we can create more classes and schools” (my translation).

The Canadian Association of Korean Schools (CAKS) is a federally registered non-profit

organization, established in 2010 to foster positive identity and pride to future generations of

Koreans. CAKS aims to promote the educational development of the Korean language, culture

and history for Hangul hakgyo in Canada, and makes suggestions, seeking cooperation

concerning education policies (CAKS, n.d.; KEC, n.d.-b). Each year, CAKS hosts conferences

and trainings for Hangul hakgyo teachers funded by the Overseas Koreans Foundation (OKF),

and under CAKS there are three regional Hangul hakgyo associations: 1) The Korean Canadian

Schools Association of Ontario (KCSA); 2) The Korean Language School of Greater

Montreal/L’École de langue coréenne du grand Montréal; and 3) The Korean Canadian Schools

Association of Western Region. These three associations are provincially registered, and in each

region, they carry out a variety of events, such as speaking and writing competitions in Korean,

and drawing and singing contests as a way to boost students’ motivation for learning the Korean

language. They also host conferences periodically to enhance the quality of teaching by sharing

information (KEC, n.d.-b).

4.4.2 A Snapshot of the 7th CAKS Conference in Toronto: Promoting

Korean Linguistic and Cultural Capital for Global Competency

Grace Hangul hakgyo is a member of the Korean Canadian Schools Association of Ontario

(KCSA) and the Canadian Association of Korean Schools (CAKS). I attended both conferences

that took place for Ontario teachers during the 2016-2017 school year. The regional conference

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hosted by KCSA was a day conference that took place on a Saturday evening, and the federal

conference held by CAKS was a three-day conference that invited all Hangul hakgyo teachers in

Canada. In this section, I briefly introduce what sessions were offered during the three-day

conference, which was the 7th CAKS conference, and present a summary of a few sessions

presented by keynote speakers.

At the entrance of the conference room, arranged in a large hotel in Toronto, a big banner

acknowledged the organizer of the conference (Figure 5, left), and a display of students’ work

and teaching materials on long tables welcomed the teachers (Figure 5, top right). Inside the

conference room, there were lots of round tables that teachers could sit around, and a huge screen

waited for the presenter and audience (Figure 5, bottom right). Two sessions were offered

concurrently, so teachers were busy looking at the conference schedule to choose the sessions

they wanted to attend.

Figure 5 Pictures from the 7th CAKS Conference Left: Banner of the conference. Top right: A display of teaching materials.

Bottom right: Students’ performance of Korean traditional dance during lunch.

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A wide range of topics were presented in sessions, such as Localizing Korean Language

Education Collaboratively by Seungmin Lee, the president of the National Association for

Korean Schools (NAKS) in the U.S., What is the Problem with the Identities of Koreans Who

Live Abroad? by Dong-suk Kim, the founder of Korean American Civic Empowerment (KACE),

and What is Korean Language Education for Global Intellectuals? presented by Namhee Woo,

the president of the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education (KICCE). There were also

sessions that provided practical tips to teachers, such as Korean Language Learning Through K-

Pop, Fun Korean Language Activities by Using Technology, Learning Korean Through Stories

with Music, Learning Korean Through Wind Instruments, and the Role of Grammar in Korean

Language Education.

The common themes from these sessions were the identities of Koreans living abroad, the

importance of the Korean language in building positive identities as global citizens, and what

roles Hangul hakgyo teachers should play in supporting the positive identity formation of

Koreans growing up in Canada while teaching the Korean language. Rather than emphasizing the

identities as Koreans only, the speakers emphasized the importance of hyphenated identities such

as Korean-Canadians and Korean-Americans. When discussing the role of Hangul hakgyo

teachers, the president of NAKS underlined that teachers should be aware that our children go

through identity conflict when Hangul hakgyo stresses ‘Korean identities’ only, not recognizing

the cultural and generational differences they face.

In relation, the founder of KACE pointed out the problem of not knowing one’s heritage. He

gave an example of Korean politicians in the U.S. who associated themselves with Caucasians

only, not recognizing the challenges of ethnic minorities and thus, not contributing to the ethnic

minority rights. His point was well-captured in this statement he made: “When we lose our

identity, we lose our social roles.” Similarly, the president of KICCE mentioned that we needed

to teach our children growing up in Canada to become good citizens, to have Korean identities,

and to become global citizens.

While these speakers underlined the importance of Korean-Canadian children’s hyphenated

identities, they stressed the significance of the Korean language as a means to form and maintain

the identities of future generations of Korean immigrants. For instance, the president of NAKS

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affirmed: “The disconnect of language is the disconnect of values because language is the

reflection of our culture and values.” In a similar vein, the president of KICCE asked, “What

does the Korean language mean to the children who were born or are growing up in Canada? Do

I know what kind of view that my children have toward the Korean language?” She then shared a

few stories of parents who were raising bilingual children and stressed that ‘language is culture

and culture is power.’ In this logic, when we acquire more languages, we also have more culture

and power, and thus, Korean-Canadian children’s bilingual competency is essential in order to

grow as ‘global intellectuals.’ These speakers also suggested that Hangul hakgyo teachers build

positive relationships with their students, individualize and develop lesson plans, and work

collaboratively with other teachers to maximize the learning outcomes of students.

In short, the fundamental idea that ran through all sessions during this conference seemed to be

that ‘it is crucial for our children to learn and maintain the Korean language, to keep their

identities as Korean-Canadians, and further, to grow to become global citizens with bilingual and

bicultural competency who contribute to both Korean and Canadian societies.’

4.5 Summary

In this first part of the findings chapter, I have discussed the close relationship between Korean

ethno-nationalism and globalization, and how it gave birth to the Overseas Koreans Foundation

(OKF), which gives a wide range of support to Hangul hakgyo all over the world. I have also

presented different types and numbers of Hangul hakgyo in Ontario: one established by the

Ministry of Education, and the other by religious organizations, which is the case of Grace

Hangul hakgyo. Currently, more schools are church-based, and the Hangul hakgyo teachers in

the Korean community of Ontario are voicing the need for more students in the school-based

Hangul hakgyo, where teachers get paid by the Ministry of Education. Along with the help of the

Korean government, Hangul hakgyo associations in Canada (The Canadian Association of

Korean Schools and its three regional associations) carry out various events to boost students’

motivation for Korean language learning, and the conferences that they host offer opportunities

for Hangul hakgyo teachers to connect with each other and to learn from experts in various

fields, helping them to enhance their teaching practices as Hangul hakgyo teachers.

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Now, I would like to end this part with an excerpt from a news interview with the president of

the Overseas Koreans Foundation, Cho Kyu Hyung, when he was asked about the role of

overseas Koreans and of the OKF (KimGiJa News, 2015b):

In this global age, the role of overseas Koreans is increasing… As the

economic power of overseas Koreans grows, the national income and

expenditure, joint ventures, and youth employment of Korea have been

rising… OKF offers infrastructure for the effective activities of overseas

Koreans. It is our role to make a foundation that benefits both home

country and overseas Koreans. (my translation)

The connection and collaboration between the home country and overseas Koreans is crucial in

developing and increasing economic power in this ‘win-win’ goal. Then, the Korean

government’s aim to build global competency through ethno-nationalism is best represented

through OKF and their support of overseas Koreans, especially through Hangul hakgyo. The

interview excerpt I presented above is, thereafter, the reflection of the intimate relationship

between Korean ethno-nationalism and globalization, the major theme of this section.

Part Two Grace Church: Bilingualism in the

Multigenerational Korean Ethnic Church

4.6 Introduction

예수님은 배상을 요구하지 않으셨습니다. 거룩한 희생은 배상을

요구하지 않습니다. It’s not demanding something in return … 그러나

반대로 이 세상에서 말하는 희생은 무언가 내가 값을 치르고 희생을

하면 보상을 받아야 하는 give and take 를 기초로 시작하고 있다는

거예요: 내가 이만큼 했으니까 당신도 나에게 줘야된다. 그러다

보니까 부부관계에서도 처음엔 sacrifice 하다가도 compensation 이

돌아오지 않으면 사랑하던 사람이 왠수가 될때도 있습니다 …

기독교의 희생은 사랑의 충만함 가운데서 이루어지는 희생이에요

… 여러분 우리가 부부생활을 하면서도요. 사랑으로 충만하잖아요.

비젼으로 충만하잖아요. 그러면 나의 부인을 위해서, 나의 남편을

위해서 희생하는 것이요, 아깝지가 않아요. 그런데 그 사랑이

메마르니까 bankruptcy 가 되니까 내가하고 있는 이 희생이 억울하고

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아까운거에요 … 저는 모든 성도님들이 하나님께서 주시는 그

부르심 가운데 감당하는 희생을 특권이라고 생각하고 privilege 로

생각하고 응답할 수 있기를 간절히 소원합니다. (Senior Pastor’s

sermon, original transcript)

Jesus did not demand compensation. A holy sacrifice does not demand

compensation. It’s not demanding something in return … However, a

worldly sacrifice is based on the principle of give and take: I did this

much, so you should give me this much. Consequently, even in our

spousal relationship, we first sacrifice, and then, if there is no

compensation, the person I love can become my enemy… Sacrifices in

Christianity take place when there is an abundance of love. Everyone, if

our family life is filled with love and filled with vision, then we don’t

feel it is a waste to sacrifice for my wife or my husband. But because we

lack love—because we go bankrupt, we feel that it is unfair and that it is

a waste to sacrifice … I hope all of you can consider the sacrifices that

we make while fulfilling God’s calling as privileges and respond to them.

(my translation)

This is part of the sermon that Pastor Choi, the senior pastor of Grace Church, preached in

Korean Ministry. As a 1.5 generation immigrant, generally meaning that he immigrated with his

parents as a child, Pastor Choi is proficient in both the Korean and English languages and

delivers messages in both Korean and English ministries. As we see in the excerpt above, Pastor

Choi, while delivering his sermon in Korean Ministry, often uses English. In this part, I uncover

how the languages of the heritage and host country, Korean and English, are positioned within

this multigenerational immigrant church. Also, the ways in which teachers and parents in Grace

Hangul hakgyo support the language and literacy learning of Korean-Canadian children are

presented.

4.7 Adult Ministries: The Co-Existence of Parallel

Monolingualism and Translanguaging

Grace Church, established in the 1980s, hosts multigenerational congregants. Their two

ministries, Korean Ministry (KM) and English Ministry (EM), characterize congregants by their

preferred language. The KM congregants are mostly first generation immigrants, meaning that

they themselves immigrated to Canada as adults. Many elders in KM came to Canada in the

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1970s and 1980s, and became small business owners (e.g. restaurants, sandwich shops,

convenience stores, dry cleaners) while finding their home here. A few elders told me that when

they immigrated in the 1970s, they all came with little money and had to work really hard to

make a living. In KM, there are also 1.5 generation immigrants who came to Canada as children,

but whose Korean is stronger than their English. In addition, KM has many newcomers who are

trying to establish their lives here in this host country.

In EM, although there is recent growth in the number of non-Korean congregants, the

congregants are predominantly Koreans who are second generation immigrants. Within the

church community, the term ‘second generation’ generally refers to the people who were born in

Canada. EM also has some 1.5 generation congregants whose English is stronger than their

Korean. Due to this generational difference, the EM congregants are much younger than the ones

in KM and the congregation is much smaller than the KM one, which reflects the relatively short

immigration history of Korean immigrants in Canada.

Most congregants in both KM and EM meet their cell groups regularly, and many attend weekly

Bible studies, prayer meetings or choir practices depending on how much they are involved in

church activities and events. During these get-togethers, congregants share information on

various topics, such as housing, the job market, and education. Especially, newcomers and young

couples look up to elders who have already established successful lives here and often seek

information and advice from them. For instance, when asked the reason for sending her child to

Hangul hakgyo, one of the parents I interviewed said, “Even if we feel children do not seem to

learn anything at Hangul hakgyo, I was told [by older church members] that it is still better to

send them because they are exposed to Korean naturally. Their learning might not be that visible,

but it still helps them in some way.”

Approximately ten pastors serve KM, while there are about five pastors in EM. The KM pastors

are first generation or 1.5 generation immigrants, and the EM pastors are 1.5 generation or

second generation immigrants. Whereas first generation pastors always serve KM and second

generation pastors mostly serve EM, many 1.5 generation pastors serve both KM and EM, owing

to their bilingual competency. Grace Church publishes daily devotions monthly for congregants,

and the booklet has Bible verses and reflective questions in both Korean and English.

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Thus, the congregation of Grace Church is the combination of first, 1.5, and second generation

immigrants. Two ministries, KM and EM, accommodate different language users of Korean

immigrants; however, at the same time, they divide the congregants into two under the same

roof, at least during their official times of service. Besides, KM and EM could become identity

markers of congregants, such as first or second generation Korean-Canadians. Although it is rare,

for some, Grace Church is the place for three generations of families. For example, elderly

parents attend KM ministry and their grown-up children attend EM ministry, while their

youngsters are in children’s ministry. It is expected that the KM service will be delivered in the

Korean language and the EM service in the English language. Thus, language separation is a

norm in the official domains of the adult ministries; however, as seen in the excerpt in the

introduction of this chapter, 1.5 generation pastors tend to utilize some English while delivering

sermons predominantly in Korean.

Throughout the year, there were a few occasions when EM and KM were gathered together, such

as Christmas and Easter Day. During those joint services, a worship team was formed from both

KM and EM, and they sung together while providing the congregation with Korean and English

lyrics on the screen. Bible passages were read in both languages and prayers were said

bilingually. Bilingual sermons were delivered by a 1.5 generation pastor, and although there was

less sermon content than in monolingual services, the length of the whole service was generally

longer because many things were said two times, once in each language.

Furthermore, when congregants mingled after church for fellowship on Sunday or met

sometimes while waiting for their children to finish leadership programs on a weekday, they did

not always use one language. For example, when I was invited to a cell meeting in which there

were young couples, who were the mixture of first and second generation immigrants, the cell

leaders, who were KM attendees, handed out copies of praise songs in both Korean and English.

They all sang together, trying to employ all the linguistic resources they had. Since most of the

cell members were first generation immigrants, communication took place predominantly in

Korean. However, in order to accommodate the few second generation immigrants who were

married to first generation immigrants, the cell members used some English from time to time.

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Another example is from the communication that I had with one of the 1.5 generation pastors.

When I was at church to pick up my son from the leadership meeting one evening, I met Pastor

Kim, who was also there to pick up his son, and had an unplanned talk with him. He told me that

he came to Canada when he was 13 years old and was now married to a 1.5 generation

immigrant. While I was talking with him, he switched between Korean and English, responding

to my talk in Korean and English. This was very different from what I observed when I joined

EM a few weeks prior to the time when this conversation took place. While delivering a sermon,

he spoke only English, most likely due to the fact that many EM attendees were English

monolinguals.

Subsequently, with respect to language use in adult ministries, I came to the conclusion that

although Grace Church’s two ministries are divided by language proficiencies and preferences in

the official domain, congregants are not separated by languages in the informal and social

spheres. Simply put, KM accommodates first generation Koreans whose first language is Korean,

and EM houses second generation Koreans whose home language is English. However, when

church members from KM and EM meet in the informal space, these linguistic boundaries

disappear as they seek to communicate with each other. In this section, I also talked about how

1.5 generation pastors’ bilingual competency allows them to work in both KM and EM, often

bringing congregations from KM and EM together. Now, I further explore the notion of 1.5

generation immigrants within this church.

4.8 Variations of the 1.5 Generation: Positioning their Linguistic

and Cultural Capital

Hello. My name is Mike. I came to Canada when I was in grade 11 and

finished high school and university here … I am not 1.5 but around 1.3

gen… Throughout the school year, I ask for your interest and prayers.

Thank you. (KakaoTalk message from a Sunday school teacher,

September 2016, my translation)

This was a message a Sunday school teacher at Grace Church sent out to the parents at the

beginning of the school year via KakaoTalk, a free mobile instant messaging application for

smartphones that many Koreans use. When I read this message, I wondered about the meaning of

1.3 generation: “What does Mike mean by this? Why does he have to say he is not 1.5, but 1.3?”

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According to the Grace Hangul hakgyo director, Da-Yoon Kim, who called herself a 1.5

generation immigrant, the term, 1.5 generation, referred to the people who immigrated with their

parents, and when people said 1.3, or 1.7 generation, it indicated their arrival times. For example,

if they came late as young adults, then they might identify themselves as 1.2 or 1.3, and if they

came early as young children, they might say they are 1.7 or 1.8 generation. This definition was

agreed on by Mike, a Sunday school teacher, who self-claimed to be 1.3 generation. He

elaborated even further:

We say 1.5 generation when they came with their parents. But 1.5

generation usually refers to the people who came when they were in

elementary or early middle school, those whose Korean and English are

not good. When these kids finish high school and start university, there is

a time when they are not good at either language. When I say I am 1.3, I

mean I am good at Korean. I cannot say I am 1.5 [because I am good at

Korean]. I also cannot say I am first generation because I came with my

parents. I came when I was in grade 11 so my Korean is way better than

someone who came when they were in elementary or middle school. (my

translation)

According to his definition, 1.5 generation referred to individuals who came with parents during

elementary or middle school and had not fully developed Korean or English because of the time

when they arrived in the host country. They did not belong to the first generation, who are native

Korean speakers, or the second generation, who were born in Canada and who have good

English, Mike stressed. They did not belong to any of these categories. So, when he said he was

a 1.3 generation immigrant, it carried a few meanings. Firstly, he was not a first generation

immigrant because he came with his parents; secondly, he was not part of the second generation

because he was not born in Canada; thirdly, he did not identify with the 1.5 generation, whose

language competency had not fully developed. In other words, he was disassociating himself

from the 1.5 generation, who are not fully fluent in Korean, wanting to identify himself as an

individual who developed the Korean language much closer to that of native Korean speakers

(first generation).

The notion of the 1.5 generation was further expanded when I talked with Paul and David,

university students, who attend Grace Church:

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Rather than the time they arrived, I think it is more associated with

culture, the level of culture they are associated with. For example, like

Korean food, if that is the only thing in the culture they associate

themselves with, they don’t speak the language or anything, so, instead of

just saying, “I am a second generation Korean” they may say “I like

Korean food, so I can’t really say I am completely white-washed”, which

is the second generation. “But I can say that I am … 1.8 or 1.7.” (original

transcript)

According to Paul, who came to Canada when he was one year old, the term 1.5 generation was

closely associated with the level of culture that individuals identified themselves with. David, a

second-year university student, who came to Canada when he was 5 years old, also shared

similar ideas about this term. David mentioned, among his Korean-Canadian friends, the term 1.5

generation not only referred to the time of arrival in the host country, but also concerned how

close they felt to the cultures of Korea or of the host country. He continued:

One might have immigrated to Canada when he was five and identifies

himself as 1.7 or 1.8 even, but the other who was born in Canada but who

has a very close affinity or affiliation to the Korean language and culture

might identify himself as 1.2. For example, someone might say, “I was

born in Canada, but I am more like 1.2 gen,” meaning that although I was

born in Canada, I am almost like first generation who came as a young

adult. (original transcript)

Hence, among Korean-Canadian young adults, the notion of the 1.5 generation is frequently used

when describing themselves in relation to their proximity to the culture and language of Korea or

Canada. In other words, these young adults use the term 1.5 generation in a way that is different

from the ones used by 1.5 generation adults such as Da-Yoon Kim and Mike. While arrival time

and language level are the major determinants in deciding what constitutes the 1.5 generation for

these adults, ‘how they feel about who they are’ is the biggest consideration for these young

adults.

Regardless of how the term, 1.5 generation, is defined or used within Grace Church, 1.5

generation Korean immigrants are mostly bilingual and bicultural, and the important role of the

1.5 generation in teaching the Korean language was noted by the Grace Hangul hakgyo director.

Mrs. Kim mentioned that she tries to encourage 1.5 generation church members to volunteer at

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Hangul hakgyo since they understand students better, as they also went through similar school

experiences here in Canada in terms of cultural and linguistic adaptation. According to Mrs.

Kim, rather than reinforcing the Korean traditional way of teaching and learning, these 1.5

generation teachers used both Korean and English while teaching, along with the cultural

knowledge of Korea and Canada.

So far, I have presented how the term, 1.5 generation, is used within this multigenerational ethnic

church, in which the notions of language and immigrant generation are closely intertwined.

Then, how about children’s ministries at Grace Church? How about Grace Hangul hakgyo,

which is part of children’s ministries? How are the Korean and English languages positioned

within children’s ministries? How do different generations of teachers and parents support the

language and literacy learning of Korean-Canadian children?

4.9 Children’s KM Ministry: De Facto Bilingual and Bicultural Program

Like adult ministries, children’s ministries also have KM and EM, and KM is much larger than

EM. In children’s ministries, while EM service is delivered only in English and accommodates

both Korean and non-Korean children, KM is a de facto bilingual program, which has only

Korean children. Pastor Anna, the Sunday school pastor, mentioned that children’s KM at Grace

Church was a unique program, calling it a ‘bicultural ministry’: “We don’t call it bilingual

ministry. We call it bicultural ministry … We don’t want the focus to be language. We want

people to understand we are focusing more on the culture of the children.” An example of the

ministry’s emphasis on culture was found in their collaboration with the Korean-Canadian

Children’s Adoptees Association (KCAA). Pastor Anna explained:

We invited them to the church, and 구정 행사를 해줬었죠 [we held

Lunar New Year’s Day events]. So, there are kids who are adopted into

White, Caucasian families, but they’re of Korean descent ethnically. But

parents are very concerned about … maintaining their heritage, so what

we did was we did 구정 행사 [Lunar New Year’s Day events], so we

would feed them all 구정 음식 [Lunar New Year’s Day food], 떡국 [rice

cake soup], or just Korean buffet style, and then we did all the Korean

traditional things. So 윷놀이 [Yut-nori], 서예 [calligraphy], we taught

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them what 서예 [calligraphy] was, that’s when I learned what 서예

[calligraphy] was, too. We did like 연날리기 [kite flying], traditional

Korean dancing, 한복 [Hanbok] fashion show for them, 북치는 거

[drumming], like all of these things, so all of the aspects of Korean

culture and tradition. (original transcript)

Pastor Anna also stressed the importance of culture in the identity formation of Korean-Canadian

children:

We talk about identity in God first. Why did God create you, and how did

God create you, and taking pride in understanding that God doesn’t make

mistakes. So that’s our foundation, and so what we do is we try to create

a lot of times where they can see who they are. But my ultimate hope is

that when we can take a trip to Korea, we do 성지순례 [pilgrimage] in

Korea. So, when people do Israel 성지순례, it resonates in terms of my

faith experience, but it doesn’t resonate in terms of cultural experience…I

mean, Israel does it all the time. They have different age categories, they

do 성지순례 for 유대인 [Jews] there. And it’s amazing and so my

friend, she’s Jewish, and she did it with a whole bunch of women her age

group, like in their late 30’s, and she said it was incredible. Incredible,

your identity, and finding who you are, your culture, and I’d love to do

that for kids going back to Korea. “This is who you are! This is how we

became! This is Korean history!” (original transcript)

For Pastor Anna, knowing the culture of origin was crucial for knowing who we are, and thus,

the ministry was helping Korean-Canadian children to learn their roots.

While the ministry’s focus is on culture rather than language, according to Pastor Anna, her

sermon is comprised of about 60 percent English and 40 percent Korean. As shown in the

interview excerpt above, Pastor Anna uses both Korean and English comfortably. All the

children are together when Pastor Anna delivers a sermon and after the sermon, they go to Bible

studies, which are divided by grade and by language. Each grade has two or three classes

depending on the number of students in the same grade, and Sunday school teachers are the

combination of first, 1.5, and second generation immigrants, which dictates the groups of

students they teach. Teachers of 1.5 or second generation background teach primarily in English,

and teachers of first generation background teach mainly in Korean.

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Aside from joining Sunday school, children at Grace Church have leadership programs on a

weekday and some children have choir or praise team practices weekly. They also join their

parents’ cell meetings, which often become their place of socialization with other children in the

cell group. For instance, one of the church members told me that her cell group played Yut-

nori—a Korean traditional board game that Koreans play on New Year’s Day—when they were

all together to celebrate the holiday at one of the cell members’ house. All children, mostly of the

second generation, were also invited to join the game and adults explained how to play that

game. Moreover, at church, children are expected to show respect whenever they meet elders,

teachers, or pastors they are acquainted with by bowing down and saying annyeonghaseyo (hello

in Korean in a polite way). In relation, Mrs. Jeong, a parent and Hangul hakgyo teacher,

affirmed:

Inside the church, I think it’s important to give compliments to kids…

you know teaching them to say annyeonghaseyo and when they actually

say annyeonghaseyo. It would be great if we teach them to speak Korean

to the elderly. Then, the elderly say, “Wow. You speak Korean really

well!” If they keep hearing these compliments, they will think, “Speaking

Korean is a good thing!” (my translation)

Consequently, children at Grace Church are naturally exposed to Korean language and culture,

and the boundaries of languages in children’s ministry are not always clear, even in the official

domain. In other words, for these children, Grace Church is the venue in which they inherently

have contact with both the languages and cultures of their heritage and current home country via

various formal and informal gatherings, helping them to develop bilingual and bicultural

competence.

4.10 Grace Hangul Hakgyo: A Hub for Heritage Language and Culture Learning

Grace Hangul hakgyo was created in the same year that Grace Church was established in the

1980s. According to Pastor Anna, the school used to run on Saturdays for 3 hours (1.5 hours of

Korean, and 1.5 hours of other activities, such as taekwondo and art classes) and teachers were

paid with parent fees. However, in 2011, the school became a Sunday one-hour program, as the

church wanted to make it more accessible to parents, who could not pay the high fee. Now, the

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program is run by volunteers and at the beginning of the school year, there is only a small fee

that covers school bags and materials. The Grace Hangul hakgyo director, Da-Yoon Kim, told

me that as a recruiting strategy, she asks parents if they would be interested in helping out and if

they are, she exempts the fees for the children of those volunteering teachers. For the 2016-2017

school year, among the total number of five teachers, four teachers were parent volunteers whose

children were in the Hangul hakgyo. Also, four teachers were first generation immigrants and

one teacher was a 1.5 generation immigrant. Each class had two grades, and each teacher was

assigned to teach one of the classes.

4.10.1 Hangul Hakgyo Meetings: Seeking Effective Teaching in the Midst

of Challenges

Throughout the school year, there were four teachers’ meetings at Grace Hangul hakgyo: Two

meetings were primarily to share information and address concerns from teaching, and two other

meetings were to prepare activities for the Lunar New Year’s Day event that the school was

hosting in late January.

During the first meeting that took place only a few weeks after the school started, the biggest

subject of discussion was about how to better support students’ learning when there was a wide

range of proficiency levels both in Korean and English in the same class. Although the majority

of students were 1.5 generation or second generation immigrants who were on different points of

the bilingual continuum, there were third generation students whose home language was English,

and there were also newcomers who recently began learning English. Mrs. Song, the teacher of

the grade 1 and 2 class, shared a concern about her students’ various language levels:

Last year, we divided our class into two, like 50/50, one for students who

are good and the other for those who are not good at Korean. This year,

they are all together in the same class and I am worried that they might

lose interest [in learning Korean]. (my translation)

When there were more volunteering teachers, like there was in the previous year, the same class

could have been taught by more than one teacher, better accommodating students’ proficiency

levels. However, recruiting a good number of teachers is not always easy, the school director,

Mrs. Kim said. Thus, having students with a wide range of proficiency levels in the same class

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was a reality for all the classes at this school. According to Mrs. Kim, this issue came up every

year and she had been trying to come up with a strategy to help students better. In the past, Mrs.

Kim once grouped students by proficiency levels instead of by grade, hoping that it would boost

students’ learning; however, she learned that students did not like mixed-age classes. Students

did not like to work with younger or older learners, feeling uncomfortable, although they did not

seem to mind working with learners who were one year older or younger. In relation, Mr. Park,

the focus class teacher, questioned, “If they study with students who are in lower grades,

wouldn’t it affect their self-esteem?”

Having learned that mixed-age classes were not welcomed by students and that recruiting

teachers was challenging, Mrs. Kim came up with a new strategy. She invited high school

students whose Korean was proficient to the school as teaching assistants (TAs) and gave them

the volunteering hours they needed as part of the high school requirement. Now, this system has

been established and this year, one or two TAs were assigned to help out in each class. These

TAs usually help students whose Korean level is distinctively different from the rest of the

group. They individually or in a small group work with those students using different levels of

workbooks, while teachers speak to the whole class.

Currently, there are no curriculum guidelines for students at this school. The school is equipped

with numerous books donated by parents and textbooks sponsored by the Korean government.

The school also has other classroom resources, such as flashcards for words and phrases, Korean

alphabet charts, stamps, puzzles, and maps. Each year, the Overseas Koreans Foundation (OKF)

sends the school a reminder about the textbook order by email, and Mrs. Kim makes an order

online: the number, kind, and level of workbooks the school needs during that school year. The

school can also order classroom materials that are related to Korean culture, such as Korean

traditional musical instruments, calligraphy, and Yut-nori (board game). Then, the school picks

up the workbooks and materials they ordered from the Korean Education Centre in Canada

(KEC), located in the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Toronto. Teachers choose

their own workbooks in accordance with the proficiency level of students and their preference.

Since there is no consensus as for teachers’ textbook uses by grade, age or any other appropriate

category, it is difficult for teachers to know what students learned in the previous year. In

relation, Mrs. Jeong, the teacher of the kindergarten class, said, “It is difficult because I don’t

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even know how far I should cover this year.” Mrs. Hwang, who taught grade 5 and 6 students,

added, “It would be great to have guidelines that tell us what contents should be covered in each

grade. Then, we would know how much we should cover.”

As a means to communicate with teachers, Mrs. Kim created a group chat room with KakaoTalk

at the beginning of the school year and used it from time to time to deliver important messages

about school schedules or special events. Mrs. Kim also shared many useful websites for

teaching Korean, so teachers could get ideas from them and use them as resources. Since

teachers at this school were all volunteers, Mrs. Kim said that she could not ask them to do much

work; thus, she tried to help them out as much as possible by doing small things, such as

sharpening pencils, making photocopies, laminating word cards, and getting materials ready for

classes when there was a request from a teacher. For a few occasions throughout the school year,

such as New Year’s Day, March 1st Movement Day (Samil Independence Movement Day),

Hangul Day, and Children’s Day, Mrs. Kim prepared worksheets and/or audio-visual aids for all

classes as a way to enhance students’ learning about Korean history and culture.

During meetings, teachers gathered their ideas for special events, such as Christmas Day or New

Year’s Day. This year, the teachers planned to prepare for and present a play called ‘A Dream of

Seeds’ for the Christmas service, but they did not get to participate in the event due to the very

limited time allotted to children’s ministry. For the Lunar New Year’s Day event, teachers

planned various Korean traditional activities that students could enjoy, which included making

kites, trying on Hanbok (Korean traditional clothes), making and playing Ddakji (pasteboard

dump), making and playing Jae-ki (shuttlecock kicking), and playing Yut-nori (a type of board

game). On the day of the event, each classroom was set up to implement one of these activities

and students were encouraged to stop by all the classrooms and try more than three activities.

When students completed each activity, they received a stamp from the assigned teacher on a

sheet of paper, and when they obtained more than three stamps, they were given prizes, which

were goody bags and fancy mechanical pencils. Figure 6 illustrates some of the activities that

took place at the Lunar New Year’s Day event.

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Figure 6 Pictures from the Lunar New Year’s Day Event

Left: A student trying on Hanbok. Top right: A classroom set up for Yut-nori. Bottom right: Students making Ddakji.

Thus, for Grace Hangul hakgyo, teachers’ meetings are the space in which the director and

teachers meet to share information and concerns, and plan activities for events. Due to the nature

of this school setting, which is volunteer-based, the school cannot expect to recruit teachers who

have qualifications in teaching, more specifically in language education. Besides, there are no

curriculum guidelines that teachers can use, so all the aspects of teaching are entirely dependent

on the teachers. Hence, it is difficult to establish consistency in terms of what to teach and with

what specific curricular goals to enrich the learning outcome of students in each grade.

Consequently, there is no wonder why I often heard this from students who had been attending

the Hangul hakgyo for several years: “We are doing the same thing every year. We do ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ

(Korean alphabet) all the time.”

In the midst of these challenges in operating Hangul hakgyo effectively, the director and teachers

at Grace Hangul hakgyo made every effort to help students learn the language, culture, and

history of Korea. From attending these meetings, I heard their frustration and feelings of

inadequacy as teachers, but at the same time, I heard their passion and eagerness to help children

learn about their linguistic and cultural roots. As Mrs. Song put it, “Although there is only one

hour a week, this makes a difference. They even use the expression, 원숭이 엉덩이는 빨개

(wonsung-i eongdeong-ineun ppalgae, Monkeys’ bottoms are red)!”

Now, I present a brief summary of the teachers’ immigration and linguistic backgrounds before

introducing the strategies they use to support the language and literacy learning of Korean-

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Canadian children in this school. The details of the focus teacher, Min Sung Park, are excluded

in this section as they are presented in Part 3 of this chapter.

4.10.2 Hangul Hakgyo Teachers: Immigration and Linguistic Trajectories

Hani Jeong taught junior and senior kindergarten. Mrs. Jeong started teaching because of the

request from the Hangul hakgyo director; this was her first time teaching at Hangul hakgyo.

Following her family’s decision, Mrs. Jeong came to Canada in her early 20s. Mrs. Jeong stated

that at the time, she did not want to live in Canada, but now as a mother of two young children,

she was grateful that she lived in Canada, considering the education that children received in

Korea. She said that being in the Korean education system was very stressful, as it largely

promoted rote memorization rather than creative thinking or reasoning. She also mentioned that

acquiring English was critical nowadays, even in Korea. From her recent visit to Korea after

having lived in Canada for almost two decades, she learned something new:

“In Korea, if you speak English, you don’t have to worry about feeding

yourself. Wherever you go, you hear English announcements along with

Korean ones, like at subway stations and department stores. There is a

tremendous demand [for learning English]. People spend tons of money

to learn English within and outside Korea. They go to private academy in

Korea and go to English-speaking countries to learn English.” (my

translation)

Mrs. Jeong completed her undergraduate studies in Canada but never liked English and did not

feel she was good at English. She was able to listen to lectures, read articles, and write papers.

She mentioned that she had a fear of using English with other fellow Koreans because of her

incorrect English. Thus, she uses Korean only, except when she is with children and they do not

understand what she is saying in Korean.

Yu Rim Song was the teacher of the grade 1 and 2 class. Mrs. Song is a 1.5 generation immigrant

who came to Montreal at the age of 14. Her father was a veterinarian in Korea and had strong

aspirations toward his children’s education. He chose to immigrate to Montreal, hoping that his

children could learn both English and French there. She went to a FSL (French as a Second

Language) school for a year, and then her parents put her in a boarding school, so she could be

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fully immersed in the French environment. According to her parents, she could learn French best

that way, Mrs. Song stated. She shared how hard it was to study various subjects in French when

she still had to learn the language. She revealed that she cried every night and stayed up

overnight to catch up with her studies when everyone was sleeping. Now, Mrs. Song is a fluent

French speaker and has been teaching French both in the school setting and as a tutor for more

than 10 years in Montreal, the USA, and Toronto. Now that she lives in Toronto, she feels that

she needs to improve her English, she said. In order to improve her academic writing skills in

English, she is currently attending an English program at a local college. She is married to a 1.5

generation immigrant who is a Korean and English bilingual. Thus, at home, three languages are

spoken: Korean and English as primary languages, and French between mother and kids since

her children all attend francophone school.

The teacher of the grade 5 and 6 class was Joohee Hwang. Mrs. Hwang is the mother of Soobin,

one of the focus class students. Mrs. Hwang came to Canada in 2008 owing to her husband’s

desire for their children’s ‘global competency.’ They initially landed in Vancouver but moved to

Toronto recently, noting the fact that many prestigious universities are here in Ontario or nearby

areas. As a first generation immigrant, Mrs. Hwang is an English learner attending the LINC

(Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada) program, and she has been actively teaching at

Hangul hakgyo since the family lived in Vancouver.

Lastly, Jung Mi Lee taught grade 7 and 8 students. Mrs. Lee came to Canada in 2002, when her

first child was about 6 months old. Her husband completed his doctoral studies in theology and

has been working as a pastor at one of the Korean churches in Toronto. Mrs. Lee is a paid staff at

Grace Church and helps out with the children’s ministry. Upon receiving a request from the

Hangul hakgyo director, she started volunteering. As a mother of two teenaged boys, Mrs. Lee

articulated the importance of learning Korean for Korean-Canadian children:

What I was worried about the most was … I read an article that said

Korean youth are having great difficulty due to the communication gap

with their parents. They can only express themselves in English and their

parents cannot understand their English. So, they find their friends as a

source for counseling. But they don’t really get help from them because

they are just kids, too… That’s why I wanted to teach my kids Korean

really well. (my translation)

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Despite her commitment to teaching Korean to her children, her children have been using more

and more English at home, Mrs. Lee said. Now, the language pattern within her family is that

Mrs. Lee speaks Korean to her children, and her children answer back in English. When her

children require in-depth conversation, they speak with their father, as he can understand and

communicate in English.

4.10.3 Hangul Hakgyo Teachers: Helping Students to Build Korean

Linguistic and Cultural Capital

As described above, all the teachers except Mrs. Song were first generation immigrants.

Therefore, although their proficiency levels in English might have varied as English learners, the

primary language of Mrs. Jeong, Mrs. Hwang, and Mrs. Lee in class was Korean. For Mrs. Song,

although her most comfortable languages were Korean and French, she used Korean and English

in class. According to her, it just came out without any planning or thinking. She does the same

at home with her Korean-English bilingual husband. In other words, for Mrs. Song,

translanguaging is the norm for her language use. She switches languages in accordance with the

languages of her interactants.

The strategies that the teachers utilize to support the language and literacy learning of Korean-

Canadian children varied. Here are some themes that emerged from the interviews with the four

teachers.

4.10.3.1 Boosting Motivation to Learn

I think it’s important to teach students why they have to learn Korean

first. In order to do that, they need to build pride as Koreans. The reason

why even second generation parents want to teach Korean to their

children is that the status of Korea at the international level is way better

now than before. Koreans who immigrated early left Korea when the

country was poor, so they used to say to their kids, “You don’t have to

speak Korean. Speak English only.” Now, kids need to be motivated to

think, “Korea? I want to learn Korean!” … rather than saying, “I hate

learning Korean. Why should I learn it?” (my translation)

Mrs. Jeong underscored the importance of boosting motivation to learn Korean as one of her

goals as a heritage language teacher. In the same vein, Mrs. Lee said:

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I want to help students to think, ‘learning Korean is fun.’ I had a big fight

with my own kids because they hated it [going to Hangul hakgyo]. If they

hate it, they can’t learn it… So, my goal is to help students to enjoy

learning Korean. (my translation)

According to these teachers, many Korean-Canadian children found that learning Korean was

boring and not enjoyable. Thus, their primary teaching goal was to help children to enjoy

learning the language. In order to enhance students’ motivation, Mrs. Lee first asked her students

if they came to class because they wanted to. There was no one, she learned. Next, she asked the

students how they could learn Korean in a fun way. Then, the students told her that they wanted

games. Additionally, in order to learn where students were in terms of language levels, she spent

the first few weeks to determine the level of each student, trying different textbooks. After she

learned about their language levels, she separated the class in two, and assigned a TA who was

very good at Korean to teach the small number of advanced level students. Now, while teaching

the large number of lower level students, Mrs. Lee often creates games that students can play:

I use the textbook in a slightly different way. For example, if we are

learning days of the week in the textbook, I get them to memorize them.

They don’t even know days of the week. Then, if I say, Sunday in

English, they have to say it in Korean. If they get it right, then I give

them stickers. They are in grade 7 and 8 but they love it … I don’t know

if this is a good thing or not but when I see my kids, they love Tim

Hortons for like smoothies or hot chocolate … So, I told them I would

give them Tim Hortons cards when they collect a certain number of

stickers. (my translation)

Mrs. Lee made an effort to be responsive to her students’ wants in language learning by playing

games in class, and one of her strategies to increase students’ motivation to learn was to adopt a

reward system. She was uncertain if that was a good approach or not. As a way to boost

motivation to learn the language of their origin, for Mrs. Hwang, in particular, teaching culture

using traditional mediums was crucial.

4.10.3.2 Language Teaching and Learning via Cultural Mediums

I want to teach culture and that is the first [goal]. Then, I want to help

them to cultivate pride as Koreans. In order to do that, I want to help

them to read and speak naturally. (my translation)

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Mrs. Hwang, who used to teach an art class at a Hangul hakgyo in Vancouver and who also

volunteered to assist at a school-based Hangul hakgyo in the GTA, shared a wide range of

pedagogical approaches that she had been using. Mrs. Hwang taught old proverbs, songs, and

calligraphy as a way to teach the language and culture of Korea. Mrs. Hwang talked about her

experience with students she taught in Vancouver:

That school was the largest Korean school in Vancouver, which had

about 200 students. Because I was mainly teaching art, I did art for the

first hour. For the first month, I did calligraphy with them and they really

liked it… Because of the proficiency level differences in the same class

… I taught old proverbs and songs after working on the textbook. I taught

the ones that I would have wanted my daughter to learn, like ‘The habit

you developed at the age of three lasts till you are eighty (What's learned

in the cradle is carried to the grave)’ … ‘Do not wave after the bus leaves

(A day after the fair).’ They told me there are similar ones in English,

too. They liked it a lot… When teaching a song, I let them hear the song

first and then get them to sing along and I explain [what that means]. If I

teach a New Year’s Day song like ‘Magpie, Magpie, New Year’s Day,’

then, I would not explain what hosa (호사) means because the word is

barely used, but I would explain what eoje (어제) means as we frequently

use it. At first, they don’t seem to learn very well, but later, I see them

singing among themselves. (my translation)

Mrs. Hwang gave further examples of teaching language via culture. She mentioned that on

Korean holidays, such as New Year’s Day and Thanksgiving Day, her art projects were always

related to Korea. According to her, this was the best way for Korean-Canadian children to

experience Korean culture. Mrs. Hwang’s examples of using culture while teaching the Korean

language are illustrated in Figure 7.

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Figure 7 Art Displays of Mrs. Hwang’s Class at the Vancouver Korean School Art Exhibition Left: Korean calligraphy, 붓글씨. Right: The Colours of Korea, 색동.

As a specific example of teaching language through a cultural medium, Mrs. Hwang shared a

lesson that she observed from the teacher she assisted at a school-based program:

She also does culture-focused teaching. What I remember the most is a

lesson on how to make tteokbokki (a spicy Korean dish made of rice

cake). She first showed how to make it through a YouTube video, the one

explained in English. Then, she gave cooking instructions in Korean…

she taught words, ingredients like onions and rice cake. (my translation)

In relation to the use of YouTube videos as a way to teach culture and language, Mrs. Hwang

underscored:

It seems to be [mass] media nowadays… I first taught songs, proverbs …

but now I feel like it falls a bit behind. So, it would be great to use [mass]

media to teach these things. [It would be effective because] students can

see and listen at the same time, and it is fun. (my translation)

Mrs. Jeong was another teacher who mentioned the use of mass media as an effective way to

support children’s learning. She brought her own tablet to show students a Korean educational

program about three minutes each week:

There is a program called ‘Pororo Sound Wallpaper.’ They say ㄱ, then

there is a song that tells words that start with the alphabet ㄱ. They do it

all the way to 아, 야, 어, 여. I am trying to show this program every

week because … kids have photographic memory.

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According to Mrs. Jeong, who taught junior and senior kindergarteners, using the media as a

visual aid boosted children’s interest, and it had potential for them to remember the alphabet

better, owing to their visual memory. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Hwang and Mrs. Jeong both told

me that they, as mothers themselves, used Korean TV programs, such as variety shows or

dramas, as tools for their own children’s Korean learning at home. Mrs. Hwang highlighted:

In our cell group, there is a senior couple who immigrated when their

kids were very young … Now, they are in their 20s, but their Korean is

so good. So, I asked them. Then, [they said] their parents love TV so

much, so they used to watch it together. They are now all grown-ups, but

they know Korean dramas or singers better than I do… Then, one day, I

went to a hair salon and the hair stylist’s kids spoke Korean so well, so I

asked. Then, it is TV again! … So, we started watching dramas, too.

‘Reply 1988’ was the first drama we watched… It is a story about the

Ssangmun neighbourhood in the 1970s. So, while watching, I told my

kids, ‘that is your mom’s neighbourhood [from childhood].’ We watched

all the episodes last year. (my translation)

For Mrs. Jeong, it was a variety show that her children loved to watch.

My kids love watching ‘Running Man.’ I turned it on to watch but then,

my kids loved it so much and now, they keep asking me to turn it on.

While watching, they ask me, “What does that mean, mom?” For my

older son, he seems to get it …because he talks about it later on. (my

translation)

Participating teachers’ pedagogical approaches involved the use of cultural mediums. Mrs.

Hwang utilized a wide range of cultural artifacts, including Korean proverbs, songs, art, cooking

and mass media, and Mrs. Jeong found the use of Korean educational media effective in teaching

the alphabet in her kindergarten class. Also, both Mrs. Hwang and Mrs. Jeong used TV programs

for their own children’s Korean learning at home.

4.10.3.3 Writing-Focused Instruction for Lower Grades and Speaking-

Focused Instruction for Upper Grades

The language skills that the teachers emphasize varied by the ages of the students. The teachers

of lower grades tended to focus on writing, and the teachers of upper grades were inclined to

focus on speaking. While Mrs. Jeong and Mrs. Song stressed the significance of writing in their

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teaching goals, Mrs. Hwang and Mrs. Lee underlined the importance of speaking. Again, since

there were no curriculum guidelines at school, each teacher had full autonomy in designing the

curriculum.

Mrs. Jeong shared her specific curricular goal for her class: “For kindergarten, till the end of the

school year, [helping students] to learn the alphabet and then to write their own names accurately

is my goal.” Similarly, Mrs. Song asserted:

I am now teaching grade 1 and 2 students. The interesting phenomenon is

that [the immigration generations of] mothers are different. Most students

in my class are second generation Koreans from first generation mothers.

Students whose parents are 1.5 or second generation are a different case.

Second generation kids whose parents are first generation immigrants

understand Korean because they hear it from their parents. And they can

read but can’t write… If I do dictation, they get confused. They can’t

connect the two. Last week, they had a vocabulary test and they didn’t do

well… So, what I did next was that I showed pictures, and then, told

them to write words. Some kids wrote but spelled incorrectly. The

following week, I wrote ten words on the board from the pictures in the

textbook, like rabbit, camera for dictation. Then, they were going, “where

is rabbit?” while looking for words. So, my goal is [to help students] to

connect reading and writing. (my translation)

Thus, for Mrs. Jeong and Mrs. Song, helping students to read and write the alphabet and/or

words seemed to be a priority. In order to support students’ reading and writing, both Mrs. Jeong

and Mrs. Song created classroom materials. Mrs. Jeong made magnetic alphabet letters by

putting little pieces of magnets behind laminated alphabet letters as a way to encourage students

to identify letters and place them on the board. Likewise, Mrs. Song used laminated alphabet

letters for her students’ alphabet recognition and word dictation:

I asked our director to type, print, and laminate alphabet letters, multiple

copies of them. It is like a puzzle. Kids love it. I can even do dictation

with this puzzle. First, I make teams because kids can get frustrated if

they do it individually. So, I make several teams, each team consisting of

a wide range of language levels, high, middle, and low. Then, I give out

alphabet pieces, and say a word. Then, it is a competition. Each team has

to say the word and make the word together. For instance, if I say, singer

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(가수), then they have to make the word, 가수. We start with simple

ones, and then do harder and harder ones, finally doing the words with

final consonants. (my translation)

In contrast, Mrs. Hwang and Mrs. Lee underlined the significance of speaking in younger

students’ Korean learning. Mrs. Hwang asserted:

Rather than writing, I think we should focus on speaking … because the

easiest way to approach others is through speaking. For me, too, I want to

learn to speak [English] first. When communicating, emailing or texting

is good for me because I am scared of speaking … For our kids, Korean

is like their second language. So, I thought I should help them to speak

first, because it is more practical. (my translation)

Mrs. Lee articulated her reasoning for speaking-focused teaching:

In our class, there are students who don’t even know ㄱ, ㄴ. The majority

of students read the alphabet with pauses. They find reading difficult but

speaking even more difficult. In the past, Hangul hakgyo used to focus on

writing only. They wanted to see the outcome, so they made students

write repeatedly. Because they only kept writing, they couldn’t even read.

So, I want to focus on speaking. The outcome of speaking is not really

visible, but I think it is the best way to learn the language. (my

translation)

As a way to encourage students to speak and to boost their speaking skills, Mrs. Hwang

implemented a few activities in her class. The first example was for students to take turns asking

questions in Korean. This activity started with one student, and the student asked any question in

Korean to the student sitting beside him/her. Then, the student answered and asked another

question to the student sitting next to him/her. Mrs. Hwang explained that this activity was like

an icebreaker in her class. Her second example was to play speed quiz:

I make a wordbook and explain the words. Then, I ask one student to

come out at a time to explain words. Then, other students have to figure

out what those words are. Kids love this activity. For example, if the

word is hair salon (미용실), then the student has to explain what a hair

salon is. (my translation)

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The last example from Mrs. Hwang was to get students to perform a play. Students would watch

a play on YouTube and then be given a bilingual script, Korean on one side and English on the

other side, so they could understand the meaning of each line. Then, they practiced their lines

before they finally performed.

Mrs. Lee also shared a few strategies that she used to encourage her students’ speaking in class.

Firstly, she told the students that she did not understand English: “I told them, ‘I can’t understand

English so please only speak Korean to me.’ So, they try to speak Korean, knowing

understanding English for me is difficult.” Another approach she used was to talk freely with

students at the beginning of her class:

I talk with students for about 10 minutes till everyone arrives. Then, they

talk about what they like, what they want to become, and so on. One

student always brings a sketchbook to show me what she drew during the

week. They also talk about presents they received, special events they

had last week … (my translation)

By freely talking with students without particular topics, Mrs. Lee invited students to share their

experiences, thoughts, and daily lives, which spontaneously stimulated their speaking in Korean.

The last approach that Mrs. Lee shared was to pair students for conversation practice. The

students’ favourite game to play as pairs was the ‘truth game’:

Truth game is … they have to tell the truth only. [For example] I first ask

a male student … “do you like girls with long hair?” Then, students go,

“Ahhhhh.” They like it a lot. Then, the male student has to tell the truth.

He has to answer in a sentence, like “Yes, I like girls with long hair” [in

Korean]. (my translation)

While encouraging students to speak Korean by working in pairs, Mrs. Lee also told them to find

Korean words whenever their partners said English words, so they learned the same words in

both languages.

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4.10.4 Hangul Hakgyo Parents: Immigration Trajectories and Zeal for

Their Children’s Language Learning

Each year, in early September, there is an announcement about Hangul hakgyo registration

during the church service. Then, parents who are interested in enrolling their children in the

program go to the school office and fill out the registration form. There is a fifty-dollar fee that

covers the cost of materials that the school buys for students. At the time of registration, students

receive school bags that have the school name and church logo, and they are encouraged to use

them to keep their textbooks and to bring them to school each week. In the following, I describe

immigration backgrounds of some parents in the focus class and how they support the language

and literacy learning of their children.

4.10.4.1 Boram’s Mother, Mrs. Kwon: The More Linguistic Capital, The

Better

Mrs. Kwon’s story was longer than other parents’ accounts, owing to her extensive experiences

living abroad. Mrs. Kwon came to Canada from China with her two daughters, Boram and Bona,

in the summer of 2016. Boram is the youngest of her three daughters. Mrs. Kwon went to Japan

in her 20s to go to college and met her husband there. They had their first baby in Japan and

moved to the U.S. for further study. However, Boram’s grandfather asked them for help with his

business in China, resulting in their move to China. They lived in China for 14 years, and Boram

and Bona were born during that time. Mrs. Kwon said, “Living in various places became a

valuable learning experience for me,” demonstrating her passion and interest in acquiring

additional languages.

While living in China, she wanted her children to learn Mandarin well. However, what she

learned from other Koreans living in China was that in order for Korean children to succeed, they

had to learn not only Mandarin, but also Korean and English. Most Koreans she had contact with

in China were there temporarily for their assigned work from Korean chaebol (large business

conglomerates), and were all planning to go back to Korea after their given terms. Therefore, in

order for their children to be accepted to a Korean university, having good Korean and English

was mandatory. Those kids went to international schools where they learned various subjects in

English and Mandarin, and went to hagwon (학원), after-school academy, to keep up with their

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learning in Korean. As a result, according to Mrs. Kwon, they became proficient in all these

three languages. Her first daughter was an example of this success. She became competent in all

three languages and got accepted to one of the top universities in Korea, majoring in another

language, German. Her second daughter, Bona, was following the same path as her older sister,

but was not coping well in the international school she attended. Also, fees at Chinese

international schools were extremely high, which made Mrs. Kwon think that it would be

cheaper for her two daughters to study in Canada as study permit holders. As a result, Mrs.

Kwon moved to Canada with Boram and Bona, while her husband worked in China to

financially support their studies here in Canada.

Based on her experiences in raising three children, Mrs. Kwon shared her belief that mother

tongues are important in learning additional languages. She also mentioned that learning and

maintaining one’s first language is primarily the parents’ responsibility. She told me that her

previous experience as a teacher at a church-run Korean language school in Qingdao, China

helped her to learn about effective practices in teaching Korean. She stressed, “Reading books to

students and then encouraging them to write and talk about the books is the best way to help

them to develop all language skills.” Boram was a quiet student in class, but according to her

mother, she is the most talkative person in the family. Their home language is Korean but since

they recently moved from China, Boram was learning English at school and was going to

hagwon to keep up with her English reading and writing. Boram went to Chinese school for two

years before she came to Canada, so Mrs. Kwon was also seeking ways to maintain her

Mandarin. Boram used to write summaries and reflections about the books she read when

attending a Korean language school in China. Now, she reads and listens to stories in Korean

using a CD player before she goes to bed as a bedtime story.

4.10.4.2 Zoe’s Mother, Mrs. Cho: English and French for Bilingualism,

and Korean for Talking with Grandma

Mrs. Cho and her husband are second-generation immigrants. They hardly speak Korean,

although Mrs. Cho said, “I can get by [in Korean].” Mrs. Cho mentioned that she spoke Korean

only until she started public school but naturally transitioned to the English environment, owing

to her loving and caring teacher. Mrs. Cho has three children, and they are all in French

immersion programs. Mrs. Cho took French as a subject when she was in high school, but it did

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not really help her with speaking French, so she hoped that her children could learn French better

by being fully immersed in the French language, she stated. Mrs. Choi asserted, “Learning

French here in Canada is important because Canada is a bilingual country.”

Mrs. Cho’s family started attending Grace Church about a year ago. All of Mrs. Cho’s children

attend the Korean language school and Korean Ministry while Mr. and Mrs. Cho attend English

Ministry. It was Mrs. Cho’s hope that her children’s exposure to the Korean language would help

them to learn the language. While sharing her own childhood experiences with Korean language

schools, Mrs. Cho mentioned the repetitiveness of learning the Korean alphabet was not very

helpful. Reading and writing Korean is fairly easy to learn, as we can read and write without

knowing what they mean. Thus, she emphasized that she wanted her children to learn how to

speak and how to be expressive in the Korean language. Rather than using workbooks only,

giving children more opportunities to speak through games, songs, and skits would be helpful

and more effective for all children, she said.

Zoe is the youngest child in this family. As a third generation immigrant, her exposure to Korean

is very limited. Her motivation to learn Korean was to communicate with her grandmother, who

is much more comfortable with Korean than English. Zoe mentioned that her grandmother

sometimes wrote cards in Korean, hoping her grandchildren read and understand them, but that

there was no one who could help her to understand them at home. Another motivation for Zoe’s

Korean learning was to understand her parents’ secrets. Although her parents barely spoke

Korean, whenever they had secrets, they seemed to speak the language, Zoe said, and she would

have liked to understand what they were. Zoe’s home language is English, but as Zoe admitted

with a giggle, whenever Zoe had secrets with her siblings, their secretive language was French.

4.10.4.3 Soobin’s Mother, Mrs. Hwang: “English Is Essential in the

Global Village”

As mentioned previously, Mrs. Hwang was the grade 5 and 6 teacher. Mrs. Hwang’s family

immigrated to Canada in 2008 and lived in Vancouver, BC until they moved to Toronto last

summer. Her husband, who studied in the U.S. after obtaining his university degree in Korea,

always wanted to raise his kids in an English-speaking country, Mrs. Hwang said. She explained

that when he studied in the U.S., he thought, “In order to be ‘globally competent,’ one had to

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learn English so one would not have any difficulties in communicating in the global village.”

Thus, English has been a big part of their immigration story. Mrs. Hwang also mentioned that the

fact that she gave birth to two girls played a role in their immigration. Due to the cultural

favouritism for boys over girls, her father-in-law wanted her to have boys when she gave birth to

two girls. Her husband used to joke that she would have been stressed out if she was still in

Korea. Since her husband was the oldest son in his family, it was he who had to have boys in

order to carry on their family lineage.

Before they came to Canada, they had plans to study, but once they got here, they realized that it

was not as easy as they thought. Now, they have daughters and they have to make money to feed

them. So, Mr. Hwang decided to learn practical skills that could help him to find a job. He took

an automotive mechanic technician program at a community college and worked as a mechanic

technician for four years before his family moved to Toronto. Mrs. Hwang used to be an interior

designer in Korea but started art class as a home business and had many Korean students in her

class in Vancouver. As for reasons why they moved to Toronto, Mrs. Hwang underscored the

importance of her children’s education, noting the fact that many reputable universities were here

in Ontario. She also stated that Toronto had more job opportunities, so she was hoping that her

husband could find a decent job in Toronto soon. Mrs. Hwang is currently attending a LINC

(Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada) program and Mr. Hwang took a temporary

position as an auto technician.

Soobin is the younger child in this family. Although her parents speak Korean only, Soobin

started speaking English when she was in kindergarten or grade 1, according to her mother’s

observation, not only to her older sister but also to her parents. Soobin is in a French immersion

program. She watches French and English movies and Korean dramas, and reads English and

French books. She attends Korean language school because she wants to communicate with her

relatives whenever she visits Korea. Soobin said she is proud to be Korean because her

classmates love Korean food like bulgogi (불고기). Some of her friends see her as a source for

learning Korean, so Soobin often writes Korean words for them to learn. She also taught them

how to make and play ddakji (딱지), a Korean traditional game she learned from the Korean

language school as part of the New Year’s Day event.

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4.10.4.4 Sora’s Mother, Mrs. Zhang: Korean Mandarin Bilingual Parent, Aspiring to Raise a Multilingual Child

Mrs. Zhang is Joseonjok (조선족), or Korean-Chinese. She was born and lived in China until she

immigrated to Canada in 2000. While growing up in China, she went to Joseonjok school until

she started university. The medium of instruction at the school was Korean and all the subjects

were taught in Korean by Joseonjok teachers. Also, her parents only spoke Korean to her. From

grade 2, Mandarin was introduced as a subject from Joseonjok teachers who mainly focused on

grammar, and in high school, Mandarin was taught by Chinese teachers. Through those Chinese

teachers, Mrs. Zhang was able to pick up ‘authentic’ pronunciation and conversational

expressions. When she started university, where she studied pharmacy, the medium of instruction

was only Mandarin. As a second language, Mrs. Zhang took Japanese as all the other Joseonjok

students did. She mentioned that Chinese students usually took English, whereas Joseonjok

students took Japanese as a second language. She explained that nowadays, all Joseonjok and

Chinese took English as a second language in China. She claimed that English had so much

power that it was spoken in so many countries now, whereas Japanese was spoken only in Japan.

Then, “what is the use?” she asked.

Here is the story of Mrs. Zhang’s immigration. In China, upon graduation from university, the

government chooses jobs for students. Students with affluent parents get jobs as soon as they

graduate because their parents give money to the government, but students from destitute

families have difficulty finding a job, which was her case. She was not able to find a job. So,

after trying hard to find a job, she decided to live in a more equitable country, Mrs. Zhang said.

This is how she ended up living in Canada. Mrs. Zhang is not practicing pharmacy here, mainly

due to her limited English, although she had attended ESL programs for several years since she

first came to Canada.

Sora was born in Canada. Her parents only speak Korean to her. She does not speak Korean

herself, although she understands it. Sora also goes to a Mandarin language program at a nearby

school. Mrs. Zhang strongly believes that Sora has to keep her Korean identity by learning

Korean culture, traditions, and manners. Learning the Korean language is important for keeping

relationships with her grandparents, who do not speak English, she asserted. Sora likes to read,

but reads mostly English books; she has a few Mandarin books and no Korean books at home.

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The Korean language school helped her to read and write, and Sora learned many new words

here, she said. Her favourite activity in this class was to play competitive games that related to

vocabulary building.

4.10.4.5 Joohan’s Mother, Mrs. Kim: “Your Roots Are in Korea”

Joohan’s mother, Mrs. Kim, is the director of this language school. Mrs. Kim came to Canada

when she was in high school. She learned English in Korea through methods such as rote

memorization and grammar-focused learning, which did not really help her learning here in

Canada, she noted. She also mentioned that she often felt that second generation Korean peers

looked down on her because of her limited English. Her experience, what she called ‘1.5

generation’s trauma,’ is further discussed in Part 3 of this chapter.

Mr. and Mrs. Kim have two children and they both emphasized the importance of being Korean

to their children: “Although you were born in Canada, your roots are in Korea.” Mrs. Kim told

me that she wanted her children to learn the language that their father, mother, and grandparents

spoke. Joohan is the younger child; he can understand Korean but rarely speaks the language.

Mrs. Kim tries to get him to answer in Korean, but it does not always work, she said. As a

strategy to motivate her children’s Korean learning, they, as a family, watch Korean

entertainment shows at home. Joohan has been attending the Korean language school for four

years, since senior kindergarten, and the school has been helping him to read and write the

language. The school also helped him to learn about Korean culture, the part that is difficult for

parents to teach to their children, according to Mrs. Kim. She asserted, “The recent popularity of

the Korean language at mainstream school, through K-pop and K-drama, boosts Korean-

Canadian children’s motivation to learn their heritage language.”

4.10.4.6 Yechan’s Mother, Mrs. Bae: “Korean Is the Language that Speaks My Full Emotions”

Mr. and Mrs. Bae met each other when they came to Canada in their mid-20s, and got married.

Mrs. Bae was studying music in Korea but when her father’s financial stability was affected by

the International Monetary Fund (IMF) crisis in the late 1990s, she decided to come to Canada

where her sister had already found a home. Mr. Bae had served in the military for many years in

Korea but then decided to study in Canada, where his relatives lived. Mrs. Bae has been a piano

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tutor at home and is currently helping her sister to open a restaurant. While teaching piano, Mrs.

Bae uses Korean to her Korean students and both Korean and English to Chinese students. Her

observation on her language use is that she tends to sound cold when speaking English, as her

proficiency in English does not allow her to touch details in communication. When speaking

Korean, she can address feelings and emotions. For example, she encourages students to work

hard for rewarding results in piano, explaining all details. However, if she speaks in English, she

simply says, “Work hard!” without details. In order for her to deal with this shortcoming, Mrs.

Bae said that she uses facial expressions and gestures to soften her message.

Mr. and Mrs. Bae have two children, and Yechan is their older child. They were both born in

Toronto and have been living in this area. The home language of this family is Korean. Yechan

spoke only Korean up until his little brother started speaking English to him, according to Mrs.

Bae. “So, we often ask them to only speak Korean at home,” Mrs. Bae mentioned. Yechan and

his brother watch Korean educational programs and entertainment programs, such as Magic

Thousand Character Classic (마법천자문), Pororo (뽀로로), Greek Mythology (그리스 신화),

and Curiosity Ddakji (호기심 딱지). Mrs. Bae stressed that Yechan had gained a lot of

knowledge from watching these programs. Mrs. Bae downloaded these programs and turned

them on at home or in the car. She also downloaded Brains On, an American science podcast for

kids, and turned it on in the car for her kids to listen to. Mrs. Bae underlined, “Kids spend hours

in the car and they get restless, so I use these hours to stimulate their curiosity and learning.” Mr.

and Mrs. Bae used to read bedtime stories to their children when they were younger, taking turns.

Yechan and his brother have been attending Korean language school for a number of years. By

attending the school, Mrs. Bae felt that her children were learning more about the Korean culture

and that they were developing a better understanding of the language, she underscored.

4.11 Summary

This second part of the findings chapter looked at how the Korean and English languages are

positioned within Grace Church, and how teachers and parents in Grace Hangul hakgyo are

supporting the language and literacy learning of Korean-Canadian children. Adult ministries are

divided by language as KM and EM in the official domain; however, in the informal and social

spaces, the boundaries of languages become blurry. Within this multigenerational ethnic church,

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the notions of language and immigrant generation are closely intertwined, as it is commonly

considered that KM is for the first generation and EM is for the second generation. Variations of

the 1.5 generation are identified by some church members. According to these members, the term

1.5 generation is not only related to the arrival time and language level of an individual, but also

pertinent to the proximity to the culture and language of Korea or Canada that the individual

identifies with.

Children’s ministries at Grace Church focus on the culture of children rather than the language of

children. Nonetheless, children’s ministries are also divided by language, as KM and EM. What

is notable is that children’s KM, which is much larger than EM, is a de facto bilingual program

in which Korean and English are both spoken. Children at Grace Church also join various

gatherings, often socializing with other Korean-Canadian children. Thus, children attending KM

are naturally exposed to the language and culture of their heritage via numerous formal and

informal get-togethers. Grace Hangul hakgyo is part of children’s ministry, and during the 2016-

2017 school year, the school had five teachers. Through school meetings, the director and

teachers shared information and concerns, and planned activities for special events. Several

challenging factors experienced by the participating teachers included difficulty accommodating

students’ linguistic needs by age and proficiency level, the lack of teaching credentials, and the

absence of standard curriculum. However, despite these challenges, the teachers demonstrated

their enthusiasm for helping Korean-Canadian children to develop pride as Koreans, to boost

motivation to learn the Korean language, and to learn the language and culture of their heritage

through a wide range of pedagogical approaches. Some parents of the focus class elaborated on

their immigration and linguistic trajectories, along with their supporting strategies for their

children’s language and literacy learning. The parents demonstrated their desire for their children

to acquire multiple languages, such as French and Mandarin, in addition to Korean and English.

Mrs. Hwang and Mrs. Zhang underlined the importance of English, regarding it as a ‘global

language.’ Mrs. Cho emphasized the significance of learning French, noting Canada’s bilingual

status. For Mrs. Kwon and Mrs. Zhang, Mandarin was an important language to learn because of

their ties to China. While all the parents expressed their zeal for raising bilingual (or trilingual)

children, at the same time, they reported that their children were using less and less Korean, and

now rarely spoke the home language, except Mrs. Kwon (a newcomer) and Mrs. Cho (a second

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generation immigrant). Then, there is no wonder that the shared theme from all the narratives of

these parents was that they wanted their children to learn the language and culture of their

heritage and to maintain their family connections and ethnic identity.

Part Three The Grade 3 and 4 Focus Class: Working Toward Bilingualism

and Biculturalism

4.12 Introduction

Part 3 focuses on the grade 3 and 4 class, starting with the language backgrounds of the teachers

and students. This part, primarily drawn from class observations that took place during the 2016-

2017 school year, presents how the focus teacher, Mr. Park, helped the students in the grade 3

and 4 class with their heritage language learning, and how the students engaged in Mr. Park’s

teaching approach, while demonstrating the common patterns of the language use in this

classroom. Then, I describe how my positionality evolved from an observer to a participant

observer over the course of the school year. At the same time, I illustrate what Mr. Park and I

learned while collaboratively implementing the activities I generated based on my weekly

analysis and reflections on the classroom interactions, as well as debriefing sessions with Mr.

Park after each class. Furthermore, I detail some of the pedagogical changes that were made to

foster students’ language learning during the second half of the school year, with examples of the

activities. Finally, I present how I see the Korean and English languages’ positionings among the

students in this class, subtly affecting their socialization.

4.13 Classroom: Teachers, Students, and Textbooks

4.13.1 The Linguistic Capital of the Focus Class Teachers: Mr. Park & Jin Soo

The grade 3 and 4 class at Grace Hangul hakgyo was the focus class of this study. The focus

teacher, Min Sung Park, and a teaching assistant, Jin Soo Yun, were the teachers of this class.

The focus teacher, Mr. Park, started volunteering as a teacher about four years ago, when he was

asked by the previous director. The previous director told him that she needed help in the school,

and when he said ‘yes’ to the request, she placed him in his first child’s class. As a result, he

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became his own child’s teacher that year. Mr. Park came to Canada in 2000 as a young adult and

got married to a second generation Korean immigrant. They have three children who all attend

the Korean school. At home, he speaks only Korean to their children and his wife only English,

adopting a ‘one parent–one language’ strategy (Ronjat, 1913; Baker, 2011). This was suggested

by a speech therapist of their first child, whose speech development was somewhat slower than

other children at her age. However, despite this effort, their children’s English is much stronger

than their Korean, according to Mr. Park. Mr. Park also mentioned that he and his wife primarily

speak Korean to each other. He explained that his hope, in marrying a second generation

immigrant woman, was to fully master English. Instead, “My wife learned Korean from me,” Mr.

Park said with a smile.

Jin Soo Yun is a grade 11 high school student. He has been volunteering at the school as a

teaching assistant (TA) since he entered high school. He is a second generation Korean and is

fluent in both Korean and English. He said he started volunteering because he thought it would

help him to improve his Korean. During an interview, he asked me if I wanted him to speak

Korean or English. When I told him that he could answer in either language, he first chose

Korean, then switched to English when I started to ask questions in English. He was very much

motivated to learn and improve his Korean. Although he was born in Canada, he attends Korean

Ministry as a way to expand his exposure to the Korean language. He told me that he should

know how to speak Korean because that was the language his parents spoke. In order for him to

communicate meaningfully with them, speaking Korean was essential, he said. He also

mentioned that language should not be a barrier, if the opportunity to work in Korea were to

arise. As a TA, Jin Soo came to class every week throughout the whole school year, except when

he had scheduling conflicts with other commitments, such as church chamber orchestra practice.

4.13.2 The Linguistic Capital of the Focus Class Students

Of the 13 students enrolled, three students rarely attended the class. The average number of

attendees was about 6-8 students, as the attendance dropped throughout the school year. The

following table summarizes immigrant generations of the focus class students and their parents.

As seen in Part 2 of this chapter, immigrant generations are closely linked to the language

development, proficiency and practice of immigrants and their children.

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Table 2 Immigrant Generations (I.G.) of the Focus Class Students and their Parents

Student Name Gender I.G.: Student I.G.: Father I.G.: Mother

Zoe female third gen. second gen. second gen.

Minjee female second gen. first gen. second gen.

Sora female second gen. first gen.

(Korean-Chinese)

first gen.

(Korean-Chinese)

Siwoo male second gen. first gen. first gen.

Hana female second gen. first gen. first gen.

Joohan male second gen. 1.5 gen. 1.5 gen.

Minjoon male second gen. first gen. first gen.

Soobin female second gen. first gen. first gen.

Yechan male second gen. 1.5 gen. first gen.

Boram female An international

student

A businessman in

China first gen.

The students’ parents were mostly first and 1.5 generation Korean-Canadians, and the majority

of the students were born in Canada. The notable outliers are Zoe and Boram. Zoe is a third

generation immigrant. Zoe’s family speaks English, and it is Zoe’s hope that she will learn

Korean well enough to communicate with her grandmother. Boram is a newcomer to Canada.

She was born in China, but her primary language is Korean. Since she came to Canada this

summer, she has been attending an afterschool program that helps with English reading and

writing.

Largely reflecting the amount of time that students and their parents have lived in Canada, the

positions of students along the Korean English bilingual continuum are identified in Figure 8.

These illustrate my assessments based on my yearlong observations on their interactions and

formal as well as informal conversations I had with the students, thus, primarily signifying their

speaking skills. Rather than assessing the proficiency level of students in Korean and in English

separately, which reflects the SUP model of bilingual proficiency, I created this bilingual

continuum, building on the CUP model, in which both languages function through the same

central processing system; thus, there is transfer between these two languages (Cummins, 1980,

1996, see Figure 2). However, this figure by no means represents students’ ‘accurate’ proficiency

levels of the languages.

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Figure 8 The Continuum of Students’ Korean English Bilingual Competency

4.13.3 Mr. Park’s Classroom Routine and Textbooks

The following is Mr. Park’s classroom routine:

Table 3 Classroom Routine

Time Activities

10:00-10:15 Students arrive. Mr. Park asks students about their previous week and calls the roll.

10:15-11:00 Mr. Park delivers instructions using textbooks.

11:00 Students leave for Sunday school.

Mr. Park typically started his class by asking students about their previous week. Then, he took

attendance and began textbook lessons. Boram, whose Korean was highly proficient in all areas,

such as speaking, listening, writing, and reading, worked on an advanced-level textbook called E

Nopi (Eye Level Learning) Korean by herself or with the help of a TA whenever available. Mr.

Park, the school director, Mrs. Kim, and Boram’s mom, Mrs. Kwon, decided together that Boram

would use a different level of textbook because of her advanced proficiency level in Korean. The

rest of the class followed Mr. Park’s instructions with the textbook, entitled Machum Hanguk-uh

1 (Customized Korean Level 1), that he chose at the beginning of the school year. This textbook

is part of the Machum Hanguk-uh series, first published in 2011 and republished in 2014. In the

foreword of this textbook, it says that this series was created for children learning the Korean

language at Hangul hakgyo while growing up in English-speaking countries. The text is for ages

5 and 6 who are just starting to learn the language, and it is focused on Korean alphabet vowels

and consonants (Kim, Kang, Kim, & Hwang, 2014, p. 2).

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4.14 Patterns of Language Use and Textbook-Controlled Pedagogy

4.14.1 Mr. Park Speaks Korean and Students Speak English

To me, the effective way to teach Korean is to repeat speaking rather than

writing … If they don’t feel confident, they lose interest … In order for

them to feel confident, they need to keep practicing how to speak … For

the students who don’t understand the Korean language, TAs (teaching

assistants) help them. But what is not good about TAs is that they are

mostly second generation. They speak English while helping the

students. That doesn’t really help students with learning Korean … You

know, just like English, if we keep hearing English, we acquire it … (my

translation)

This is an excerpt from the first interview I had with Mr. Park at the beginning of the school

year. During the interview, Mr. Park repeatedly emphasized the importance of speaking Korean

to maximize students’ learning of the language. Cummins (2001) characterizes this as the time-

on-task or maximum exposure hypothesis. Mr. Park’s belief in maximum exposure theory was

frequently observed in his language practice with the students. Here is an example.

At the beginning of the class, Mr. Park asks students about their previous

week while waiting for more students to arrive.

1 Mr. Park: 자, 얘들아. 우리 시작하기 전에 (looking at Minjoon),

민준이. 민준이 저번 주에 뭐했어요? 한번 얘기해 보세요.

[Students. Before we start (looking at Minjoon), Minjoon. What did you

do last week? Tell us.]

2 Minjoon: I don’t remember. I am coolest. (with a smile)

3 Mr. Park: 학교에서 친구들하고 뭐했어요?

[What did you do at school with your friends?]

4 Minjoon: 친구들하고 놀았어요.

[I played with them.]

5 Mr. Park: 자 그럼. 주한이 얘기해 볼래요. 주한이, 지난주에

뭐했어요?

[Then, Joohan. Could you tell us? Joohan, what did you do last week?]

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6 Joohan: (no response)

7 Mr. Park: 어? 저번 주에 뭐했어요? 학교가서 뭐했어요?

[Uh? What did you do last week? What did you do at school?]

8 Joohan: Yesterday, I went to like this …

9 Mr. Park: 한국말로 해봐야지 주한아, ‘어저께’ …

[Try Korean, Joohan. ‘Yesterday’ …]

10 Joohan: I don’t know how to.

11 Mr. Park: ‘어저께’ …

[‘Yesterday’ …]

As we see in this excerpt, Mr. Park primarily spoke Korean while students mainly spoke English.

When Mr. Park asked Minjoon about his past week (line 1), Minjoon first answered in English,

but switched from English to Korean without Mr. Park’s reminder of speaking Korean in class

(lines 2 and 4). Meanwhile, when Joohan answered in English only (line 8), Mr. Park encouraged

him to speak Korean (lines 9 and 11).

Throughout the school year, based on my weekly classroom observations and analysis of micro

interactions between students and between Mr. Park (as well as Jin Soo) and students, I learned

about the patterns of the language use in this classroom; they are outlined in Table 4.

Table 4 Common Patterns of Language Use in the Focus Classroom

Interactions Languages

Teacher Student

(with the exception of Boram and Zoe)

Korean English (mostly),

Korean Korean (rarely)

Student Student

(with the exception of Boram)

English English

Teacher Boram Korean Korean

Teaching Assistant Zoe English English

Predominantly, Mr. Park spoke Korean and students with the exception of Boram spoke English.

Students spoke English amongst each other most of the time. While speaking with Mr. Park,

students spoke Korean from time to time with or without their teacher’s prompt. Students whose

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parents were first or 1.5 generation immigrants, such as Joohan, Minjoon, Soobin, Sora, Yechan,

Siwoo, and Hana, understood what Mr. Park was saying in Korean, showing their receptive

language skills. At the same time, they displayed relatively limited productive skills in Korean,

as Joohan stated in line 10 in the excerpt above, “I don’t know how to,” although he understood

Mr. Park’s question in Korean.

4.14.2 Mr. Park’s Textbook-Controlled Pedagogy and IRE Discourse Pattern

Mr. Park’s classroom activity was textbook-driven. This beginner level textbook he selected at

the beginning of the school year starts with the Korean alphabet: how each vowel and consonant

sounds, and how to write them. Then, it introduces simple words and expressions along with

pictures as writing activities. The following excerpt is from when Mr. Park was teaching the

class with the textbook after calling the roll.

1 Mr. Park: 자, 우리 그러면 한사람씩 …선생님이 먼저 읽을까요? 이게

뭐예요? (pointing to a picture on the textbook)

[Now, let’s take turns to read … Should I go first? What is this?]

2 Sora: 쏘오. (looking at the picture of a cow)

[*Cow.]

3 Mr. Park: 쏘야?

[Is this *cow?]

4 Students: 소. 소.

[Cow. Cow.]

5 Mr. Park: 소.

[Cow.]

6 Mr. Park: 그 다음거. 그 다음거는 뭐죠 이게? (walks to Minjoon)

민준아, 이게 이게 뭐죠? (pointing to the consonant ㅁ, that is beside a

picture of a bear)

[Then, what is next? What’s this? Minjoon, what’s this?]

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7 Minjoon: (he is busy drawing with Joohan and when his name is called,

he looks up to the teacher and says) 미음/ㅁ.

[Mieum.]

8 Mr. Park: 네, 미음이예요, 미음. 그러면 ‘고’ 에다가 (writing ‘고’ on

the whiteboard) 이렇게 ‘미음’ 하면 (writing ‘ㅁ’ at the bottom of ‘고’)

뭐예요?

[Yes, it’s mieum, mieum. Then, if we add ‘mieum’ to ‘go,’ what is it?]

9 Students: 곰.

[Bear]

*cow: cow with an emphasis on the first syllable

As seen in this excerpt, once Mr. Park started the textbook lesson, he read words with the

students, often showing how to write them on the whiteboard. This classroom discourse is

primarily reflecting the traditional teacher-led initiation-response-evaluation (IRE) pattern: in

lines 1, 6, and 8 (the second sentence), Mr. Park lead questions, and in lines 2, 4, 7, and 9,

students answered his questions, and then, in lines 3, 5, and 8 (the first sentence), Mr. Park

evaluated the students’ answers by either questioning (as in line 3) or by confirming the answers

(as in lines 5 and 8). While using this textbook, which took a few months to finish, this teacher-

led IRE pattern was constantly repeated, and the classroom activity was mainly orthographically

oriented. In the following, how students were engaged in this textbook-controlled pedagogy is

illustrated.

4.14.3 Students’ Engagement in Textbook-Controlled Pedagogy

Typical classroom activity, following the textbook, involved Mr. Park teaching new words, then

students writing individual words or expressions in boxes in their textbooks. The following

excerpt is a conversation between three students who were sitting side-by-side during the writing

activity; this dialogue was captured by one of the mini-cameras placed at their table.

(Soobin draws something by turning the textbook)

Sora: It is so perfect. So perfect. (looking at Soobin’s drawing, admiring) So

perfect.

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Soobin: It is a star made of stars.

Minjee: I am gonna draw a piggy. (starts to draw a pig)

Sora: A piggy! (starts to draw)

Minjee: Do you know how skinny I did this?

Sora: (looks at Minjee’s drawing) Uh. Mine is fat and short.

As shown in this excerpt, students frequently drew pictures and talked with each other during the

teacher-led orthographic activities using the textbook. Figure 9 has two examples of work

completed by the students.

Figure 9 Examples of Students’ Writing in the Textbook (Machum Hanguk-uh level 1, p. 39, p. 62)

Most students completed these writing activities without much difficulty, as their task was

simply to copy what was in the textbook. When Mr. Park asked each student to read taking turns,

some students read easily while some students displayed difficulties reading. In other words,

some students wrote the Korean words without knowing how to read them. Often, I observed

students identifying the names of objects by looking at the pictures beside the words. After

writing the words, students drew pictures.

4.14.3.1 Zoe: Least Competent Korean Speaker

In the meantime, another mini-camera captured Zoe’s activity and her interaction with the TA,

Jin Soo:

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Zoe is busy working on her textbook, referring to other pages back and

forth to learn about the different sounds that each letter makes. Jin Soo

has been quietly watching how Zoe has been writing in her textbook. It

seems that he looks for any mistakes she is making, so he could help her

to correct them. Zoe is looking at the word, 삼, but struggles to say it. Jin

Soo notices and helps her.

Jin Soo: (looking at the consonant, ‘ㅁ’) It makes a ‘M’ sound.

(pointing to the word, 사) What’s the sound? And plus, M?

Zoe: 쌈.

Jin Soo: Yes, 삼.

(Zoe writes ‘sam’ beside the number 3 and moves to the next word, 차, but struggles)

Jin Soo: This (referring to ‘ㅊ’) makes ‘ch’ sound. So, it is Cha, 차.

Zoe: (repeats after him) 차 (writes ‘cha’ beside the picture of a car and moves to the

next word, 창, and stops)

Jin Soo: You add ‘ng’ sound (pointing to the letter, ‘o’ 이응). So, (waits a bit then

says) ‘창.’

Zoe: (repeats after him) 창. (then writes ‘chang’ beside the picture of a window)

Zoe developed her own way of learning the Korean language. She caught up with her peers by

referring to previous pages on which she had written the pronunciation of each vowel and

consonant in English alongside Korean words with her Romanized Korean (see Figure 10 for

examples), saying the words as she read them.

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Figure 10 Examples of Zoe’s Writing in the Textbook

(Machum Hanguk-uh level 1, p. 31, p. 57)

Unlike her peers, who drew pictures while Mr. Park was teaching, Zoe wrote words, trying to

complete all the activities that other students were doing. However, this was all possible only

when Zoe was with Jin Soo to explain to her in English what she was supposed to do. Thus, Jin

Soo was a language broker, who, as Lee, Hill-Bonnet, and Raley (2011) explain, are

“paraphrasers, interpreters, or [takes the role of] peer teachers for limited or nonspeakers of the

language” (p. 306). As a child of second generation immigrant parents, without the language

broker, Jin Soo, Zoe was left alone to figure out what Mr. Park was instructing during class.

4.14.3.2 Boram: Most Competent Korean Speaker

While her peers wrote in the class textbook, Boram answered questions of an advanced level

textbook with the help of another TA, Mi Yung, who joined this class from time to time. Here is

an excerpt from their communication.

Mi Yung: 여기 문제 한번 읽어보자.

[Let’s read this question]

Boram: (reads very quietly)

Mi Yung: 이것봐. ‘아침 7 시에 일어나요’ 를 ‘일어났어요’ 로 바꾸는 거야.

과거형으로. 그럼 여기에 ‘놀이동산에 가요’ 를 ‘놀이동산에?’

[Look at this. We change ‘I wake up at 7 o’clock in the morning’ to ‘woke up,’

to the past tense. Then, here, we change ‘I go to an amusement park’ to what?

Boram: 갔어요.

[I went.]

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Mi Yung: 그렇지.

[Yes.]

(Boram writes it down)

Mi Yung: 그 다음에 ‘노래를 불러요’ 를 노래를?

[Next, ‘I sing a song.’ Then?]

Boram: 불렀어요?

[I sang?]

Mi Yung: 응. 불렀어요.

[Yes, I sang.]

(Boram writes it down)

Mi Yung and Boram continued to answer the questions in the same manner for about 35 minutes.

Boram, then, without making eye contact with Mi Yung, shook her hand in front of the mini-

camera, poked an eraser with a pencil, and scribbled on the eraser for about 3 minutes. Then, Mi

Yung walked to Mr. Park and asked:

Mi Yung: 이거 몇 페이지까지 해요?

[To what page does she have to do this?]

Mr. Park: 그냥 계속 할 수 있을때까지 하면 돼.

[As long as she can.]

Mi Yung: Okay.

Boram’s facial expressions and gestures seemed to display that her non-stop writing activity for a

lengthy period of time wore her out. Boram kept staring at other students who were interacting

with each other as if she wanted to be part of them. These three types of interaction and

engagement patterns were typical and recurrently observed while Mr. Park used textbooks as his

only source for teaching.

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4.14.4 Limitations of Textbooks: A Hindrance to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

One day in January, after Mr. Park had almost completed all the 16 units of the textbook,

Machum Hanguk-uh level 1, he came to class with new textbooks for his students. He had three

different levels of textbooks: Hangul Basic level 1, Hangul Hakkyo Hanguk-uh level 2, and E.

Nopi (Eye Level Learning) advanced level. Mr. Park grouped the students by their reading levels.

He asked each student to read words to determine their level and assigned the textbook

accordingly. Boram continued with her advanced level textbook, without the TA, who chose to

work with the beginner level students, which included Zoe, Siwoo, and Minjee. With this new

textbook, which was very similar to the one they had just used, these children were asked to

write letters and simple words. They started with vowels (ㅏ, ㅑ, ㅓ, ㅕ, etc.) and consonants

(ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㄹ, etc.), and wrote simple words. Then, they were asked to look at pictures and

figure out the words that the pictures were referring to. There were boxes in which they had to

put words, and each question only had one word as an answer. For example, referring to a picture

of a table, Jin Soo helped the students find the word that referred to the picture that started with

the consonant, ㄱ, and only had two syllables. Jin Soo came up to me at the back of the

classroom and asked me for help. After thinking really hard, I finally found the word they were

looking for. That was 가구, which means furniture. This made me think that these kinds of

questions were limiting students’ thinking, as reflected in my observation note below.

Why does the answer have to be 가구 [furniture], not 탁자 [table] or

even 테이블 [table]? Those boxes can be replaced with lines for open-

ended answers. Then, students can come up with numerous responses,

going beyond the answers that the textbook maker wants. (January 15,

2017)

This pattern was also found in the next level taught by Mr. Park. This textbook had various

conversation exercises, such as “수미가 뭐해요? [What is Sumi doing?]” “수미가 수영해요”

[Sumi is swimming]. However, in their writing exercises, the textbook asked for specific

expressions that have a certain number of syllables in the answers, leaving no room for other

answers. Although each expression was accompanied by a picture that directly gave clues for the

answer, I wondered, “Why cannot the answer be more than one? When the question, ‘수미가

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뭐해요?’ [What is Sumi doing?] is accompanied with the picture of a girl swimming in the

water, the answer can be 수미가 수영을 해요 [Sumi is swimming], 수미가 물 속에 있어요

[Sumi is in the water], 수미가 수영장에 있어요 [Sumi is in the swimming pool], or 수미가

호수에서 수영을 해요 [Sumi is swimming in the lake], and so on.”

Figure 11 Textbook Writing Exercises (Hangul Hakkyo Hanguk-uh level 2, p. 14, 15)

As shown in the examples above (Figure 11), these writing exercises had a few target

expressions and students were expected to acquire those expressions through speaking and

writing exercises. So, if teachers stuck to the activities in the way they are presented in the

textbook, students would only learn a few expressions—ones that are relevant only to these

pictures (e.g. the names of the characters and the activities of the characters) rather than their real

life experiences (e.g. the names of their friends or families, and the activities of their friends and

families). Here is my observation note that reflected this thought.

I wonder if this is the limitation of textbooks; it is hard for textbooks to

be flexible in giving questions for more open-ended answers. If it is, then

should a teacher come up with some creative ways to modify the

questions or answers in the textbook, so students do not always have

textbook answers but practice real life expressions that they hear at home

or at church from parents or friends? (January 15, 2017)

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4.14.5 Mr. Park’s Endeavours to Connect with Students During Textbook Instructions and Translanguaging

While Mr. Park’s instructions were largely orthographically-oriented and textbook-driven, Mr.

Park occasionally asked students questions as a way to learn about their understanding of

specific words, and at the same time, to connect with them. By inviting students to talk, Mr. Park

gave voice to the students, offering a break from ongoing writing activities. The following

examples show how Mr. Park engaged the students in a conversation that was relevant to their

lives.

1 Mr. Park: (looking at the next word, fishing)

자, 낚시가 뭔지 알아요? 낚시 가 본 사람?

[Now, do you know what fishing is? Who has tried fishing?]

2 (Minjoon, Sora raise their hand)

3 Minjoon: 저, 해 봤어요.

[Me, I’ve tried it]

4 Mr. Park: 민준이, 낚시 해봤어요?

[Minjoon, you have tried fishing?]

5 Minjoon: 네.

[Yes]

6 Mr. Park: 고기 잡았어요? 어, 작은거 큰거?

[You caught fish? Uh, a small one or a big one?]

7 Minjoon: 작은거.

[A small one]

8 Siwoo: I got a cod and a mackerel.

9 Mr. Park: 어, 시우두 낚시 해봤어요?

[Uh, Siwoo has tried fishing, too?]

10 Siwoo: I went to PEI and I caught a cod and a mackerel.

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In this excerpt, Mr. Park read words on a textbook page with students before he asked them to

write. Then, he stopped at the word, 낚시 (fishing), to ask if students knew this word. Rather

than waiting until students gave answers as for the meaning of this word, Mr. Park immediately

asked if they had tried fishing (line 1). Then, understanding what Mr. Park asked in Korean,

Minjoon and Sora raised their hands (line 2) and Minjoon responded in Korean that he had tried

it (line 3). Next, Mr. Park expanded his question about fishing by asking Minjoon if he caught

fish, and if that fish was big or small (line 6). Minjoon answered again in Korean that it was

small (line 7). While listening to the conversation that was taking place between Mr. Park and

Minjoon in Korean, Siwoo joined by sharing what kinds of fish he caught, but speaking in

English (line 8). Then, Mr. Park acknowledged his fishing experience in Korean by asking,

“시우두 낚시 해봤어요? [Siwoo has tried fishing, too?]” (line 9). In response to Mr. Park’s

question, Siwoo restated but added more information on his fishing trip in English by saying, “I

went to PEI (Prince Edward Island) and I caught a cod and a mackerel” (line 10). Mr. Park only

spoke in Korean, but the students understood him and responded to him either in Korean

(Minjoon’s case) or in English (Siwoo’s case). Also, Mr. Park understood Siwoo’s comment in

English but replied back in Korean. In other words, when Mr. Park invited students to share their

own experiences, they often used translanguaging as a means to convey their messages by using

their existing linguistic repertoire.

Here is another example.

1 Mr. Park: (reading words on a textbook page one by one) 그 다음은

고양이. 그 다음은 할머니. 음, 집에 고양이 있는 사람. 고양이.

[The next one is a cat. Then, grandmother. Um, who has a cat at home?

Cat?]

2 Hana: 어, 없어, 나.

[Uh, don’t have, I]

3 Mr. Park: 고양이 없어요? 고양이?

[You don’t have a cat. Cat?]

4 Hana: 나, 고모집에, 한국 고모집에 [I, at my aunt’s house in Korea], my

dad’s sister …

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5 Mr. Park: 고양이가 있어요?

[There is a cat?]

6 Hana: 어 [Uh]. There’s some 고양이 s [cats] there.

While reading words from the textbook with students, Mr. Park asked students if they had cats at

home (line 1). Hana tried to answer in Korean but switched the word order (line 2). Then, in line

3, Mr. Park paraphrased Hana’s comment, correcting the word order, which is a strategy called

recast, used by many language educators (Lightbown & Spada, 2006). Hana continued to try to

answer in Korean but struggled (line 4) and Mr. Park finished her sentence for her by asking if

her aunt had a cat (line 5). Then, Hana answered primarily in English but inserted a Korean

word, 고양이 (line 6). Here, Hana created a new word by adding a letter, s, at the end of the

word, 고양이 to make it plural, demonstrating her linguistic capacity to use both languages to

make meanings.

These excerpts demonstrate Mr. Park’s endeavours to connect with students in the midst of

textbook instructions. By giving voice to the students to share their life experiences, Mr. Park

gave them an opportunity to use their linguistic capital, either in Korean, English, or both, to

construct their meaning and convey messages. However, these discourses were still mainly

teacher-led, and while these conversations were used to connect with students, these dialogues

were not expanded to increase students’ language learning.

4.15 The Shift in my Positionality

As I have shown so far, Mr. Park’s teaching was primarily textbook-oriented and

orthographically-focused. This was largely different from the goal that Mr. Park shared with me

at the beginning of the school year, which was to support students’ speaking rather than writing,

as reflected in one of my observation notes.

Today, the textbook was on greeting expressions and this unit was

somewhat speaking-oriented along with writing expressions. However,

despite the teacher’s continuous reminder and encouragement to speak

Korean when writing greeting expressions, students did not seem to

speak at all while writing. That makes me wonder, “In what ways can we

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help students to develop more of speaking skills rather than focusing on

reading and writing words and expressions?” (December 4, 2016)

I soon had an opportunity to work with Mr. Park in exploring new pedagogical approaches, as

outlined in the next section.

4.15.1 What I Learned from the Follow-Up Interview with Mr. Park: “I Need Help”

Then, in early January after the winter break, when the class had only two more units to finish in

the textbook, I had a follow-up interview with Mr. Park to ask about his plans for the rest of the

school year. This is the conversation that I had with Mr. Park during the interview:

Soon Young: You are about to finish the textbook. I wonder what you are

planning to do after this textbook.

Mr. Park: Well. I have to go and see other textbooks, but I now know the

students’ individual levels better, as I taught them for the half term, I think I

need to find textbooks that fit better for their different levels.

Soon Young: At the beginning of the school year, you mentioned that you

would like to help students with speaking. How would you like to do it this

term?

Mr. Park: I use mainly textbooks and they are very much writing-focused. I

hope there are textbooks that are speaking-oriented, but I don’t see any. As I

mentioned before, I want to get ideas and materials from other teachers who are

more experienced. For example, Hangul hakgyo teachers can meet once a

month or something to share, “I did this today.” Then, I would go, “Wow, that

is really good,” learning from them.

Soon Young: How about suggesting it to Mrs. Kim, the director?

Mr. Park: She is so busy, running another program now. I know she likes to

help us as much as she can, but she is just too busy.

Soon Young: You mentioned you would like to learn from other teachers. What

are the things you would like to learn about?

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Mr. Park: The most important thing is [how to help students with] speaking.

Then, I always think that kids should not feel bored. They should not lose

interest. So, [I want] ideas, something fun, like games. There should be

something. I want to learn about those.

(my translation)

Subsequently, I asked him if he would like to use ideas or materials that I would share with him,

and Mr. Park delightfully said, “Yes.” As a matter of fact, after each class when I was collecting

my five cameras, Mr. Park recurrently mentioned that he wanted to see what other teachers were

doing to get tips from them and to learn from them. He expressed frustration about not being a

language ‘expert.’

During the interview, I learned that Mr. Park relied heavily on the textbook due to his limited

resources or ideas for his language teaching. Following this interview, I slowly re-positioned

myself from an observer to a participant observer, getting involved in activity planning and

implementation in order to assist Mr. Park to achieve his teaching goals: 1) speaking-oriented, 2)

fun activities that stimulated students’ learning. However, the shift did not take place right away.

4.15.2 No Prompt Help Means Staying in Textbook-Controlled

Pedagogy

The following week, Mr. Park brought three different levels of textbooks, attempting to change

his teaching approach. However, once again his main and only source was textbooks as he

continued to implement writing-focused activities, primarily through the teacher-led initiation-

response-evaluation (IRE) approach. My reflection note on the day provides elaboration on these

observations:

My thinking is going … how can teachers encourage students to speak

when the textbooks are all writing-oriented? Do they need different

materials along with textbooks or change the contents of the textbooks a

little bit in order to create room for more context-rich speaking? Then,

how can we do it? Mr. Park keeps saying that he needs ideas from other

teachers … He seems to be stuck in his own teaching with little or no

knowledge as for teaching languages. I can see he is asking for help but

how can I best support his teaching? (January 15, 2017)

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With these continuous and ongoing reflections, I started generating an activity each week that

would give students opportunities to practice speaking in a more authentic way. I shared it with

Mr. Park to ask for his opinions before its implementation. Mr. Park’s comment on my activity

ideas was generally, “It sounds great! Let’s do it.” Each week, he seemed excited to try

something new. After each class, Mr. Park and I had a debriefing session in order to discuss what

went well and what did not, which was then considered for planning future activities. Now that

my positionality had shifted to more of a participant observer, I got closer to the students. I no

longer sat at the back of the classroom, mainly writing notes. Instead, I sat with the students,

helping students with the activities whenever needed and interacting with them. Besides,

throughout the school year, I was occasionally asked to teach on the spot whenever Mr. Park was

not able to come, or when he had to teach another class due to the absence of a teacher for

various reasons, such as sickness and heavy snow. This also played a role in positioning and

repositioning myself at varying points along the continuum of the relationship between

participant and observer as an ethnographic researcher (Purcell-Gates, 2011).

4.16 Teacher Learning Through Collaborative Implementation

4.16.1 Pairing Up Students for Speaking: An Invitation to Utilize Linguistic and Cultural Capital

The following week, on January 22 before the class started, I shared a simple idea that Mr. Park

could try at the beginning of the class. Since I knew that he usually asked students about their

past week when he started his class, I suggested that he could pair up the students and ask

students to share what they did with their partners, and then they could share it to the whole

class. As students were arriving, Mr. Park explained how the students would share about their

previous week with their partners and then, later to the whole class. In the following, I have

included segments of three concurrent conversations recorded by the mini-cameras. First, Mr.

Park paired up the students.

Mr. Park: Okay. 예찬이하고 주한이하고. 그 다음에 Zoe 하고 민지하고

파트너하고. 그 다음에 보람이하고 수빈이가 파트터하고. 그러면 민지하고

수빈이하고 잠깐 자리를 바꿔. 한번 얘기를 해보세요. 시작! 저번주에

뭐했나?

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[Okay. Yechan and Joohan. Then, Zoe and Minjee are partners. Then, Boram and Soobin

are partners. Then, Minjee and Soobin, switch your spots for a while. Now, try speaking.

Start! What did you do last week?]

This arrangement resulted in an interesting finding in terms of the students’ language use when I

closely watched all the recorded interactions of each pair.

4.16.1.1 Pairing Up: Yechan and Joohan

One of the cameras captured the dialogue of Yechan and Joohan:

1 Yechan: (to Joohan) 저번주에 뭐했어?

[What did you do last week?]

2 Joohan: It is last week. Right?

3 Yechan: Yeah. It is last week.

4 Joohan: Church.

5 Yechan: 교회?

[Church?]

6 (Joohan laughs)

7 Yechan: (nods his head and then) I didn’t come last week. Right?

8 Joohan: Um? What?

9 Yechan: Church. I didn’t come to church last week. … I played drum

tree dash. Ah… (putting his hand on his mouth)

As directed by Mr. Park, Yechan asked Joohan about his previous week in Korean (line 1). Then,

Joohan asked if 지난 주 meant last week in English (line 2) and Yechan answered back in

English (line 3). When Joohan answered, “church” (line 4), Yechan asked him back, switching it

to Korean, “교회?” (line 5). Here, we can see that Yechan was trying to speak Korean, but

Joohan kept answering back in English although he understood what Yechan was asking about.

After making two attempts to speak Korean with Joohan, Yechan switched to English and stayed

in the language for the rest of the conversation.

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4.16.1.2 Pairing Up: Zoe and Minjee

After pairing up the students, Mr. Park walked over to Zoe and Minjee.

1 Mr. Park: Zoe. Can you ask Minjee? You can ask her what did she do

[what she did] last week. Okay? 그러면 [Then] Minjee will tell me, I

mean, everybody what you did last week. Okay?

2 (Zoe nods her head)

3 Mr. Park: (to Minjee) Same thing, Minjee. Okay?

4 Mr. Park: (moving to the centre) 자, Five minutes. Five minutes.

5 Zoe: What did you do last week?

6 Minjee: I went skating with my friends. What did you do?

7 Zoe: Um. Well, yesterday, there was a surprise about a trip for my

birthday for a week and I get to be spoiled and it is also my sister’s

birthday. She is turning 16 and … Oh, I didn’t go to school on Friday.

It was a PA (Professional Activity) Day. And so, on Friday, I went

somewhere …(inaudible). And on Saturday, I went to gymnastics.

8 Minjee: On Saturday, the ice was so bad.

9 Zoe: On Saturday, I was so excited about the trip because it’s my third

time going on a plane.

In line 1, Mr. Park gave an instruction to Zoe and Minjee almost fully in English, which was

extremely rare. It was probably because he thought he needed to pair up the students by similar

levels of proficiency in Korean, and he considered this pair a non-Korean speaking group. As

seen in the excerpt above, although Zoe and Minjee were on the task, talking about their previous

week’s events, their conversation was taking place solely in English. Because both Zoe and

Minjee were at a comparable level in terms of speaking Korean, there was no attempt to speak

Korean in this dialogue.

4.16.1.3 Pairing Up: Soobin and Boram

Another mini-camera captured the interaction of Soobin and Boram, the last pair of students.

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1 Soobin: (to Boram) 저번주에 친구집에 갔어.

[I went to my friend’s house last week.]

2 Boram: (to Soobin) 저번주에 스케이트타러 갔어.

[I went skating last week.]

3 Soobin: (to Mr. Park) 다했어요.

[We are done.]

4 Mr. Park: 더 해보세요.

[Try more.]

5 Soobin: 어, 나 학교갔어.

[Uh, I went to school.]

6 Boram: 나도 똑같은데. (smiles) 그리고 또 뭐했지? 저번주에 …

저번주에 학원갔어.

[It’s the same for me. And what else did I do? Last week … Last week,

I went to an after-school program.]

7 Soobin: 저번주에 수영갔어.

[I went swimming.]

8 Boram: 저번주에 친구집에 갔어.

[I went to my friend’s house.]

9 (Boram and Soobin continue in a similar pattern for a few more

minutes)

10 Boram: This is what happened.

11 Soobin: Yeah, me, too.

In terms of bilingual development, Boram can be considered to be an emergent Korean and

English bilingual, meaning that she was still developing a new language (English) while owning

strong competency in Korean. Soobin can be regarded as an experienced Korean and English

bilingual, with stronger proficiency in English. Among all the students––except Boram––Soobin

and Yechan can be regarded as relatively competent Korean speakers although they primarily

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spoke English with their peers. Here, in this excerpt, because Soobin was paired up with Boram

who comfortably spoke Korean, Soobin did not speak English at all, trying different expressions

in Korean although they were somewhat in simple forms. After sharing about their past week for

a few minutes, in line 10, Boram suddenly switched her language to English by saying, “This is

what happened,” as if she wanted to show Soobin that she could also speak English. Then, in line

11, Soobin answered back in the same language that Boram decided to switch to. Boram’s

attempt to speak English to her peers during class activities continued to be observed throughout

the school year and this is further discussed later in this chapter.

4.16.1.4 Mr. Park’s Feedback on Pairing Activities

After class, I had a brief talk with Mr. Park about this pairing activity and the activity ideas that I

had for the coming weeks. Here is the feedback I received from Mr. Park about this pairing

activity during the debriefing:

When I usually asked students about their past week, the whole class

focused on that individual student [who was asked to share]. So, the

student got embarrassed and did not know what to say. But, now they

talk about it with their friends first and then, their partners talk about their

past week for them. So, it seems they feel more comfortable, not being

afraid of making a mistake, because they are not talking about themselves

but about their friends. And when they forget, their partners help them by

saying, “I said like this,” giving them more confidence [in speaking]. (my

translation)

As Mr. Park recognized, the pairing activity changed the discourse pattern in this classroom.

During this pairing activity, students talked with each other freely before they talked to the whole

class, giving them more time to think and answer the question, and to practice speaking.

Later in the school year, after implementing a few activities I generated, Mr. Park further

commented on the activity-focused approach that fostered small group work.

Until now, I alone led this class. But now, your ideas are so good that

students are very focused in class. When I explain things all by myself,

most kids don’t listen. So, I have to keep saying, “Be attentive!” But

now, they work in groups, asking and learning from each other.

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Mr. Park expressed his appreciation and described his observations and learning about ways to

engage students—by having them work in pairs or small groups. He learned that classroom

discourses did not always have to flow from the teacher to the whole class, and that students

could also learn from each other when a teacher utilized small group talk in their pedagogical

space.

4.16.2 Language Expert and Non-Expert Together in Activity Implementation

In place of textbooks that separate students by proficiency levels and provide examples that are

distanced from the students’ real life experiences, I created a series of ‘Find a friend who’

activities (‘Find a friend who has~,’ ‘Find a friend who can~,’ and ‘Find a friend who likes~’)

that encouraged all students to talk to each other and get to know each other better, while

learning new words and expressions. Each activity sheet had some target words and expressions

for students to practice by interviewing peers. I wrote them in both Korean and English so all of

the students in Mr. Park’s class could access the activities.

The week before implementing these activities, I showed the activity sheets to Mr. Park and

explained how these activities might work as a way to give students opportunities to practice

speaking. With Mr. Park’s welcoming comments on these ideas, I told him that each sheet was

for a one-time class lesson and gave him detailed verbal instructions as for how to implement

these activities. I mentioned that based on my own experiences of doing this activity with ESL

adults, this could be a loud and messy activity, as participants had to keep moving around the

classroom to talk with their peers and to find their friends, following the statements on the

activity sheet. I also told him that I would share how these activities went, by analyzing the video

data so we could modify our lesson plans based on our weekly findings.

On the day of implementing the first activity from the ‘Find a friend who~’ series, as usual, Mr.

Park asked the students about their previous week at the beginning of the class, and then told the

class that we would try something really fun that day. The main sentence structure of this activity

was “~가 있어요 (I have~)” and there were some new words I introduced on the sheet, such as

family relation words, 형 (older brother of a male), 누나 (older sister of a male), 오빠 (older

brother of a female), 언니 (older sister of a female), and 동생 (younger sibling). Mr. Park, then,

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paired up the students and told them to ask each other the questions from the sheet. He also asked

the students to write what the other person said about the question, such as how many brothers or

sisters they had. The students seemed confused at first about what they were supposed to do but

then started talking with their partners, mainly in English, and wrote on their sheets.

Mr. Park came over to me and asked if he was doing it right. I answered, “It is a bit different

from what I used to do but there are many different ways to do this, so it is okay.” Then, he

moved back to the centre and explained the new words by writing them down on the whiteboard.

Next, Mr. Park asked each student to read each sentence from the activity sheet and asked the

whole class who had brothers or sisters, long hair, skates, etc. and students raised their hands

whenever it was relevant to them. Some students were drawing pictures on their activity sheets,

and one student folded the sheet and made it like a megaphone. They were loud and not on task.

Indeed, Mr. Park changed the nature of the speaking activity that I had anticipated (interviewing

peers) into a writing activity, again largely employing the IRE method. From that day’s class, I

learned that an activity could go in a way that I did not expect: the teacher could implement an

activity differently and students could respond to an activity differently from what I expected.

Subsequently, during the debriefing session with Mr. Park after class, I explained that this

activity was more like conducting interviews, so it was expected that students leave their seats to

ask questions to all the other classmates. Also, I mentioned that we might want to explain target

expressions before students start interviewing peers, so they all could use and practice those

expressions in Korean during the activities. I also told Mr. Park that after interviewing their

peers, students could be encouraged to report some of their findings to the whole class.

Each week, I provided step-by-step instructions on how the activity could be implemented. Mr.

Park very often changed the nature of the activity as seen above. Then, I started creating an

instruction sheet that went with the activity, so it could provide Mr. Park with a step-by-step

guide. Sometimes, it was computer-typed, and sometimes, hand-written. Here is an example of

the activity and instruction sheet (Figure 12).

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Figure 12 Example of an Activity and Instruction Sheet

Each week after Mr. Park implemented these activities, we met and talked about the day’s class,

as well as next week’s lesson plan.

4.17 Pedagogical Changes: Creating the Third Space

Mr. Park’s teaching goals, which were to help students with speaking Korean and to make the

classroom more engaging, together with pedagogical and reflectional thoughts, guided my

planning. These were primarily drawn from who I am: a language educator, researcher, and

Korean immigrant parent. One of the questions that I had from the time I wrote my thesis

proposal and until my data collection was over was ‘what culturally relevant pedagogy (Gay,

2000, 2002; Ladson-Billings, 1994, 2004) would mean in the context of heritage language

classroom.’ The related questions were ‘what kind of funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff, &

Gonzalez, 1992; Moll, 1992) children could bring to the classroom,’ and ‘how teachers could

create the third space (Gutiérrez, Baquedano‐López, & Tejeda, 1999) for Korean-Canadian

children’s language and literacy learning.’

In the following table, I have listed all the activities that I generated during the second phase of

my data collection period, from February 5 to June 11.

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Table 5 Titles of the Activities

Find a Friend Who Has~ Find a Friend Who Can~

Find a Friend Who Likes~ Making Breakfast

Our Family Our House

All About Me Rocket Scientist, YeonSeok Chae

Sand Artist, Ha-Joon Kim Find Someone Who~ (compiled version)

Canada & Korea Reading logs (every week from April 2)

As shown in Table 5, most themes are closely related to students’ lives, such as me, family,

friends, and food. Through these themes, students can get to know each other better, connecting

with each other, while we, as teachers, can learn about the cultures and funds of our students.

With the ongoing pedagogical and reflective considerations, which I presented above, these units

were implemented, with the hope of creating the third space for our students’ language and

literacy learning. Now, I describe what endeavours were made to construct this innovative

pedagogical space. Due to the limited space, only a few examples are presented in the following

and the rest of the examples are included in Appendix H.

4.17.1 Creating Space for Translanguaging and Giving Instructions for

Language Use

In order to build on the linguistic and cultural resources that students had already acquired and to

expand and develop their bilingual and bicultural competency, Mr. Park and I collaboratively

created space for the languages and cultures of both home and mainstream school. This is the

only way that teachers can ensure that students who are at various points along the bilingual

continuum can mingle together and learn from each other, not being separated by proficiency

levels.

Considering the fact that most students in this class predominantly spoke English instead of

Korean during class time, this approach may seem like it would not make any change. Creating

space for both languages did not mean that students could speak English any time they wanted in

the Korean language class. Rather, this meant that teachers had to be strategic in order to foster

students’ cross-linguistic transfer, by allowing them to utilize both languages to enhance their

heritage language learning.

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4.17.1.1 Example 1. Interviewing in Their Preferred Language and Presenting in Korean

The very first attempt to ‘officially’ have room for both languages in the classroom was made

when implementing the unit, “Find a friend who can.” Mr. Park told the students to interview in

their preferred language, but they all had to present their findings to the whole class in the

Korean language only. After learning about the target expressions in Korean, students started

asking questions to peers. Unlike other times when most students predominantly spoke only

English among peers, students tried the expressions they learned in Korean. That is probably

because they knew that they had to present their findings to the whole class in Korean only.

While interviewing, the students wrote down the names of their peers on their sheets either in

Korean or in English, whenever they heard, ‘네’ or ‘yes.’ When the students completed this task,

Mr. Park asked each student to share their findings to the whole class, and all students made at

least one statement in Korean: Joohan said, “시우는 수영할 수 있어요 [Siwoo can swim],” and

Minjoon said, “주한이는 김치를 먹을 수 있어요 [Joohan can eat kimchi].” Soobin stated, “박

선생님은 자전거를 탈 수 있어요 [Mr. Park can ride a bike].” Zoe also shared her finding,

“수빈이는 … 피아노를 … 칠 수 … 있어요 [Minjee … can … play … the piano]” with a little

help from Soobin. While this example is mainly concerned about speaking, other activities are

focused on not only speaking but also writing.

4.17.1.2 Example 2. Making Bilingual Menus with Partners and Presenting in Korean

While I implemented the activity, “Making Breakfast,” on the day of Mr. Park’s absence, I told

the students to work individually to make a menu for their breakfast in their preferred language.

Then, I asked them to work with partners to create a bilingual menu. After that, I told the

students to verbally present about their partners’ breakfast in Korean.

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Figure 13 Examples of Student Activity Sheets: Making Breakfast

As seen in Figure 13, the students made their own breakfast menus in both Korean and English.

Instead of getting help from the teachers right away, the students were encouraged to help each

other to create their own bilingual text. Students chose their own partners, and as they worked in

pairs, they asked each other about foods and how to write those food items in Korean or in

English. While working on this activity, every student helped each other, utilizing their linguistic

resources, either Korean or English.

Additionally, unlike the times when students were engaged in textbook-driven activities,

although all the students participated in the same activity, none of the products were the same.

While some students listed close to fifteen items, others listed four or five. Moreover, none of the

students were isolated. They were all active participants. Furthermore, while doing this activity,

students learned that many food names were the same in Korean and English. For example, they

learned 김치 is Kimchi in English. Cereal is 시리얼 in Korean: same words and same

pronunciations but written in both languages. They learned that words could be borrowed from

another language to refer to the same items.

One significant finding on the day of implementing this activity took place when I asked the

students what they ate for breakfast before I introduced this activity to them. Their answers were

mostly Western foods, such as cereal, toast, English muffin, bacon, and scrambled eggs. I was

the only one who had rice and kimchi soup for breakfast that morning! As a first generation

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immigrant who mainly cooked Korean food for my children, this finding was a surprising

discovery, as reflected in the following note.

That was a learning moment for me! Without this type of activity, I can

never know what students eat at home and at school, and I can never

know what kind of activities they do in various places they routinely go

to. Without gaining information about their students, how can teachers

best help them to learn and improve their heritage language? (February

16, 2017)

4.17.1.3 Example 3. Reading in Korean and Writing a Journal in Their

Preferred Language

As a preparation for the reading log activity, Mr. Park and I selected Korean books from the

school office bookshelves. We put each book in a Ziploc bag with an activity sheet and put all

the Ziploc bags in a basket. The activity sheet had three questions: 1) What was the most

interesting part of this story? 2) Among the characters of this story, who do you like most, and

why? 3) Tell us a new thing you learned from reading this story. Each week, students picked

books that they wanted to read from the book basket, and they were given a choice to answer the

questions in Korean, English, or both languages. In other words, students were invited to read

and comprehend the story in Korean and transfer their understanding and thoughts into writing in

their preferred language. It was a prerequisite for students to understand the story written in

Korean in order for them to write about it. Even when they decided to answer in English, the

students had to utilize their cross-linguistic transfer capacity to show their understanding about

the story. Thus, in any case, this activity helped the students with their reading comprehension in

Korean. The following examples illustrate the various language choices that the students made.

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Figure 14 Examples of Student Activity Sheets: Reading Logs Top left: Boram’s. Top right: Soobin’s.

Bottom left: Sora’s. Bottom right: Joohan’s.

As seen in these activity sheets (Figure 14), Boram answered the questions in Korean only

whereas Sora did in English only. While Soobin answered the questions both in Korean and

English, she separated these languages by choosing a language for each question. Joohan’s

answers were written mostly in English but he used the name of the main character in the story in

Korean. Again, in any case, these children had to gather their full linguistic repertoires in Korean

and English to complete this task.

4.17.2 Creating Space for Bilingual and Bicultural Competency

While the weekly units were generated primarily to learn about the students and to bring their

‘real’ lives into the pedagogical space, these themes also created space for students’

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understanding about differences in the cultures and languages of Korea and Canada, and about

the people in Korea and Canada. In the following, I demonstrate how these specific activities,

both intentionally and spontaneously, created space to foster the bilingual and bicultural

competency of these students.

4.17.2.1 Example 4. Learning About Family Relations in Both

Languages

While students were working on “Our family,” which was similar to a family tree activity, they

were told to work in pairs to fill out the bubbles with their family members in their preferred

language. While doing this, they were encouraged to talk with each other about their family

members and finally, to present their learning about their peers’ families in Korean. The

following captures a segment of the conversation that Joohan and Minjoon exchanged while

filling out the bubbles with the words of family relations together.

1 Joohan: (to Minjoon) What’s aunt again? Oh, yeah. 고모.

2 Minjoon: 고모? (with a laugh). And then uncle is 삼촌.

3 Joohan: My dad’s brother is a famous artist in New York.

4 Minjoon: Your dad’s brother?

5 Joohan: Yeah, my uncle! Oh, I have another 삼촌. It’s 이모부. Wait, I

have three 삼촌 s.

Joohan and Minjoon identified different family relations both in English and Korean. In line 1,

Joohan said that ‘aunt’ is 고모 in Korean and in line 2, Minjoon stated that ‘uncle’ is 삼촌 in

Korean. Then, in line 3, Joohan mentioned that his dad’s brother was an artist in New York and

soon after, in line 5, he realized that he had another uncle, that is 이모부, which refers to the

husband of his mother’s sister. Finally, he concluded that he had three 삼촌 s (uncles), making

the word, 삼촌, plural by adding ‘s’ at the end. While talking about uncles in Korean, Joohan

realized that there was more than one word that referred to uncles in Korean, such as 이모부 (the

husband of his mother’s sister). As a matter of fact, he later added 고모부, the husband of his

father’s sister, in his family tree (see his activity sheet in Figure 15).

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The dialogue presented below took place when I was checking the understandings of the students

on the family relations in Korean during this activity.

1 Soon Young: (looking at Soobin’s worksheet) 선생님이 하나

물어볼께. 할머니가 엄마의 엄마면 뭐라고 부르지?

[I have a question. If grandma is the mother of your mother, what do

you call?]

2 Soobin: 할머니?

[Grandma (halmeoni)?]

3 Soon Young: 할머닌데 there are two different kinds of 할머니 s.

아빠의 엄마. 엄마의 엄마. They are different. What do you call? 외

…

[It is grandma but there are two different kinds of grandmas. The

mother of your father and of your mother. Oe …]

4 Soobin: 할머니.

[Grandma (halmeoni)]

5 Soon Young: 친 …

[Chin …]

6 Soobin: 할머니.

[Grandma (halmeoni)]

7 Soobin: Who is the mom’s side?

8 Soon Young: That’s 외 [할머니]. So, you can add 외 (oe) for mom’s

side and you can add 친 (chin) for dad’s side.

9 Soobin: (pointing to her family tree) 외할아버지. How about 외사촌?

10 Soon Young: Exactly!

In line 1, I asked Soobin what we call the mother of one’s mother. Then, in line 2, Soobin

answered that it is grandma. Then, in line 3, 5, and 8, I was explaining to Soobin that there are

two different types of grandmas in Korean. We add the prefix, ‘외 (oe)’ for mom’s side and ‘친

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(chin)’ for dad’s side. Then, in line 9, Soobin applied this to two other words, ‘할아버지

(grandpa)’ and ‘사촌 (cousin),’ by adding the prefix, ‘외 (oe),’ in front of 할아버지 (hal-abeoji)

and 사촌 (sachon), making the word, 외할아버지 (oehal-abeogi), the grandpa on mother’s side,

and 외사촌 (oesachon), cousins on mother’s side. The following activity sheets are each

Joohan’s and Soobin’s (Figure 15).

Figure 15 Examples of Student Activity Sheets: Our Family Left: Joohan’s. Right: Soobin’s.

It is noticeable that both students wrote predominantly in Korean while they were given a

language choice in their writing. It is most likely because they were expected to present about

their peers’ family members in Korean. Joohan put the prefixes, 외 and 친, outside of the

bubbles rather than adding them right in front of words, showing that one side was mother’s and

the other was father’s. Accordingly, he put 이모부 on his mother’s side, and 고모부 on his

father’s side. Similarly, Soobin also distinguished grandmas and grandpas for mother’s and

father’s sides, and included 이모, 이모부, 사촌, and 하나님 (God) in her family.

Through this activity, the students had an opportunity to learn that there were many different

words that refer to uncles or aunts in Korean. For example, 삼촌 refers to the unmarried brother

of one’s father. Older brothers of one’s father are 큰아버지 and younger brothers of one’s father

are 작은아버지. 이모부 is the husband of one’s mother’s sister whereas 고모부 is the husband

of one’s father’s sister. In English, all these family relations are regarded as one word, uncle. In a

similar vein, there are various words that refer to aunts in Korean. For instance, the sister of

one’s father is 고모 and the sister of one’s mother is 이모. The wife of one’s uncle on father's

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side is 숙모, and the wife of one’s uncle on mother's side is 외숙모. In English, all of these

words are simply referred to as aunt.

4.17.2.2 Example 5. Learning About Languages and People: Canada

and Korea

During the activity, “Canada & Korea,” students were asked to work with their peers to find the

locations of these two countries on the map and to fill the table with their ideas about the people

who live, the languages they speak, and the food they eat in each country. The following

conversation is from when Joohan and Minjoon were sitting side-by-side, trying to locate Korea

on the map.

1 Joohan: (to Minjoon) Is this Asia? Is this Russia? (pointing to a spot on the

map) Is it 한국 [Korea]?

2 Minjoon: (to Soon Young) 선생님 [Teacher], how are we supposed to find

한국 [Korea]? It’s so small.

3 Soon Young: 응, 한국 작아요. 어떤게 한국인지 잘 찾아보세요.

[Yes, Korea is small. Try to find where it is.]

4 Joohan: Oh, Canada is here! I know where Canada is. It’s right here.

5 Soon Young: 그래? 캐나다가 그렇게 조그매?

[Is it? Is Canada that small?]

6 Minjoon: The map is so small. That’s why.

7 Soon Young: 어, 그러긴 해 [Yes, it is]. That’s very true.

8 Joohan: Here. I think this is 한국 [Korea]. (to Minjoon) Where is 한국? Is

this 한국?

9 Minjoon: It’s like so small. (pointing to a spot on the map) It’s located right

here.

10 Soon Young: 오, 민준이 대단한데.

[Wow, that’s impressive, Minjoon.]

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In this conversation, we can see that while Joohan was having some difficulty locating Korea and

Canada (line 1), Minjoon demonstrated his knowledge about Korea by saying that it was a small

country and by locating it easily, although it was a challenge to find it on the small map (line 9).

Joohan learned the locations of the countries on the map from his partner, Minjoon, broadening

his understanding about the global village.

The next excerpt is the conversation that Soobin and Sora exchanged while they were filling out

the table about the languages that people in Canada speak.

1 Soobin: (to Soon Young) When we write languages, if we know how to

write in that language, can we write in that language?

2 Soon Young: Sure. 좋은 생각이야 [That’s a good idea].

3 Soobin: (while writing the word, ‘English’) English. Oh, right. I need to

write in Français.

4 Sora: I don’t know how to write that, man! F is all I know (looking at

Soobin’s sheet). R, A, N, and what is that thing?

5 Soobin: C and then five below.

6 Sora: How are you doing this in French?

7 Soobin: China. Chinese. I don’t know Chinese.

8 Sora: I do but I don’t know how to write in Chinese. That’s the problem.

Gee.

In this excerpt, we can see that Soobin was trying her new idea, ‘writing the names of languages

in those languages if she can.’ While Sora was trying to follow Soobin’s idea, she faced some

‘language problems,’ as she indicated in line 8. Soobin, who is in French immersion, showed off

her language skills by writing 한국말 (Korean), English, and Français. In contrast, in line 4,

Sora, who attends an English medium school, asked Soobin what Ç (c-cedilla) was. When

Soobin was moving onto the next language, Chinese, which she could not write (line 7), Sora

stated that she knew the language but could not write it, pointing out, “That’s the problem” (line

8). Sora, whose mother is Chinese-Korean, does understand some Mandarin but did not know

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how to write it. Nonetheless, in this conversation, both Soobin and Sora showed their

understanding that there are many languages that people in Canada speak. In the following, I

have included the activity sheets of Minjoon and Soobin (Figure 16).

Figure 16 Examples of Student Activity Sheets: Canada & Korea Left: Minjoon’s. Right: Soobin’s.

These examples show that Minjoon and Soobin had different levels of understanding on

Canada’s languages. Whereas Minjoon only put 영어말 (English) under the languages in

Canada, Soobin put multiple languages, such as English, French, Korean, Chinese, Turkish,

Japanese, and Russian. Both of these students demonstrated their knowledge on Korea as a

monolingual and monoethnic country by writing 한국말 (the Korean language) as the language

of Korea, and 한국사람 (the Korean people) as the people of Korea. Through this particular

activity, students had an opportunity to think about the languages, people, and food in Canada

and Korea, the two countries that are crucial for who they are.

4.17.3 Creating Space for Voices of Students and Identity Positioning

While the units and lesson plans that I created were at the core of the pedagogical space in this

second phase of data collection, there were also times when I simply learned from the students

by talking with and listening to them. On the days when I was unexpectedly asked to teach the

students, I had more flexibility in delivering our lessons, and in the following example, I have

included some conversations that I spontaneously had with the students.

4.17.3.1 Example 6. Identity Positioning as Korean-Canadians

When students finished the activity, “Canada & Korea,” I drew an arrow on the whiteboard and

wrote “Korean” at one end, and “Canadian” at another end. Then, I asked students to put a dot on

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the arrow and write their names below to indicate where they saw themselves in terms of how

they felt about who they were as Korean-Canadians.

1 Soon Young: 이게 fully Korean 이구 이게 fully Canadian 이야. 그럼

주한이가 여기다가 dot 을 그려줘. 내가 fully Korean 처럼 느껴지는지,

아니면 내가 fully Canadian 처럼 느껴지는 지, 아니면 in the middle

somewhere, 주한이 이름을 거기다가 써주세요.

[This is fully Korean, and this is fully Canadian. Then, Joohan, put a dot on

the arrow and write your name below to show if you feel you are fully

Korean or fully Canadian, or in the middle somewhere.]

2 (Joohan writes his name closer to the Canadian side)

Joohan: I don’t know but I just feel like …because I don’t really speak

Korean that much.

3 (Minjoon comes out and measures the arrow. Then, he puts his dot right in

the middle)

Minjoon: “because I speak Korean a lot …한국말 집에서 많이 하고, 근데

내가 학교에서는 English 를 더 하니깐요. 그래서 middle 에 있는 것

같애요

[At home, I speak Korean a lot and I speak English at school. So, I feel like

I am in the middle.]

4 (Sora writes her name closer to the Canadian side)

Sora: I speak more English than Korean. I am terrible at Korean. That’s

why.

5 (Soobin puts her name almost in the middle but a little closer to the Korean

side)

Soobin: I don’t know [why I feel this way]. (with a shy smile)

6 (Siwoo writes his name toward the end of the arrow on the Canadian side)

Siwoo: Because I speak mostly Canadian (at school) and I speak Canadian

at my house.

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When I asked students to locate themselves on the arrow (line 1), they all wrote their names

where they felt they were along this continuum and gave me the reasons why they felt that way.

Figure 17 is the replication of the arrow we had on our whiteboard on that day.

Figure 17 Identity Positioning as Korean-Canadians

Siwoo is almost at the end of the Canadian side and Sora and Joohan are in the middle, but a

little closer to the Canadian side. Minjoon is right in the middle of the arrow, showing he feels

half Korean and half Canadian. Then, Soobin is in the middle, but a bit closer to the Korean side.

While they all located themselves on different points along this continuum, the rationales for

their positionings were all connected to their languages (as seen in lines 2, 3, 4, and 6 in the

excerpt above), reflecting their view that bilingual competency was closely related to their

Korean-Canadian identity.

Then, I invited the TA, Jin Soo, to this activity. He wrote his name closer to the end of the

Korean side, which prompted Sora to say, “Because he was born in Korea!” When I told the

students he was born in Canada just like most of the students in this class and asked Jin Soo, “왜

그렇게 느껴지세요? [Why do you feel that way?],” his answer was, “Because I live my life as a

Korean person. The way I eat and the way I act is mostly … I guess it is just Korean instinct: the

way of living. And my music taste, stuff like that is all Korean. But I wouldn’t say I am fully

Korean because I am influenced by the Canadian environment.” The grade 11 Korean-Canadian

student, Jin Soo, considered his way of life as the best indicator for his identity positioning.

Further discussion led us to talk about ‘what makes them Canadian’ and ‘what makes them

Korean.’ When I asked Minjoon if he was Canadian, he said, “Yes, because I was born in

Canada,” indicating his citizenship by law. Then, when I continued to ask if he was Korean, he

responded, “Yes, because my parents are Korean,” emphasizing his ethnic origin and bloodline.

Next, I asked what made them Korean, and Joohan answered that writing and reading in Korean

made them Korean. Similarly, Siwoo and Minjoon stated that being able to communicate in

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Korean made them Korean. In short, these students acknowledged their citizenship, ethnic origin,

and languages as their key identity markers as Korean-Canadians.

4.17.4 Creating Space for Multimodality

As an endeavour to try something new, I chose two educational videos that were available on the

website of EBS (Korea Educational Broadcasting System), a children’s educational television

and radio network in South Korea. These two videos were part of the series called, Teen Teen

Interview. The videos in this series contain interviews with well-established people in many

different professions, and in each video, those selected professionals talk about their experiences

and expertise. The lesson plan for this activity was to watch, talk about, then write about the

videos.

4.17.4.1 Example 7. Watching An Interview Video in Korean and Talking About It

The first video was about the rocket scientist, Dr. 채연석 (YeonSeok Chae), which was about 11

minutes long. Since Mr. Park did not watch this video and did not know what this was about, he

wanted me to deliver the lesson after he talked with the students about the books they read as

part of our weekly reading log activities. Before starting the video, I gave the students an

instruction, “이 사람이 뭐하는 사람인지 [what this person does] You are gonna figure out what

this person does. 그리고 이 비디오 보고나서 [After watching this video] we are gonna ask you

what you understood from this video.” For about 7-8 minutes, students were very quiet, but

then, they began losing attention. I also noticed that Zoe and Minjee were not fully engaged in

watching the video. Then, I stopped the video and asked them if they wanted to finish it or stop

there. Only a few students indicated that they wanted to finish the video, so, I stopped it and

asked them what they thought the person’s job was.

1

Soon Young: 자, 이 사람의 직업이 뭔지 한번 생각해 봤어요?

[Now, have you thought about his job?]

2 Minjoon: Astronaut.

3 Soon Young: Astronaut? Astronaut 이 뭐지? [What is astronaut?]

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4 Hana: A person who travels in space?

5 Soon Young: 저 사람이 우주를 막 여행하는 사람같아요? [Do you think

he is a person who travels in space?] Do you think he is an astronaut?

그러면은 astronaut 이 우리말로 뭐죠? [Then, what is astronaut in

Korean?]

6 Yechan: 우주 비행사?

7 Soon Young: 응. 그리고 아까 사진에 하늘로 막 올라가는 거 있었지.

그게 뭐죠?

[Yes. And in the video, there was an object that was going up rapidly in the

sky. What is it?]

8 Sora: Rocket ship.

9 Soon Young: Rocket ship 을 우리말로 뭐라고 하는 지 알아요? [What is

rocket ship in Korean?] (writes ‘로켓’ and ‘rocket ship’ on the

whiteboard). 로켓 (pointing to the Korean word). Rocket ship (pointing to

the English word). 근데 이 사람은 우주를 날아간 사람이 아니에요. 이

사람은 뭐를 한 사람이냐면 … [But he is not an astronaut. What he did

was …]

Minjoon suggested that Dr. YeonSeok Chae was an astronaut (line 2). When I asked what an

astronaut was (line 3), Hana explained, a person who travels in space (line 3). Then, I asked what

astronaut was in Korean (line 5) and Yechan replied, 우주비행사 (line 6). Then, I described a

rocket in Korean, ‘하늘로 막 올라가는 것 [an object that is going up rapidly in the sky],’ (line

7) and then, Sora replied in English that it was a rocket ship. Next, I wrote both 로켓 [rocket]

and rocket ship on the whiteboard and said these words, pointing to them so students could both

hear and see the words in both languages. Here, while I was checking students’ understanding

about the video they watched, I was stopping at some English words that they used and asked

them about these words in Korean.

Since students did not fully understand the contents of this interview, in order for them to figure

out Dr. YeonSeok Chae’s profession, I showed the part of the video in which he said, “언젠가는

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우주에 가보고 싶다 [I want to travel to space someday]” once again. The part also explained

why he had to give up on space travel. Dr. YeonSeok Chae lost one of his eardrums while

experimenting with his own rocket when he was in high school. Then, our discussion moved

onto how he lost his eardrum and what he learned from that accident.

1 Soon Young: 응 [Yes], so he learned a lesson. He studied really hard. He

learned about the history of rockets and how it’s made. Oh, what is rocket?

로켓이 뭐라고 여기서 얘기했어? [what did they say what a rocket is?]

2 Yechan: Rocket is a material, kind of, whatever, the thing that can go out to

space, not like airplanes because airplanes need air to fly. But rockets carry

air with them, so they could go up to space.

3 Soon Young: Very well understood. 잘 했어요 [Good job]. 지금 예찬이가

얘기한 것 이해해요? [Do you understand what Yechan has just said?]

하늘을 날으려면 뭐가 필요하다고 했어요? [What did he say a rocket

needs to fly?] What do they need to fly?

4 Yechan: 공기 [air].

5 Soobin, Yechan, Hana, Sora: Air!

6 Soon Young: 응, 공기가 필요해요 [Yes, they need air]. What is in the air?

7 Siwoo: H2O.

8 Yechan, Hana: (looking at Siwoo) It’s water!

After mentioning that Dr. YeonSeok Chae had to study very hard about rockets in order for him

not to have another accident from his experiment, I was again checking the understanding of the

students on the video by asking them what the video said about ‘what a rocket is’ (line 1). Then,

Yechan replied that it was an object that carried air with them, unlike airplanes, to go out to

space, sharing what he understood from watching the video (line 2). Next, I asked other students

what a rocket needed to fly (line 3) and Yechan answered, ‘공기’ [air] and Soobin, Yechan,

Hana, Sora responded, ‘Air!’ (lines 4 and 5). Additionally, I asked the students what was in the

air, again attempting to see their level of understanding on the interview video. Siwoo answered,

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H2O (line 7), which was refuted by Yechan and Hana (line 8). I later talked about 산소 [oxygen],

a gas in the air that is needed to burn the engine fuel in space where there is no oxygen. Students

learned that rockets carried 산소통 [an oxidizer] in order to fly in space. By watching the

interview video, students were exposed to a wide range of new vocabulary and expressions in

Korean. By talking about the video utilizing translanguaging, students learned about the facts and

events that were discussed in the video, which they could not fully understand by themselves.

The following week, as a way to build on their learning on the rocket scientist, students talked

and wrote about this video.

4.18 The Positions of Languages in the Classroom and

Socialization

As illustrated in Figure 8, the students in the focus class display a wide range of bilingual

competency largely vis-à-vis their speaking skills. Boram is near the end of the Korean

monolingual side, while Zoe is near the end of the English monolingual side. The rest of the

students are on various points along the Korean English bilingual continuum. In the following, I

present the positions of English and Korean in this class, drawing from my observations of the

students’ language use in the classroom and their interactions with one another, particularly with

the focus on Boram, who has the highest proficiency in all areas in Korean.

4.18.1 The Dominance of English in the Classroom

When we first implemented an activity that I created, we did not have a strategic plan for

language use. The main goal for that activity, which was one of the series, ‘Find a friend who~,’

was to give students an opportunity to practice speaking in Korean. However, I observed that

some students such as Soobin and Minjee were speaking predominantly in English. Minjee

asked, “Do you have an older brother?” and Soobin answered, “Nope,” shaking her head. Then,

Minjee continued, “Not me, either,” writing ‘No’ on her sheet. Similarly, Joohan asked, “Do you

have a brother?” When reminded to speak in Korean by Mr. Park, Joohan said, “Do you have

a 형 [older brother]?” Mr. Park then continued, “형이 있어요? [Do you have an older

brother?],” encouraging Joohan to speak a full sentence in Korean, but Joohan repeated, “Do you

have a 형?” When he was told a few times, he finally said a full sentence in Korean, “형이

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있어요?” However, as soon as Mr. Park turned away, he asked Minjoon, “Do you have a 형?”

This pattern of students’ language choice was repeatedly observed throughout the whole class on

that day, which led me to write this reflection:

I feel like although this activity helps students to become more interactive

with each other, it seems students’ preferred language is English,

avoiding speaking Korean. It is not that they can’t speak it. Do students

somehow feel inferior when they are speaking Korean? Do students want

to show others that ‘their’ language is English, not Korean? Are they

trying to avoid Korean identity? Are they motivated to learn Korean,

even a bit? It seems some students are treating the Korean language, their

parents’ language, as a less favourable language to speak. I wonder if

students have to be told at the beginning of the school year why they are

here to learn Korean in order for them to understand the importance of

learning their heritage language. Or should Mr. Park strategically

implement “Korean-only” policy while doing this activity? (February 5,

2017)

In this Korean language class, the dominance of English was observed constantly. This prompted

us to implement strategic language use of students for specific tasks, as a means to disrupt this

pattern of language choice and to enhance their language learning, as I have shown in many

examples in this section.

4.18.2 No English Speaking, Not Fitting In

While I observed the dominance of English in this class throughout the school year at least in the

speaking domain among the students, at the same time, I also observed patterns in the

socialization of the students in this class. Each week as they arrived one by one, the students

chose their seats and started chatting with each other. In the horseshoe shape seating

arrangement, Joohan, Yechan, Minjoon usually sat along one side, Soobin, Sora, Minjee, and

Hana on the opposite side, and Boram, Zoe, Siwoo, and the TA, Jin Soo in the middle. While this

seating suggested a tendency for boys to sit together, and girls to sit side by side (for most of

them), I also learned that this reflected their social circles, as some of them were already friends

before joining this class.

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With the help of five cameras that captured all the mini-interactions taking place in the

classroom, I was able to see what they were doing and what they were saying or not saying

during class times. The following is a piece from my observation notes, depicting the interactions

of Soobin, Hana, Boram, and Sora, who were sitting alongside each other.

Boram comes in and sits beside Soobin. There is no talk between these

two. Then, Sora comes in and starts to talk with Soobin. Boram keeps

looking at them talking in English, remaining silent, playing with a

pencil, rolling. Then, throughout the class time, Soobin and Hana are

busy talking with each other, whereas Boram and Sora remain silent, not

interacting at all. Boram keeps gazing at Sora and Soobin.

Mr. Park hands out the picture of the Korean flag for students to colour

as part of the March 1 Movement (Samil Independence Movement)

activity, which was prepared by the school director. They pick colours

from a container full of coloured pencils and start colouring. During the

whole class time, the only interaction that Boram had with her peers is

that she passes broken crayons to Sora, trying to say something in

English (inaudible). Sora asks, “what?” and Boram tries again very

quietly. Sora then responds with a gentle smile with no word. (March 5,

2017)

This observation note demonstrates Boram’s typical interaction pattern with other students.

While Boram, from time to time, attempted to communicate with her peers, it was always

English she tried to speak. Therefore, her verbal interaction with peers was very limited. Boram

did not speak Korean at all to her peers, although she always used Korean when speaking with

Mr. Park and me.

4.18.2.1 Bringing Something Special to School

At one point, I noticed Boram bringing something to class that captured her peers’ attention. She

once was wearing a ring with a large black bead and received lots of attention from her friends.

On one of the videos, I was able to see Boram taking something out of her purse quietly and

showing it to others behind the table. Other girls smiled or ‘wowed’ at it, and then Boram put it

back into her purse with a big smile, looking satisfied. Because the object was so small, and her

hand was behind the table, the video did not show what it was. I became very curious about the

object Boram was bringing to class.

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One day, when I unexpectedly met Mrs. Kwon, Boram’s mother, at the church cafeteria, I had a

chance to bring this up after talking about various things with her, such as her moving and

Boram’s sister’s new school. When I mentioned the objects that Boram was bringing, Mrs. Kwon

responded:

She comes [to school] with some stuff in her purse. Today also, she

brought a little doll with her, her favorite doll. I didn’t really pay

attention to it. But wouldn’t it be her way of getting attention from her

friends? Because she can’t communicate with them … Wouldn’t she

want to play with them? (my translation)

According to Boram’s mother, bringing objects to school was Boram’s way of getting attention

from her peers, as her limited speaking ability in English did not allow her to freely socialize

with others. However, her endeavour to socialize with her peers by bringing an object did not

seem to have a long-term effect. The interactions among the girls largely excluded Boram,

although Soobin had no problem in both understanding and speaking in Korean, and other girls

like Sora and Hana also had some receptive skills in Korean. English was the language of their

communication, and there was no room for Boram unless they were told to work with partners

and Boram was their partner.

4.18.2.2 1.5 Generation’s Trauma: Linking Boram’s Experience with Stories from Paul and Mrs. Kim

This repeated pattern of language choice made by the students in this class, which affected their

socialization, reminded me of the conversation that I had with one of the university students,

Paul, a member of Grace Church, who came to Canada when he was one year old. While talking

about 1.5 generation immigrants, Paul mentioned that when he was helping with ESL classes

while a high school student, he did not like to hang out with ESL learners because of the

assumption people frequently made toward him. He said he hated when people assumed that he

did not speak English although his primary language was English. He further stated that the

labels, such as newcomer or ESL learner, did not accurately describe him. The following brief

excerpt shows his unwillingness to be associated with ESL and his dislike toward the assumption

people made toward him as an ESL learner:

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I never wanted to be associated with ESL. If someone made that

assumption and asked me if I could speak English, I would’ve been very

offended. (original transcript)

While recalling Paul’s experience, I also remembered a piece of the conversation that Mrs. Kim,

the director of this school, shared with me during an interview. When she first came to Canada as

a high school student, she felt that second generation Korean students looked down on her. She

also mentioned that her husband, who came as a middle school student, had similar experiences:

We [my husband and I] came [to Canada] in our 10s. So, there was a

tendency where we were looked down on by other kids at school, with

respect to language. My husband told me he even had a fight … Because

we were not able to speak the language of the country, we were feeling

small. (my translation)

Mrs. Kim called this ‘1.5 generation’s trauma’ and elaborated on her experience even further.

We are all Koreans. If we are looked down on by non-Koreans, then we

can get over it. But if we are looked down on by second generation

Koreans, the same people, … just because we can’t speak English? (my

translation)

For this reason, according to Mrs. Kim, many 1.5 generation immigrants, including her cousins,

do not like to talk with second generation immigrants. While compiling all these narratives from

Paul and Mrs. Kim, now I wonder if these stories are somehow connected to Boram’s

experiences as a newcomer and an ESL learner.

4.18.3 Helping Peers with Korean without Saying a Word

Zoe and Boram are sitting side by side, remaining silent for about 23

minutes. Then, when Mr. Park asks students to work with a partner to

complete the family tree activity in both languages, Zoe looks at Boram

and asks:

1 Zoe: Do you want to do it?

2 Boram: Uh?

Zoe looks at Boram’s sheet and copies down the words in Korean, not

exchanging any words with Boram. Boram stays silent.

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This observation note reflects a pattern of language use in the classroom. Zoe asked if Boram

wanted to do the activity together (line 1), and Boram, not quite understanding Zoe’s question,

responded, “Uh?” (line 2). While Zoe had no problem communicating, Boram had trouble

understanding because students in this class used English as their primary language. However,

although Boram was not saying anything to Zoe and Zoe was not receiving any verbal help from

Boram in this excerpt, Zoe was getting help from Boram by looking at and copying down the

Korean words that Boram already wrote along with her English words. Because Boram wrote all

the family relations words both in Korean and English on her sheet, Zoe was able to identify

each Korean word in English and did not need further assistance from Boram. Then, Boram

noticed that her peers needed some help with writing Korean.

1 Sora: How do you spell Jesus in Korean?

2 Soobin: 예수님.

3 Sora: How do you write?

4 (Noticing that Soobin is having difficulty writing 예수님, Boram writes it

down on the back of her activity sheet and shows it to Soobin without

saying any word)

5 Soobin: (looking at Boram’s writing) I know. I know.

6 (Soobin writes it down and shows it to Sora and Minjee, and they add the

word, 예수님, to their family trees)

Boram, noticing that Sora wanted to write Jesus in Korean (line 1), and that Soobin needed help

to write it in Korean, wrote 예수님 on the back of her activity sheet and showed it to Soobin

(line 4). Again, Boram, without saying a word, helped Soobin, Sora, and Minjee to write in

Korean. The following observation note shows how I felt after observing these events.

Here, while Boram is not verbal, she helps her peers to write Korean

words by writing and showing to them. Although Boram is ‘helping,’ she

does not seem to get any credit for it. She does not seem to have a

position in this social space, which indicates that the Korean language

does not have that much capital. (March 26, 2017)

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4.18.4 Wanting to Fit in and Belong: I, Too, Can Speak and Write English!

As mentioned earlier, on the day we first implemented an activity, students primarily used

English, rarely ‘trying’ to communicate in Korean. While watching the video recordings at

home, I learned that Boram was not an exception! Zoe and Boram, who are on the opposite sides

on the bilingual continuum, were paired up for this activity, and to my surprise, they were talking

in English only. For example, Zoe asked, “Do you have an older sister?” and Boram nodded,

answering, “Yes, I have an older sister.” Then, Boram asked back to Zoe, “Do you have an older

sister?” Boram seemed happy that she was able to communicate with Zoe in English, not using

Korean at all.

In fact, throughout the school year, although Boram’s verbal exchanges with her peers were very

much limited, her attempts to speak English were observed a few times, as I have shown above.

Here is another example.

1 Hana, Soobin, Boram, and Sora are all sitting alongside each other. They

have been colouring Korean flags. Then, Hana takes her hand sanitizer out

of her backpack and shows it to Soobin.

2 Hana: (taking off the lid) We open it this way. Do you want it?

3 Sora: Can I have some?

4 Hana: Look! Watermelon hand gel.

(Hana squeezes her hand sanitizer and puts some on the palms of Soobin

and Sora)

5 Hana: Guys, smell it. It smells so good.

6 (Sora and Soobin rub their hands, smelling them)

7 Mr. Park: 자, 이름쓰세요 이름. 이름 다 썼어요?

[Now, write your name, name. Did you write your name?]

8 (Boram hands in her colouring sheet to Mr. Park)

9 Mr. Park: (looking at Boram’s colouring sheet) 이름이 어딨어요?

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[Where is your name?]

10 Boram: It’s a mystery! (pointing to her very tiny name on her colouring

sheet and smiling) Look!

11 Sora and Soobin try to find her name on Boram’s sheet and smile.

While Hana, Soobin, Sora, and Boram were all sitting side by side, Boram was not part of the

girls’ dialogue. Taking out her watermelon hand gel sanitizer, Hana put some on the palms of

Soobin and Sora, and invited them to smell it (line 1-line 6). While being excluded from this

dialogue, when Mr. Park asked the students to write their names on the sheets before handing

them in (line 7), Boram wrote her name very small, and handed hers in. Mr. Park asked where

her name was (line 9), and then, Boram responded, “It’s a mystery! Look!” (line 10). Boram

rarely spoke English to teachers but here, she was responding to Mr. Park in English, as if she

was showing her peers that she, too, could speak English, pointing to her tiny name on her sheet,

which attracted her peers’ attention (line 11).

As a matter of fact, although Boram’s communicative skills in English were fairly limited, her

writing skills in English were as good as those of her peers. Boram’s biliterate competency was

frequently observed while working with her partners. For instance, while working on the activity,

“Our House,” students were asked to work with partners (groups of two or three) to complete

writing rooms and things in their house both in Korean and English. When they all finished, each

student had to share what his/her partner had in his/her house by using the form of ~ 의 집에는

_, _, _, _, _가 있습니다 [~’s house has _, _, _, _, _.]. Here is the “Our House” activity sheet of

Boram.

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Figure 18 Boram’s Activity Sheet: Our House Left: Front side. Right: Back side.

As we see in Figure 18 (front side) above, following Mr. Park’s instructions, Boram wrote the

list of rooms and things in her house, both in Korean and English. While working on her house,

Boram did not receive any help from her group, Minjee and Zoe. While her group was figuring

out who would present about whose house, Boram, not quite understanding what Minjee and Zoe

were saying, wrote the items of Minjee’s house on the left side of her back page, thinking she

was her partner. However, she later added the things in Zoe’s house on the right side, realizing

her partner was Zoe, not Minjee. As shown in Figure 18 (back side), Boram wrote all these

things only in English. Then, when she presented about Zoe’s house to the whole class, Boram

said, “죠이네 집에는 침실, 부엌, 거실, 뒷마당, 세탁실, 계단, 그리고 다락방이 있습니다”

fully in Korean, reading the list of the words she wrote in English with her eyes. Boram was

translating the words simultaneously, demonstrating her biliterate skills to her peers, Minjee and

Zoe, as if she wanted to show that she, too, could write in English.

4.19 Summary

This last part of the findings chapter closely focused on the interactions of the students and

teachers in the grade 3 and 4 class. This part illustrated the patterns of language use in this

classroom and pedagogical approaches supporting students’ language and literacy learning. The

students in this class predominantly spoke English, whereas Mr. Park spoke Korean most of the

time. Mr. Park used textbooks as his only source of teaching and expressed his lack of

confidence in language teaching throughout the school year. During his orthographically-

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oriented activities, the patterns of IRE discourses were repeated. Mr. Park selected different

levels of textbooks to support his students with a wide range of proficiency levels, which resulted

in three separate parallel groups of concurrent learning. The shift made in my positionality

brought pedagogical changes to this classroom. The units and activities that Mr. Park and I

collaboratively implemented created space for translanguaging, bilingual and bicultural

competency, identity positioning, and multimodality. The patterns of language use were

disrupted by strategic language use and small group work. The students’ positioning of English

as the valued language affected their socialization in this class.

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Chapter 5 Discussion and Implications

In the midst of immigrant children’s prevalent subtractive bilingualism (Fishman, 1989; Pacini-

Ketchabaw & Armstrong de Almeida, 2006; Shin, 2005; Wong Fillmore, 1991), this doctoral

inquiry investigated several aspects of Korean-Canadian children’s heritage language learning

and contributors to their bilingual development by looking at a multi-generational Korean ethnic

church as a case. This study also examined how the Korean and English languages are positioned

at various levels within and beyond the church. Additionally, due to the shift made in my

positionality from an observer to a participant observer, my research explored the outcomes of

particular learning activities guided by theoretical underpinnings, such as translanguaging

(García, 2009; García & Wei, 2014), culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1994, 2014),

funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992), and the third space (Gutiérrez,

Baquedano‐López, & Tejeda, 1999). In this final chapter, I synthesize the key findings of this

study, drawing conclusions in response to my research questions, and proposing implications for

stakeholders.

5.1 Supporting Factors of Korean-Canadian Children’s Heritage

Language Learning

This study identified multiple layers of fields that support Korean-Canadian children’s heritage

language learning and development within and beyond Grace Church. At the macro level, the

Korean government plays a significant role by giving financial and educational support to

Hangul hakgyo, overseas Korean schools. Within this multigenerational ethnic church, several

components also contribute to children’s bilingual development. Children are naturally exposed

to the Korean and English languages through Grace Hangul hakgyo, Sunday school, and frequent

informal get-togethers and meetings. Supporting actors within the church include teachers,

parents, peers, pastors, and church members, such as cell group families. These multiple layers of

fields interact with each other with distinct goals, playing a substantial role in the heritage

language education of Korean-Canadian children at this church.

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5.1.1 Supporting Hangul Hakgyo: Korean Ethno-Nationalism

In Ontario, Korean-Canadian children can attend church-based and school-based heritage

language schools. In other words, these children can receive heritage language education from

their ethnic communities and the provincial government. Grace Church, a Korean ethnic church

with multiple generational immigrants, operates Grace Hangul hakgyo, as a form of community-

based heritage language school. Other than the church itself, the only financial and educational

source for Grace Hangul hakgyo is the Overseas Koreans Foundation (OKF), a Korean

governmental body, which has been conducting educational and cultural projects for overseas

Koreans since 1997 (OKF, 2016).

OKF provides Grace Hangul hakgyo with annual funding based on the number of students

enrolled in the school. Mrs. Kim, the director of Grace Hangul hakgyo, mentioned that she uses

the funding to buy materials that teachers need for their classes and to give a small honorarium to

teachers as a token of appreciation before the Christmas break and at the end of the school year.

Each year, Mrs. Kim orders textbooks through the OKF website based on the needs of students

or the requests from teachers. Then, Mrs. Kim picks them up from the Korean Education Centre

in Canada (KEC), operated by the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Toronto.

Teachers at Grace Hangul hakgyo are invited to attend annual conferences that take place at the

regional (KCSA: Korean-Canadian Schools Association of Ontario) and national levels (CAKS:

Canadian Association of Korean Schools), which are sponsored by the OKF. Through these

conferences, Korean language teachers meet their colleagues who teach in many different places

and learn various pedagogical approaches together.

By the definition of OKF, Grace Hangul hakgyo qualifies for its name, Hangul hakgyo, as this

school was established by overseas Koreans voluntarily with the goal of teaching the Korean

language, history, and culture (OKF, 2016). According to Shin (2006), an intimate relationship

between Korean ethno-nationalism and globalization gave birth to the Overseas Koreans

Foundation (OKF), as the Korean government recognized the value of overseas Koreans as

national assets in the country’s globalization plan. With this recognition, OKF finances Hangul

hakgyo to bolster bonds with the mother country and to support the identity cultivation of

overseas Koreans (OKF, 2016). The financial aid that OKF gives to Hangul hakgyo is somewhat

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extensive, considering the number of countries they support. For example, in 2015, OKF assisted

1,875 schools in 117 countries, expending about $12.6 million. In the context of Canada, in the

same year, OKF provided financial aid to 65 schools in Toronto, 26 schools in Vancouver, and 6

schools in Montreal (OKF, 2016). While it is unquestionable that the Korean government’s

financial support for Hangul hakgyo is far-reaching, for Grace Hangul hakgyo, one of the

recipients of this financial aid, the funding is not sufficient for operating the program. Rather,

Grace Hangul hakgyo heavily relies on the capacities of the church to run the school. Since

Grace Hangul hakgyo is part of the children’s ministry, the school is located in the church

building and shares classrooms with Sunday school. Without this provision from Grace Church,

Grace Hangul hakgyo cannot be operated.

While each teacher has full autonomy in designing the curriculum, as in the case of Mr. Park, for

most teachers at Grace Hangul hakgyo, the primary source of teaching is textbooks provided by

the OKF. During the first half of the data collection period, Mr. Park used textbooks as the only

means for his teaching. In the foreword of the textbook Machum Hanguk-uh 1 (Customized

Korean Level 1) that Mr. Park used for his class, Kim, Kang, Kim, and Hwang (2014) underline

that this textbook was created for children learning the Korean language at Hangul hakgyo while

growing up in English-speaking countries. Their effort to accommodate the needs of Korean

children growing up in English-speaking countries is found in the use of English for some texts.

While this effort helps Korean-Canadian children to understand the textbook contents, Mr.

Park’s textbook-driven pedagogy tended to accompany a few features of discourses found in

other studies conducted in Korean language schools.

During Mr. Park’s textbook instructions, his discourses were largely teacher-led and showed IRE

(Initiation-Response-Evaluation) patterns. Similarly, Oh (2007)’s classroom observation revealed

that Korean language teachers’ discourses involved repetitions, mainly reflecting transmission-

oriented instruction and the IRE pattern. Likewise, Pak (2005) learned that classroom

pedagogical approaches used by Korean language teachers involved teacher-directed activities,

primarily using textbooks. Oh (2007) regarded these types of discourses found in his study as the

traditional literacy instructional style in Korea. Korean language teachers’ predominant use of

textbooks and their discourse patterns suggest that these teachers use Korean pedagogical

methods for children growing up in North America. As an educator who has obtained degrees

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both in Korea and in Canada, I am familiar with both Korean and Western pedagogies. Upon Mr.

Park’s request for assistance, my positionality shifted from an observer to more like a participant

observer. Consequently, during the second half of the data collection period, I, with Mr. Park,

collaboratively utilized various pedagogical approaches that were better suited for Korean-

Canadian children, such as pairing students for peer scaffolding and using authentic materials

and contents for connecting language learning with real lives. During debriefing sessions with

Mr. Park, he mentioned several times how these instructional changes positively altered

classroom discourses and student engagement in activities.

Teachers at Grace Hangul hakgyo are all volunteers with no teaching credentials. Through

school meetings, the director and teachers at Grace Hangul hakgyo plan activities for special

events and share information and concerns in relation to Korean language teaching and learning.

Several recurring concerns shared in the meetings include: difficulties in 1) securing the number

of teachers needed each year, 2) accommodating the needs of students with a wide range of

proficiency levels in the same class, and 3) obtaining coherent teaching across different levels

due to the absence of curriculum guidelines. These challenges at Grace Hangul hakgyo reflect

some of the general qualities about Hangul hakgyo identified in several studies conducted in the

U.S. (Choi, 2008; Lee, 2007; Sohn, 2001) and Australia (Jung & Kim, 2009). Sohn (2001) points

out that as a voluntarily established educational body, it is difficult for Hangul hakgyo to secure

the funding needed for proper operations. Thus, Korean language schools overseas experience

various challenges, such as the inadequacy of systematic teacher training, teachers’ lack of

educational credentials, infeasibility to accommodate students by proficiency levels and age,

shortage of classroom materials such as audio-visual aids, teachers’ predominant use of

memorization and grammar translation methods, and the absence of standard curriculum (Choi,

2008; Jung & Kim, 2009; Lee, 2007; C. H. Park, 2011; G. S. Park, 2008; Sohn, 2001).

The Korean government has been responsive to the needs of Hangul hakgyo. Their endeavours to

further support Korean language schools overseas are revealed in the new certification program

created for Hangul hakgyo teachers and in their appointment of a commission to develop

standard curriculum for Hangul hakgyo. In 2017, OKF presented a Korean School Teacher's

Certification program as a means to improve the quality of Korean language teaching at Hangul

hakgyo and to acknowledge teachers as professionals (OKF, n.d.-b). According to the OKF

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website, through this program, teachers will be equipped with the foundation of knowledge in

relation to Korean language studies, Korean language education, childhood education, and

Korean culture and history (OKF, n.d.-b). While there is no doubt that this certification program

will help Hangul hakgyo teachers with their teaching practices, at the same time, it is difficult to

expect volunteer teachers with busy home and work schedules to sign up for the program that

involves 18 weeks (31 hours) or 12 weeks (22 hours or 19 hours) of online coursework without

substantial benefits from making this commitment.

The Korean government appointed a commission to generate standard curriculum for Hangul

hakgyo and two reports were submitted as a result (Jung et al., 2009; Kim, Sung, Baek, Hwang,

& Kim, 2008). These reports acknowledge that developing standard curriculum for Hangul

hakgyo is not easy because they have to analyze the needs of students living overseas, and then

develop educational goals and contents based on their needs. They assert that although these

students are all Koreans, there are considerable differences in their immigrant history and

experiences. According to Park (2011), these two reports contain all the details needed for

curriculum development and it is essential for the Korean government and Hangul hakgyo to pay

attention to these rudiments to govern systematic education.

One particular thing that caught my attention in these reports is how they define the educational

goals of Hangul hakgyo. Kim, Sung, Baek, Hwang, and Kim (2008) assert that it is to help

overseas Koreans to form identities as Koreans by teaching the language, history, and culture of

Korea, and at the same time, to lead them to contribute to establishing friendly relations between

Korea and their countries of residence. Similarly, Jung et al. (2009) highlight that there are two

significant educational needs vis-à-vis overseas Koreans: 1) a need to establish and maintain

identities as Koreans, 2) a need to secure and utilize overseas human resources for boosting

national competitiveness in the global society. From these goals laid out by the government-

appointed scholars, I once again see the close connection between Korean ethno-nationalism and

globalization. In the eyes of the Korean government, Hangul hakgyo is a pivotal tool for meeting

national agendas in the global era.

Briefly speaking, the Korean government has been supporting Hangul hakgyo in numerous ways

drawn from its national needs; however, their provision is unsatisfactory in improving the quality

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of Hangul hakgyo, as addressed by the teachers of Grace Hangul hakgyo and by numerous

reports (Choi, 2008; Jung & Kim, 2009; Lee, 2007; C. H. Park, 2011; G. S. Park, 2008; Sohn,

2001).

5.1.2 Operating Hangul Hakgyo: Korean Heritage Language and Culture

Maintenance

Grace Hangul hakgyo is operated by Grace Church. Pastors, elders, and members of the church

consider Korean language learning significant for Korean-Canadian children’s heritage

maintenance, and collaboratively operate the language school. Grace Hangul hakgyo works

closely with the children’s ministry and uses classrooms before Sunday school starts. Church

members volunteer as Korean language teachers with or without an invitation from the school

director, Mrs. Kim. Many of these teachers are parents themselves who deeply care about their

children’s heritage language learning. Within this church, pastors, Sunday school teachers,

Korean language teachers, and parents all play a role in the heritage language learning and

maintenance of Korean-Canadian children.

Children’s Korean Ministry (KM) at Grace Church is a de facto bilingual program in which

Korean and English are both spoken. The Sunday school pastor delivers sermons in both Korean

and English, and Sunday school teachers are a combination of Korean monolinguals, English

monolinguals, and Korean-English bilinguals. The teachers at Grace Hangul hakgyo implement

numerous approaches to enhance the students’ heritage language learning, and their motivation

to learn the language. Teaching approaches include the use of cultural mediums, mass media,

alphabet resources, and games. On special occasions, children at Grace Church learn about

Korean traditions and history. For example, at the New Year’s Day event, children have an

opportunity to try various traditional and cultural activities, such as Yut-nori, Ddakji, calligraphy,

and Jae-ki. They also learn about Korean history on a few Korean national holidays, such as

March First Movement Day, Hangul Day, and Children’s Day. Furthermore, children at Grace

Church have plenty of opportunities to socialize with other Korean-Canadian peers through

various get-togethers, such as weekly leadership meetings and cell group meetings. Thus, Grace

Church is a field in which Korean-Canadian children acquire their heritage language, culture,

tradition, and history, which helps them build bilingual and bicultural competency. This finding

concurs with the position taken by many researchers (Chong, 1998; Han, 2011; Min, 1992; Oh,

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2007; Pak, 2003, 2005; Park, 2010; Park & Sarkar, 2007; Shin, 2005; Tse, 2001), who highlight

the importance of ethnic community institutions for maintaining immigrant children’s heritage

language, culture, and identity.

Parents are fundamental contributors to their own children’s language and literacy learning and

development. For the parents of the focus class that I interviewed, language learning was an

important part of their children’s education. Their perceptions of the need to support their

children’s global competency often played a role in their immigration trajectories. While parents

considered the importance of English as necessary for school achievement and helpful to their

success in the global market, at the same time, they regarded the Korean language as a means for

communication within families and ethnic community. The parents enrolled their children in

Grace Hangul hakgyo, hoping that the school would help their children to not only learn the

language but also the culture of Korea, which is important in their identity formation. Thus, for

these parents, the significance of the Korean language comes mainly from their familial and

ethnic desires rather than national or global benefits. The strategies that the parents utilize to

boost their children’s language learning include reading Korean books and encouraging them to

talk and write about them, listening to bedtime story CDs in Korean, and watching Korean

educational programs and entertainment shows together as a family. Korean-Canadian immigrant

parents’ attitudes toward their children’s heritage language maintenance were also noted by Park

and Sarkar (2007) whose study was carried out in Montreal. Similar to my findings, they found

that the participating parents viewed the Korean language important for their cultural identity,

job opportunities, and communication with grandparents. The parents in this study also shared

several ways to support their children’s heritage language maintenance, which included speaking

only in Korean at home, reading Korean books with their children, and watching educational

videos.

While the parents at Grace Hangul hakgyo showed their eagerness to support their children’s

heritage language maintenance and development, at the same time, they reported their children’s

language shift from Korean to English, corroborating a large volume of literature that has

documented immigrant children’s subtractive bilingualism and language loss (e.g. Fishman,

1989; Pacini-Ketchabaw & Armstrong de Almeida, 2006; Shin, 2005; Wong Fillmore, 1991).

More importantly, this finding is congruent with the startling discovery of Jeon’s study (2012),

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the only Canadian study that explicitly claimed that “the intergenerational transmission of

Korean across generations is failing” (p. 166). This finding suggests that with only just over fifty

years of settlement in Canada, Korean immigrants are struggling to maintain their heritage

language. Grace Church, with multiple supporting actors, such as pastors, elders, teachers, and

parents, creates a field in which Korean-Canadian children are naturally exposed to the language

and culture of their heritage. While all these supporting actors play a fundamental role in

Korean-Canadian children’s heritage language development and maintenance, children’s

language shift from Korean to English observed by their parents demonstrate complications of

heritage language development and maintenance.

In short, Grace Hangul hakgyo is a field in which the objectives of the Korean government and

Korean Canadian immigrants intersect vis-à-vis heritage language education. For the Korean

government, Grace Hangul hakgyo is ultimately a field for building national human resources

and strengthening economic competitiveness in the global era. For Grace Church, a congregation

with multiple generations of Korean Canadian immigrants, Grace Hangul hakgyo is mainly a

field for their heritage language and culture maintenance, which is closely related to their ethnic

identity. In other words, Grace Hangul hakgyo is the site in which the Korean government and

Korean Canadian immigrants work together with their distinct aims, jointly supporting the

heritage language education of Korean-Canadian children at this school.

5.2 Positions of Korean and English within and beyond Grace Church

The positions of Korean and English within the Korean and English ministries of Grace Church

are closely linked to immigrant generations, and to the language use and socialization of children

in the grade 3 and 4 focus class. The positions of Korean and English within Grace Church are

undoubtedly influenced by the status of those languages beyond the church, exhibiting the

intimate relationship between language and identity at multiple levels of interacting fields.

5.2.1 Languages, Immigrant Generations, and Identity Positioning

The Korean language has no official status at any level in Canada. However, within Grace

Church, Korean is the main language along with English. The adult congregation of Grace

Church is a combination of first, 1.5, and second generation Korean immigrants. Two ministries,

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KM and EM, accommodate different language users of Korean immigrants. At the same time,

the congregants are divided into two groups under the same roof. Thus, language separation,

described as parallel monolingualism (Heller, 1999) or separate bilingualism (Blackledge &

Creese, 2010), is the norm in the official space of the adult ministries. However, outside of the

official times of service, congregants from KM and EM often mingle through various get-

togethers, dismantling language boundaries and bridging two monolingual worlds.

Within this multigenerational ethnic church, the notions of language and immigrant generation

are closely intertwined, as it is commonly understood that KM is for the first generation and EM

is for the second generation. This phenomenon largely reflects the language shift and loss of

second generation immigrants, which mainly results from their English monolingual schooling.

Variations of the 1.5 generation are identified by some of the church members. According to the

Grace Hangul hakgyo director, Da-Yoon Kim, the 1.5 generation refers to the people who

immigrated with their parents, and when people say 1.3 or 1.7 generation, it indicates their

arrival times. While a Sunday school teacher, Mike, agrees with this definition, he further

elaborates that the 1.5 generation refers to individuals who came with parents during elementary

or middle school and have not fully developed Korean or English because of the time when they

arrived in the host country. They do not belong to the first generation, who are native Korean

speakers, nor to the second generation, who are native English speakers.

Mike’s observation of the inadequate language development of 1.5 generation immigrants who

came as young children is repeatedly reported by researchers. While examining the grade 12

English language arts achievement of various age-on-arrival cohorts of English language learners

(ELLs), Roessingh and her colleagues (Roessingh & Kover, 2002, 2003; Roessingh, Kover, &

Watt, 2005) found that older arrivals (aged 15 and older) outperformed younger arrivals (aged

12-14), and that the youngest arrivals (aged 6-11) had the most difficulties in developing

cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP; Cummins, 1980, 1996) despite their obtained

native-like proficiency with the phonological features of English (Roessingh, 2008). These

findings corroborate Cummins’ linguistic developmental interdependence hypothesis, which

claims that there is substantial transfer between L1 and L2 (Cummins, 1979). In other words,

children’s level of competency in L1 greatly affects their learning of L2. Roessingh and Elgie

(2009) conclude that the arrival time of immigrant children to the host country is closely linked

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to their language development, and regard older arrivals as additive bilinguals and the youngest

arrivals as subtractive bilinguals. They are profoundly concerned that children who come to

Canada while still developing their first language go through challenges in acquiring their second

language, and stress the importance of sufficient instructional input, particularly for vocabulary

building for these young ELLs.

According to Rumbaut (1997, 2004), who coined the term, 1.5 generation, this term is best

suited for describing children who immigrate at the ages of 6-12 years. These children are pre-

adolescent, primary school age children who have learned to read and write in their mother

tongue in their country of origin but whose education is mainly completed in the host country.

Rumbaut (1997) further generated terms, 1.25 and 1.75, noting that preschoolers and teenagers

are in different developmental phases. The term, 1.25, refers to the ones who arrive in their

adolescent years, ages 13-17. These individuals may or may not come with their families, and

may attend secondary schools or go into the workforce after arrival. The term, 1.75, refers to

children who arrive in early childhood, ages 0-5. Their experiences are similar to those of the

second generation, as they are too young to learn to read or write in the language of the home

country. They learn the language of the host country, generally without an accent (Rumbaut,

2004).

Thus, the definitions of the 1.5 generation commonly used within the church, just as described by

the Grace Hangul hakgyo director and Sunday school teacher, Mike, are slightly different from

the ones given by Rumbaut. When defining the 1.5 generation, Rumbaut cares less about whether

individuals came with their parents or not, whereas it seems to be the most critical determiner for

this church community. Also, while Rumbaut uses three categories, 1.25, 1.5, and 1.75 in

reference to individuals who are not first or second generation immigrants, these church

members tend to use any number that they feel best describes the time of their arrival.

The notion of the 1.5 generation was further elaborated by Paul and David, Korean-Canadian

young adults at Grace Church. According to them, this term is frequently used when describing

themselves in relation to their proximity to the culture and language of Korea or Canada. In other

words, these young adults, while adopting Rumbaut’s perspective of the term, 1.5 generation,

modify and expand its uses. What is different between these two ideas is the determinants, what

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determines ‘boundaries.’ For Rumbaut—as well as Da-Yoon Kim and Mike—this notion

concerns arrival time and language level. For Paul and David, it is related to how they feel about

who they are. So, for Paul and David, this term is more flexible and has no clear boundaries,

whereas for Rumbaut, it is not so malleable. However, what is common between these two uses

is that individuals use the variations of the 1.5 generation to show that they are different from or

similar to other groups in some way. This is congruent with the idea that identity is “a

positioning in relation to a community—be it in association or opposition to it” (Achugar, 2006,

p. 100). In other words, as individuals with certain levels of bilingual and bicultural competency,

1.5 generation immigrants at Grace Church created variations such as 1.3 and 1.7 as a means for

their identity positioning. This underlines that 1.5 generation immigrants are not a single group

of people with a fixed identity, but refer to people who are on the bilingual and bicultural

continuum, whose identity is constantly developing and negotiated in the multiple worlds they

live in, such as home, school, church, and the workplace.

No matter how the term, 1.5 generation, is defined or used within Grace Church, 1.5 generation

Korean immigrants are generally known to have “the bilingual and bicultural capacity to ‘go

between’ the Korean-speaking first generation and the English-speaking second generation”

(Shin, 2005, p. 157, emphasis in original). The benefits of having 1.5 generation teachers in the

Korean language school was noted by the Grace Hangul hakgyo director, Da-Yoon Kim. She

affirms that 1.5 generation teachers have a better understanding of what students are going

through in terms of cultural and linguistic adaptation. Likewise, Shin (2005) suggests that

Korean language schools need to recruit 1.5 generation teachers, as they are acquainted with both

Korean and Canadian teaching styles, and can explain in both languages in class and perform as

“cultural mediators between parents and children” (p. 158).

5.2.2 Languages, Socialization, and Identity Positioning

The positions of Korean and English within the classroom were discovered through observations.

The language uses of the focus class children unveiled not only their language proficiency level

but also language preference, which shows their identity positioning and negotiation. The

students in the focus class displayed a wide range of bilingual competencies concerning their

speaking skills. Boram was near the end of the Korean monolingual side, and Zoe was near the

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end of the English monolingual side. The rest of the students were on various points along the

Korean-Canadian bilingual continuum.

In this Korean language class, the dominance of English was observed constantly among

students, including Boram, whose speaking skills in English were limited. While most of her

interactions in the classroom took place through gazing at peers in silence, whenever Boram

attempted to speak to her peers, she almost always tried to use English. Boram sometimes

brought something special from home to show her peers. According to her mother, Mrs. Kwon, it

was a way to get attention from her friends because her limited speaking ability in English did

not allow her to freely socialize with others. However, the interactions among the students

largely excluded Boram, although some students, such as Soobin, had no problem in both

understanding and speaking Korean, and other students like Sora and Hana had some receptive

skills in Korean. English was the language of their communication and there was no room for

Boram, unless they were told to work in pairs and Boram was their partner.

The prevalence of English use by the focus class students demonstrates their identity positioning

as English speakers rather than Korean speakers or Korean and English speakers. This is

congruent with Tse’s (1998) position concerning ethnic identity development. According to Tse

(1998), ethnic minorities go through four stages of ethnic identity development: 1) Unawareness

(unaware of their minority status, which takes place before attending school); 2) Ethnic

Ambivalence/Evasion (ambivalent or negative feelings toward their ethnic background,

preferring to associate with mainstream societal group, which takes place once starting formal

schooling and through adolescence or adulthood); 3) Ethnic Emergence (exploring and

embracing their heritage and ethnicity); and 4) Ethnic Identity Incorporation (accepting

themselves as ethnic minorities). As Tse (2000) stresses, the stage of Ethnic

Ambivalence/Evasion is also termed as Conformity by Atkinson, Morten, and Sue (1983) and

Atkinson (2004), and Unexamined Ethnic Identity by Phinney (1989). While Tse (1998)

acknowledges that not every ethnic minority goes through these four stages, the predominance of

English use in the focus class seems to illustrate that these children are going through Stage 2 of

Tse’s ethnic identity development model. They have somewhat ambivalent or negative feelings

toward their Korean ethnic background, preferring to speak the language of the mainstream

group.

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Many researchers underline an intimate relationship among language, identity, and power. For

example, Schiffrin (1996) asserts that “language displays social identity and relationships” (p.

199). Identity is dynamic, multifaced, negotiated through language, and is tied to social

interaction (Cummins, 2000; Miller, 2000; Blackledge & Pavlenko, 2001). Moreover, Shin

(2005) stresses that in any bilingual setting, there is an uneven power distribution in languages;

in other words, one language is more valued than the other. Similarly, Bourdieu (1991) affirms

that in a given linguistic market, some products are regarded more highly than others, and that

the linguistic competence of speakers significantly depends on the capacity “to know how, and to

be able, to produce expressions which are highly valued on the markets concerned” (p. 18).

Boram’s attempts to communicate with her peers in English, rarely trying to communicate in

Korean, shows she knew that in order for her to be part of their dialogues, she had to speak

English, not Korean. She knew that the Korean language had less or no value in the social space

of this class. Her linguistic capital, predominantly coming from Korean, did not have that much

currency in terms of her socialization. In other words, Boram’s linguistic capital was not easily

transferred to social capital, whereas the linguistic capital of Zoe, who was an English

monolingual speaker, was effortlessly transferred to social capital, meaning that she was able to

socialize with other classmates without difficulty. Thus, Boram’s effort to communicate in

English can be seen as an endeavour for her identity positioning and negotiation through

language. This finding elucidates that positions of the Korean and English languages within the

classroom are greatly influenced by their positions beyond this church. Although this was a

Korean language class, English, the official language of Canada, was more valued and

predominantly used among the students. As a result, the dominance of English in the class

prompted the focus class teacher and me to strategically implement language policies to disrupt

this pattern of language choice and to enhance their heritage language learning.

5.3 Pedagogical Changes from the Positionality Shift: Creating

the Third Space

My positionality as an observer shifted to that of a participant observer in the middle of the data

collection period due to Mr. Park’s request for help, brought by his continuous frustration from

the lack of knowledge and resources as a language teacher. In this section, I first discuss the need

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for pedagogical changes identified by my classroom observations, and then, present what

pedagogical changes were chosen to address these needs. Lastly, I consider how my reflexive

practice became even more crucial after this change in my positionality, fully conscious of the

power dynamics between Mr. Park and me during our collaboration.

5.3.1 The Need for Pedagogical Changes

During the interview conducted at the beginning of the school year, Mr. Park frequently stressed

the importance of speaking Korean only to support students’ language learning. He believed that

students needed to be exposed to Korean as much as possible in order to maximize their learning.

His alignment with the time-on-task or maximum exposure hypothesis, termed by Cummins

(2001), has been refuted in the last few decades as a great number of studies have demonstrated

cross-linguistic transfer (e.g. Calero-Breckheimer & Goetz, 1993; Genesee, 1979; Hébert, 1976;

Huguet, Vila, & Llurda, 2000; Lambert & Tucker, 1972; Modiano, 1968; Skutnabb-Kangas &

Toukomaa, 1976). During Mr. Park’s Korean monolingual instruction, Zoe, the English

monolingual student, had to fully rely on the help from the TA, Jin Soo, who served as a

translator and interpreter for Zoe, which is also described as a language broker by some

researchers (McQuillan & Tse, 1995; Morales & Hanson, 2005; Orellana, Reynolds, Dorner &

Meza, 2003; Tse, 1995; Weisskirch, 2017). Jin Soo did not translate what Mr. Park said to Zoe

word for word, but focused on the assigned tasks which were mostly writing letters and words in

class. Most of the time, Zoe did not understand what Mr. Park was saying in class. The typical

patterns of language use in this class—the teacher mainly speaking Korean and students mostly

speaking English—were also observed by other researchers who conducted their studies in

heritage language classrooms (Creese & Blackledge, 2010; Martin, Bhatt, Bhojani, & Creese,

2006).

Additionally, several shortcomings were found in the textbook-driven method adopted by Mr.

Park for this class. Firstly, the levelled textbooks divided students by proficiency level,

negatively affecting their socialization. Boram worked on advanced-level workbooks alone or

with the help of an occasional TA, away from the rest of the students. Zoe, although learning

with other students using the same-level textbook, always had to sit beside Jin Soo, a language

broker, which also interfered with her interaction with other peers. Secondly, during textbook

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instructions, the Initiation, Response, and Evaluation (IRE) pattern was repeatedly observed in

classroom discourses, as Oh (2007) also found in his study. According to Cazden (2001), for

some teachers, this arrangement seems to be natural, functioning as the “default pattern” (p. 53);

however, this pattern gives students a replying role with only one chance to speak, offering

limited opportunities to practice communicative skills. The IRE method utilized during textbook

instructions proved to be ineffective in meeting the goal of Mr. Park, which was to support

students’ speaking skills. Thirdly, because textbooks were orthographically oriented, students

were typically engaged in writing rather than speaking activities. Fourthly, the examples in the

textbooks were distanced from students’ real lives. Rather than writing about the objects and

people around them, the students wrote words relating to objects or people that may not have

been meaningful or relevant to them. According to Gilmore (2007), it has long been known that

“the language presented to students in textbooks is a poor representation of the real thing” (p.

98), far away from the real use of the language. In this regard, research stresses that authentic

materials increase learners’ motivation (Peacock, 1997), help students to overcome cultural

barriers to language learning (Bacon & Finnemann, 1990), and provide “the necessary context

for appropriately relating form to meaning in the language acquisition process” (Bacon &

Finnemann, 1990, p. 459). This underlines the importance of authentic language and material use

in the classroom as a means to foster students’ language learning (Gilmore, 2007, 2011;

McGarry, 1995).

All these observed weaknesses listed so far, which were mainly drawn from the monolingual,

textbook-controlled approach, were taken into account when Mr. Park asked me for assistance

with his teaching.

5.3.2 The Pedagogical Changes: Creating the Third Space

Considering the wide range of proficiency levels of the focus class students on the bilingual

continuum and their predominant use of English in this heritage language class, translanguaging

was adopted as a means to give every student access to classroom instructions and to

strategically encourage students’ cross-linguistic transfer for their enriched learning.

Translanguaging as a pedagogical tool has been embraced by many scholars in the field of

bilingual education (e.g. Creese & Blackledge, 2010; Martin, Bhatt, Bhojani, & Creese, 2006;

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García & Wei, 2014; Lewis, Jones, & Baker, 2012; Otheguy, García, & Reid, 2015). García and

Wei (2014) underline that translanguaging in education transcends bilingualism in education, in

which two languages are separately performed, as it enables students to move simultaneously

along the bilingual continuum, leveraging their linguistic resources for meaning making. By

engaging in translanguaging, students can be more cognitively and socially engaged in their own

learning, actively participating in meaningful discussion, comprehension, or text creation.

Researchers assert that there is sufficient evidence showing that in every classroom with

bilingual learners, teachers and students move between languages spontaneously to teach and

learn (Creese & Martin, 2003; García & Wei, 2014; Lin & Martin, 2005; Macaro, 2006). It

appears that translanguaging is “a pragmatic response to the local classroom context” although it

is “rarely institutionally endorsed” (Creese & Blackledge, 2010, p. 105). Thus, while recognizing

the spontaneous use of translanguaging in the pedagogical space, researchers are also aware that

there is an ideological clash in educational institutions. The notion of separate bilingualism, in

which two separate monolingual instructions are carried out, clashes with flexible bilingualism,

in which two languages are utilized within the same instruction (Creese & Blackledge, 2010).

Then, it is probable that Mr. Park, who held a belief in the maximum exposure hypothesis which

led him to mostly speak Korean in class, underwent his ideological clash or shift when he

collaboratively adopted translanguaging in our pedagogical space, even as he welcomed and

willingly implemented the activities I generated.

Various pedagogical potentials of translanguaging have been identified, such as increasing

inclusion and participation, co-constructing meaning, understanding students’ learning processes,

and demonstrating knowledge and delivering ideas more easily (García, 2011; Arthur & Martin,

2006). By allowing students to utilize their entire linguistic repertories, “translanguaging makes

visible the different histories, identities, heritages and ideologies” (García & Wei, 2014, p. 137)

of bilingual students.

Additionally, an activity-oriented approach was adopted as a means to tackle the inadequacies of

using textbooks in this heritage language classroom. The difference between textbook-controlled

pedagogy and activity-oriented approach can be seen as the distinction between micro (bottom-

up) and macro (top-down) approaches. In micro approaches, instruction moves from a focus on

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simpler to more complex aspects of language (e.g. words–sentences–paragraphs–discourse). In

contrast, in macro approaches, students are engaged in complex and authentic activities that tap

into students’ experiences and knowledge at the outset of instruction (Carreira, 2016). According

to some scholars in the field of heritage language education (Carreira, 2016; Carreira & Kagan,

2011; Kagan & Dillon, 2001), macro approaches are suitable for heritage language learners, as

they are characterized as having substantial functional abilities, such as “high aural proficiency;

native-like pronunciation; vocabulary that is adequate for the needs of family and possibly

community” (Kagan & Dillon, 2001, p. 512). Although these scholars examined heritage

language learning mostly at college-level programs, this premise seems relevant to the heritage

language class at the elementary level, as in the case of this focus class. Rather than focusing on

writing alphabet letters and simple words, which is based on the micro approach, these students

who already have some level of functional skills can benefit from this activity-oriented method

that is “discourse based, content based, task based, genre based, or experiential” (Carreira, 2016,

p. 127). Thus, activities were generated and implemented as a way to explore macro approaches

to language teaching. Considering students, such as Zoe, whose home language was English, we

carried out a careful combination of micro and macro approaches, so all students could benefit

from these classroom instructions and activities.

Mr. Park and I attempted to provide opportunities for students to create genuine spoken and/or

written texts. Notions of culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1994, 2014), funds of

knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992), and the third space (Gutiérrez, Baquedano‐

López, & Tejeda, 1999) were important to these pedagogical decisions. Through the use of

authentic materials, we connected students’ language learning with their lived experiences,

where their linguistic and cultural backgrounds are embedded (Gay, 2000, 2002; Gutiérrez,

Rymes, & Larson, 1995; Gutiérrez, Baquedano-López, & Turner, 1997; Moll, 1992; Riojas-

Cortez, 2001; Riojas-Cortez, Huerta, Flores, Perez, & Clark, 2008).

5.3.3 Positionality, Power, and Reflexivity

“No research inquiry, whether positivist, or indeed humanist or feminist, exists outside the

realms of ideology, and politics; research is never value-free” (England, 2006, p. 287). All

research inquiries are loaded with some level of ideologies, beliefs, and values. There is an

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intimate relationship between positionality and power. While Rowe (2014) defines positionality

as “the stance or positioning of the researcher in relation to the social and political context of the

study—the community, the organization or the participant group” (p. 627), Sanghera and Thapar-

Bjorkert (2008) describe it as “the way in which others position the individual identity and

affiliations he/she may have” (p. 553), which shows the interrelational nature of one’s

positionality. In my research, I took up the view that the notion of positionality explains the

influence of various constructs crucial for one’s identity, such as race/ethnicity, gender, class,

language, and education, on the relationship between researchers and research participants and

on the research outcomes (Alcoff, 1988; Collins, 1991; Gilbert, 2008; Phoenix, 1994; Storrs,

2000; Weiner-Levy, 2009). Aligned with numerous researchers (Mikecz, 2012; Rochira, 2014;

Sanghera & Thapar-Bjorkert, 2008; Thapar-Bjorkert & Henry, 2004), I believe that positions are

contextual, contestable, and interrelational rather than static, and researchers’ positionality is

dynamic, fluid, and adaptable during the research process.

It is widely accepted that there are perceived power differentials between researchers and

research participants (Jones, 1996; Storrs, 2000; Takeda, 2013). Power between the researcher

and the researched throughout the research process can be viewed as shifting, intersecting,

dispersed and fluctuating (Bhavnani, 1994; Thapar-Bjorkert & Henry, 2004). During the

fieldwork in ethnographic research, researchers’ power is negotiated rather than given, and

positionality is determined by where one stands vis-à-vis others (Merriam, Johnson-Bailey, Lee,

Ntseane, & Muhamad, 2001). While researchers in qualitative research are in positions of power

relative to research participants (Tisdell, 2008; Wolf, 1996), throughout the research process,

participants have the power to share or not to share information, and researchers are very much

“at the mercy” of the research participants as they seek access and cooperation to participants

(Kennedy-Macfoy, 2013, p. 495).

As shown in the previous chapters, throughout my research process, my positionality shifted

from observer to collaborative teacher or mentor, to substitute teacher. Since I shared ethnicity,

language, and religion along with immigrant experiences with my participants, I was able to

build rapport and trust relatively easily and access the information I was seeking. In my study,

power differentials were most profound between the focus class teacher, Mr. Park, and me, as I

weekly observed his classroom interactions. When Mr. Park repeatedly mentioned that he needed

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help from other teachers who had more experiences in language teaching and finally asked me

for help, he positioned himself as a non-language expert while acknowledging me as a language

expert. As Mills and Morton (2013) underline, researchers cannot separate themselves from the

places and contexts they seek to study, and researchers’ understandings “get appropriated,

reworked and transformed” and “become part of the messy realities of social life” (p. 2) in the

research process. Mr. Park’s request led me to take roles that I had not anticipated at the

beginning of my study. My decision to shift roles was influenced by a consideration of how this

shift in my positionality would affect the teaching and learning of the grade 3 and 4 focus class

and my research results. Indeed, I “become [became] part of the social world they [I] study

[studied]” (Mills & Morton, 2013, p. 2). These dynamics of positionality influenced ways in

which I interpreted the complexities of the classroom interactions and methodological

modifications (Takeda, 2013).

Due to this positionality shift, close collaboration with Mr. Park became fundamental during the

second half of my data collection period. During this time, I practiced reflexivity much more

actively as I was fully aware of the power imbalance between Mr. Park and me in relation to

knowledge and experiences in language teaching. At the same time, I recognized that this

collaboration had an impact on the learning outcomes of the grade 3 and 4 students. Mason

(2002) defines reflexivity as “thinking critically about what you [researchers] are doing and why,

confronting and often challenging your own assumptions, and recognizing the extent to which

your thoughts, actions and decisions shape how you research and what you see” (p. 5). Mason

asserts that all researchers make decisions concerning these questions, which have intellectual,

practical, and ethical repercussions. Likewise, Finley (2008) sees reflexivity as the constant

analysis of relationships, power dynamics and goals of researchers, while Gabriel (2011) regards

it as an ongoing questioning about researchers’ own stance concerning their data sources and

analysis. Thus, in this reflexive process, I was conscious of the values, beliefs, and theoretical

assumptions I brought to my research site while reflecting on my positionalities in relation to

those of my participants.

According to Saumure and Given (2008), a thorough qualitative study is built upon the practice

of reflexivity, as researchers should be aware that their presence has effects on research findings.

Throughout the fieldwork, I wrote in a reflexive journal, my own insights, interpretations, and

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reactions regarding classroom observations and interviews. This reflexive practice supported my

data analysis process (Rodgers, 2008). Through this reflexive process, I realized that my

presence as a researcher with a language teaching background had an impact on my relationship

with Mr. Park. I believe that he would not have asked me for assistance if I had no background or

experiences in language education. Moreover, my reflectivity made me become more mindful of

the power differential between Mr. Park and myself. I endeavoured to create space for

“collaborative dialogic processes” where Mr. Park could share his insights, thoughts, and

feedback, as a means for “‘professional’ researchers to allow ‘nonprofessional’ researchers room

to engage” and exercise power (Davis, 2008, p. 141). In a way, Mr. Park and I became co-

researchers who coordinated data production and modification. I strove to integrate his ideas and

goals in the activity planning and implementation. As Finley (2008) stresses, in a community-

based inquiry, “both the researcher and participants are collaborators in the project of doing

research” (p. 98).

Mason (2002) asserts that qualitative researchers, such as ethnographers, need to make a decision

concerning their views on observation, as a means to “excavate or construct knowledge and data”

(p. 88), which plays a role in the methods and analysis of their observations as well as their

positionality in this process. In my case, I first viewed observation as an instrument to uncover

‘what is out there’ but then, later as a tool to ‘co-construct knowledge and data’ with the

participants. In other words, during my first data collection period, data was mostly ‘collected’

but during my second data collection period, data was collectively ‘generated.’ This corroborates

Miller’s (2008) assertion that in qualitative studies, data “authentically, purposefully, and

contextually emerge from the dynamic intersection of researchers’ and research participants’

unique identities, beliefs, ideas, passions, and actions” (p. 573). How a researcher conceptualizes

the research setting, and the kinds of data that are generated have significant effects on the nature

of the knowledge created in the collaborative research process. In my study, the grade 3 and 4

class became a setting in which pedagogical innovations could be applied and explored, and thus,

new knowledge could be generated. Furthermore, I found that video was a vigorous and

transparent data collection tool and could provide richer data, expanding the scope of inquiries

(Shrum & Duque, 2008). In my study, the weekly analysis of video recordings made the

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complexity and dynamics of classroom discourses and engagement more visible, enabling me to

assist the focus teacher to meet his pedagogical goals.

I also made the decision to shift my position because I believed that reciprocity was essential for

researchers who were engaged in collaborative studies. Rather than “entering the research site,

taking what they need, and leaving nothing in return” (Tierney & Sallee, 2008, p. 679), I

believed that both the researcher and the researched should benefit. While researchers obtain data

and undergo their growth through reflections, participants receive assistance in relation to their

needs (Tierney & Sallee, 2008). As I undertook data collection and analysis, I also supported Mr.

Park’s and the grade 3 and 4 students’ learning.

5.4 Implications for the Korean and Canadian Governments

The assistance of the Korean government can be expanded for Korean-Canadian children’s

heritage language learning to be more effective. For example, the government can generate

activity-oriented guidebooks that provide teachers with ideas and resources they can use for their

own class. Currently, there are a few textbooks published by OKF. However, they are all levelled

textbooks. As seen in the focus class, these levelled textbooks can create divisions between

students in the same class because of the wide range of student proficiency levels.

Since most Korean language schools are operated as supplementary programs rather than regular

school programs, it is difficult to generate standardized curriculum for all Korean schools

worldwide. Students only have a few hours of weekly instruction, which are also voluntary to

attend. Unlike heritage language bilingual programs in a few other Canadian provinces, heritage

programs in Ontario are not part of regular school programs. Thus, the volunteer teachers are in

need of activity-oriented guidebooks full of ideas and resources that are drawn from language

teaching and learning theories and practices, and that can easily be adopted and utilized in their

own classes. This is essential, as most teachers in the heritage language school do not have

language teaching backgrounds or any teaching background at all.

Further, the Korean government can work closely with the provincial-level governments of

Canada in developing and implementing these resource books, to maximize the effectiveness of

these resources and the language learning outcomes of Korean-Canadian children who are

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currently learning the language in schools operated by the provincial ministry as well as in

churches. As a means to improve the quality of Korean language teaching, the Canadian

government can officially acknowledge the certification program for Hangul hakgyo teachers

offered by OKF as a hiring requirement. In this way, this certification program will be used by

more people who are hoping to work at school-based Hangul hakgyo and many pedagogical

methods that they have earned from the program will be transferred to their own classroom

practices.

Policymakers might draw upon research showing that two-way (dual) immersion education

promotes the bilingual development of both heritage and non-heritage speakers (Shin, 2013).

Ontario Multilingual Education (OME), a group of parents, educators, researchers, and

politicians, which lobbies the Ontario government to allow languages of instruction in addition to

English and French in Ontario's publicly-funded classrooms (OME, 2016), identifies a persistent

need for developing and expanding this type of effective program in all Canadian provinces as a

way to produce additive bilinguals and take advantage of the linguistic resources of our citizens.

5.5 Implications for Korean Language Schools and Korean Canadian Immigrants

While macro level support, such as policy change and funding efforts, is crucial in fostering

heritage language education, it is also imperative that heritage language communities and

schools, including teachers and parents, make every effort to challenge negative attitudes toward

heritage languages. This involves showing that heritage languages provide not only familial

advantages, but also serve as national and international resources. Korean language schools can

motivate students’ language learning through various events in which students can learn not only

about traditions (e.g. New Year’s Day event), but also contemporary activities (e.g. K-pop

contest). Korean Canadian immigrants can maximize the use of resources provided by the

Korean government. For example, through the Study Korean website (study.korean.net), which is

operated by the Overseas Koreans Foundation, parents and students can borrow books and have

access to various learning content on Korean history and culture. Teachers can also take a

Korean School Teacher's Certification Program, which was launched in 2017, as a way to gain

and share pedagogical methods and use the teaching materials available on the website.

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Korean-Canadian children’s ample exposure to the Korean language is imperative for their

heritage language development and maintenance. However, Korean Canadian immigrants should

also be better informed about the benefits of bilingualism, not conforming to the prevalent

misconceptions about bilingualism, such as ‘languages should be kept separate,’ and

‘bilingualism leads to linguistic insecurity and academic incompetence.’ The idea that English or

French is for mainstream school and Korean is for heritage language school needs to be critically

questioned. Korean Canadian parents can help and encourage their children to read both Korean

and English books at home, and watch educational videos and age appropriate shows together in

both languages. Similarly, rather than embracing Korean monolingual instruction as a principle,

Korean language schools should acknowledge the significance of children’s cross-linguistic

transfer as a means for constructive learning and inform teachers about pedagogical strategies

they could utilize in their own classrooms. Likewise, Korean language schools can teach the

traditions, history, and culture of their heritage background while allowing students to share their

knowledge and/or experience on the mainstream history and culture. In this way, Korean heritage

language schools can bridge the linguistic and cultural gap between ethnic community and

mainstream school, helping Korean-Canadian children to develop bilingual and bicultural

competency.

5.6 Implications for Korean Heritage Language Teaching

A wide range of proficiency levels among students in the same class is one of the biggest

challenges for heritage language teachers. If possible, classes can be divided by students whose

home language is Korean, and students whose home language is English, which is largely the

case for second and third generation immigrant children. That way, heritage language teachers

can more efficiently use macro and/or micro approaches that are most suitable for their students.

For students whose home language is Korean, teachers can primarily use macro approaches; for

students whose home language is English, they can mainly utilize micro approaches. For a class

that is the mixture of both these groups, as in the case of this focus class, teachers can use both

approaches to maximize the learning outcomes of all students.

Rather than employing orthographically oriented pedagogy and Initiation, Response, and

Evaluation (IRE) discourses, heritage language teachers can generate activities that connect

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content learning with students’ real-life experiences while learning the target language. Those

activities can stimulate various areas of students’ language learning by authentically engaging

them in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Utilizing pair work and small group work gives

students opportunities to be more active in their language learning and to learn from each other.

In addition, teachers can make connections between the Korean and English languages,

discussing similarities and differences. For example, when teaching the alphabet, teachers can

mention that the Korean letter ‘ㄹ’ sounds similar to the English letter ‘L,’ and that there is no

Korean letter that sounds analogous to the English letter ‘R.’ When reading folktales with similar

characters and themes across cultures (e.g.콩쥐팥쥐/Kongjwi and Patjwi and Cinderella),

teachers can encourage students to compare the stories. Rather than completely separating the

languages, literature, and cultures, heritage language teachers can help children to understand the

interrelationships between these two languages, and between the home and mainstream cultures,

which will enhance their bilingual and bicultural development.

Teachers should be aware of students’ linguistic capital and group students sensitively (e.g.

pairing a Korean monolingual student with a Korean-English bilingual student rather than a

Korean monolingual student with an English monolingual student). In this way, teachers can

better support students’ language learning via peer scaffolding, which will also play a role in

their socialization and relationship building. Moreover, creating space for translanguaging does

not mean allowing students to use English whenever they want. Rather, this means strategic

language use for specific tasks, deliberately planned by teachers. Heritage language teachers can

create the third space in which all students feel empowered, as their linguistic and cultural

resources are acknowledged as legitimate and useful. This, in turn, will positively affect

students’ identity formation by helping them to see themselves as Korean-Canadians, rather than

as Canadians at school and as Koreans at home and ethnic church, which resembles the notion of

parallel monolingualism (Heller, 1999).

5.7 Future Studies

According to Shin (2013, 2018), the field of heritage language education is still in its infancy,

indicating that there needs to be many more studies on heritage language acquisition and

development. This study, while identifying the factors that support Korean-Canadian children’s

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heritage language learning, also corroborates recurrent themes in the literature on immigrant

children’s language learning (e.g. subtractive bilingualism, language shift, and language loss)

within this multigenerational ethnic church. These themes guide one of my considerations for

future studies. Lately, I have been observing many grandparents taking care of their

grandchildren while their own children are at work. These grandparents are first generation

immigrants, whose primary language is different from their children’s home language, which is

English. For my next study, I hope to learn how first generation immigrant grandparents support

their grandchildren’s language and literacy learning when there is some level of linguistic gap.

More specifically, I would like to investigate not only what language they primarily use with

their grandchildren, but also what modalities (e.g. lullabies, fingerplays, books, toys, videos, etc.)

they frequently employ when interacting with their grandchildren, enriching their language and

literacy development and learning. Through this study, I hope to identify how first generation

immigrant grandparents and their second generation immigrant children together create family

literacy practices for young children that reduce the linguistic, cultural, and generational gaps

within families. Additionally, I hope to carry out a cross-cultural study that explores family

literacy practices of participants from various linguistic and ethnic backgrounds.

Considering the unique roles that Korean ethnic churches play beyond the spiritual realm, for

future studies, I can also explore how Christianity intersects with language teaching at church-

based language schools. This study can investigate how Christian values are embedded in the

space of their heritage language teaching and learning. Since there are no curriculum guidelines,

teachers at heritage language schools have full autonomy in designing the curriculum. Thus, this

inquiry will need to involve interviews with a number of teachers and observations of several

classes, rather than focusing on one class, to better understand the intersection of Christianity and

language teaching.

5.8 Concluding Remarks

This thesis identified numerous supporting factors of Korean-Canadian children’s heritage

language learning. Through this study, I learned that the positions of the Korean and English

languages at the societal level greatly affected students’ heritage language learning and bilingual

development. While various pedagogical innovations and approaches that help students’

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language learning can be effective, macro level endeavours, such as policy change, are essential

in reversing the predominant tendency of subtractive bilingualism and turning it into additive

bilingualism. Now, I would like to end my thesis with a powerful question posed by Joshua

Fishman, an established scholar in the area of bilingual education and minority education.

It is just as scandalous and injurious to waste “native” language resources

as to waste our air, water, mineral, animal and various non-linguistic

human resources. How long must languages and cultures be trivialized if

they are learned at home, in infancy and childhood, and only respected if

they are acquired later, during adulthood, when they are usually learned

less well and at much greater cost in competence, time and money?

(Fishman, 2013, p. 476)

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Appendices

Appendix A Interview Questions for Teachers

Background Information about Language Learning and Language Use

• Please tell me about how you learned Korean. Who are key people and how did they help

you?

• Do you have stories about events that stand out as being important in your learning of

Korean?

• Please tell me about how you learned English. Who are key people and how did they help

you?

• Do you have stories about events that stand out as being important in your learning of

English?

• What language(s) do you speak at home (e.g. with your spouse, your children, your

parents and siblings), at work (e.g. with your colleagues and boss only if they work), and

at church (e.g. with other Korean language school teachers, with Sunday school teachers,

and other church members)? How do you decide what language to speak? Could you give

examples or tell stories about when and where you use Korean and English?

The Goals and Expectations

• Please share what you would like to achieve as a heritage language teacher for your

students.

• Do you have any goals to achieve as a heritage language teacher for yourself? Then, what

are they?

Language Competency of Children

• Do you have an example of how one of your students shows she or he is competent in

language and literacy learning?

Classroom Strategies

• Please share the strategies that worked really well in your class in supporting children’s

language and literacy learning.

• Please share the strategies that did not work very well in your class in supporting

children’s language and literacy learning.

• What language(s) do your students speak in your class? What do you do if they do not

understand you?

• What is helping you to be an excellent heritage language teacher?

• What is hindering you to be an excellent heritage language teacher?

• Please share the times when you felt that you made a difference in Korean Canadian

children’s language and literacy learning.

187

Appendix B Interview Questions for Church Leaders

Background Information about the Heritage Language School

• Please tell me about the history of your heritage language school.

The Goals and Expectations

• Please share some of the goals that you would like to achieve from the heritage language

school your church is running.

The Ways that the Church Supports Children’s Language and Literacy Learning

• In what ways does your church support Korean Canadian children’s language and literacy

learning and development?

• If any, please share any events your church hosts for children throughout the year.

• What are some factors that affect the level of support that your church and heritage

language school give to the children with respect to their language and literacy

development and learning?

188

Appendix C Interview Questions for Parents

Background Information about Language Learning and Language Use (parent)

• Please tell me about how you learned Korean. Who are key people and how did they help

you?

• Do you have stories about events that stand out as being important in your learning of

Korean?

• Please tell me about how you learned English. Who are key people and how did they help

you?

• Do you have stories about events that stand out as being important in your learning of

English?

• What language(s) do you speak at home (e.g. with your spouse, your children, your

parents), at work (e.g. with your colleagues and boss only if they work), and at church

(e.g. with Sunday school teachers, Korean language school teachers, and other church

members)? What determines your language use and preference? Could you give

examples or tell stories about when and where you use Korean and English?

Background Information about Language Learning (child)

• Please tell me about how your child has been learning Korean and English. • How long has your child been attending the heritage language school and how has it been helping

his/her language and literacy learning?

Motivations and Goals

• Please share your motivations for sending your child to the heritage language school and

what you would like to achieve from it.

Language Competency of Children

• Do you have an example of children with full competency in language and literacy

learning? How would you describe children with full competency in language and

literacy learning?

Strategies that the Teacher, Church, and Parent use

• Among the strategies that your heritage language teacher uses, what are some strategies

that work really well for your child’s language and literacy learning?

• Among the strategies that your heritage language teacher uses, what are some strategies

that work less for your child’s language and literacy learning?

• How does your church (e.g. Sunday school) support your child’s language and literacy

learning?

• In your opinion, what are some factors that influence the level of support that your

teacher and/or church is giving to the children in the school?

• How do you support your children’s language and literacy development at home? What

strategies have been working well for his/her language and literacy learning? What

strategies have not worked for his/her language and literacy learning?

189

Appendix D Interview Questions for Children

Background Information about Language Learning and Language Use

• Please tell me about how you have been learning Korean. Who has helped you to learn

Korean? And how did they help you?

• Please tell me about how you have been learning English. Who has helped you to learn

English? And how did they help you?

• What language(s) do you speak at home (e.g. with your parents, your siblings, your

grandparents), at (public) school (e.g. with your teachers, friends, and Korean-English

bilingual friends), and at church (e.g. with teachers at Korean language school, friends at

Korean language school, and teachers at Sunday school, friends at Sunday school)?

• How do you decide what language to speak? Could you give examples or tell stories

about when and where you use Korean and English?

Language Competency of Children

• Please describe the students who are competent in language learning.

Heritage Language Learning

• How long have you been attending the heritage language school and how has it been

helping your language and literacy learning?

• What language(s) do you, your friends, and your teacher(s) speak in your class? What do

you do if you do not understand your teacher or friends?

• What kind of classroom activities in the Korean language school helps the most with your

language and literacy learning?

• What kind of classroom activities in the Korean language school helps you less with your

language and literacy learning?

Language and Literacy Learning in Sunday School

• What kind of classroom activities in the Sunday school helps the most with your

language and literacy learning?

• What kind of classroom activities in the Sunday school helps you less with your language

and literacy learning?

Language and Literacy Learning in the Mainstream School

• What kind of classroom activities in your Monday to Friday school help the most with

your language and literacy learning?

• What kind of classroom activities in your Monday to Friday school help you less with

your language and literacy learning?

Home Language and Literacy Activities

• What kind of home activities (e.g. activities with parents or siblings) helps the most with

your language and literacy learning?

190

Appendix E Information Letter and Consent Form for Teachers

(to be copied onto OISE letterhead)

Doctoral Candidate Soon Young Jang

September 11, 2016

Dear Teachers:

I am pleased to invite you to participate in my research “Bilingualism of Korean Immigrant Children: A

Church-based Heritage Language Classroom in the Greater Toronto Area.” I am a graduate student at the Ontario

Institute For Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. Under the supervision of my thesis supervisor, Dr.

Shelley Stagg Peterson, I will conduct this research for my doctoral thesis.

The goal of my research is to learn about the ways a church-based heritage language school supports the

language and literacy learning of Korean immigrant children. More specifically, my study will ask about 1) the goals

and expectations of the heritage language school in relation to children’s language and literacy development, 2) the

ways teachers in the heritage language school and church support Korean children’s language and literacy

development, 3) the use of Korean and English in the classroom, 4) the levels of language proficiency of children in

the Korean and English language, and 5) how language competency of children is defined by teachers, parents, and

children.

This study will provide invaluable information about how a church-based heritage language school

supports Korean immigrant children’s heritage language maintenance and acquisition as well as their bilingual

development. Besides, considering the very limited number of studies on Korean immigrants in Canada, this study

will play a significant role in filling the gap in the literature and extending our understandings with respect to

Korean immigrant children’s bilingual and bicultural development.

This study involves classroom observations of one focus class and interviews with the teacher(s), 3-5

parents, and 3-5 children of the focus class. Preferably, the focus class is the class for grades 2-4 as this age group of

children is more ready to share their own thoughts and ideas when being selected as interviewees. In addition, 2-3

more teachers (who teach any other grades) will be interviewed. Classroom observation will take place every

Sunday from 10 to 11 AM throughout the 2016-2017 school year and during the observation, audio-recording of the

teacher and the video-recording of the classroom will supplement my observation. Also, classroom materials such as

textbooks will be photographed. Interviews will take place at church or your homes depending on your preference

and it will take you about 30-60 minutes, and during the interview, audio-recording will supplement my interviews.

The data is being collected for the purposes of a PhD thesis and perhaps for subsequent scholarly articles and

presentations.

Please note that your consent is voluntary and can be withdrawn at any time while I am working on this

research. When you decide to withdraw while participating in the interview, all the data obtained up to that point

will be stored and used for data collection and analysis. The rights of privacy, confidentiality, and anonymity of all

participants will be respected through the use of pseudonyms for all teachers, parents and children as well as the

church. Hard copies of all the generated data, fieldnotes and consent forms will be coded with the appropriate

pseudonyms and stored in a locked cabinet. Digital files (including video and audio-taped data) will be encrypted

and password protected. All written data and audio as well as video recordings will be disposed five years after the

study’s conclusion. All the papers will be shredded and all audio as well as video recordings will be erased. I would

like to keep the electronic records for a longer term for the purpose of any type of publication. This data will be

generic and without identifiers. During (or after) the course of data collection, a workshop on immigrant children’s

bilingual development will be offered to teachers and parents in order to assist your understandings with this topic. I

will be happy to provide you with copies of publications resulting from this study.

191

If you choose to consent to your participation in this research, please sign and return one copy of the

attached consent form, and keep a copy of this letter and the consent form for your records. Thank you for your

consideration of this request.

Soon Young Jang, Doctoral Candidate

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto

CONSENT FOR PARTICIPATION IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

I consent to participation in Soon Young Jang’s research. The researcher has explained orally and in writing the

purpose of the study, what participation will entail and how much time it will take. I have had the opportunity to

get additional information regarding the study. My questions have been answered to my full satisfaction. I

understand that I am under no obligation to participate and am free to withdraw from the research study at any

time without penalty. I understand that the researcher working on this study will keep the data confidential.

Anonymity will be ensured through the use of pseudonyms for participating teachers, parents, children and

church. I understand that the researcher intends to present findings in scholarly and professional presentations and

publications.

I understand that if I have questions or concerns about participant rights and ethical conduct of research, I can

contact the researcher. I may also contact the University of Toronto Office of Research Ethics at

ethics.review@utoronto.ca or by telephone at 416-978-2798.

Finally, I acknowledge that I have read and fully understand the consent form. I sign it freely and voluntarily.

I agree to participate in this study as the teacher of the focus class.

Initials: ________________

I give permission to audio and video recordings during the classroom observations.

Initials: __________________

I agree to participate in this study as a teacher interviewee.

Initials: ____________________

I give permission to audio recordings during the interviews.

Initials: ____________________

I give permission to photographing classroom materials.

Initials: ____________________

Date: ______________________

Name (please print): ______________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

Signature

Please send the results of this research: Yes ______ No _________

Email address: __________________________________________________

192

연구 참여자들에게 연구관련 정보를 드리며 허가를 구하는 동의서 (선생님들용)

장순영

2016 년 9 월 11 일

선생님들께,

안녕하세요. 여러분을 제 연구 “한국이민자 자녀들의 이중언어: GTA 의 한 교회가 운영하는 모국어

교실” 로 초대하게 되어 기쁩니다. 저는 토론토 대학에서 박사과정을 밟고 있으며, 제 지도교수이신 Peterson

박사의 감독하에 제 박사논문 연구를 시행하려고 합니다.

제 연구의 목적은 교회에서 운영하는 모국어학교가 한국이민자 자녀들의 언어계발과 언어교육에

어떻게 도움을 주고있는지를 배우는 것에 있습니다. 더 상세히 말씀드리면, 제 연구를 통해 다음사항들을

알고자 합니다: 1)한국학교의 학생 언어계발과 언어교육에 관련한 목표와 기대치, 2) 한국학교 선생님들과

교회가 학생 언어계발과 언어교육을 위해 돕는 방법들, 3) 교실내에서의 한국어와 영어 사용, 4) 학생들의

한국어와 영어구사 능력, 5) 선생님들과, 학부모님들, 아이들에 의해 정의된 언어능숙자.

이 연구는 교회에서 운영하는 모국어학교가 어떻게 한국인 이민자 자녀들의 모국어 습득 및 유지,

그리고 이중언어 발달에 도움을 주는 지 귀중한 정보를 제공할 것 입니다. 또한, 캐나다 내 한국인

이민자들에대한 연구가 아주 드문 점을 고려할 때, 이 연구는 한국인 이민자 자녀들의 이중언어 및 이중문화

발달에 관련하여 우리의 이해를 높이는 것으로 학술계에 귀한 공헌을 할 것 입니다.

이 연구는 포커스로 정해진 교실의 참관과 그 반의 선생님, 3-5 명의 학부모님들과 3-5 명의

학생들과의 인터뷰를 수반할 것 입니다. 가급적이면, 포커스 교실은 본인의 생각과 아이디어를 상대방과

말로 비교적 잘 나눌 수 있는 학년인 2 학년에서 4 학년 반 중 선별될 것입니다. 또한, 추가로 다른 학년을

가르치시는 2-3 명의 선생님들이 인터뷰에 참여하게 될 것 입니다. 교실참관은 2016- 2017 년도 수업시간

(일요일 10 시에서 11 시까지) 에 있을것이며, 참관중에는 오디오와 비디오 녹음이 동반될 것입니다. 또한

교과서 등의 수업자료들은 카메라에 담겨질 것입니다. 인터뷰는 참가자의 선호에 따라 집에서 혹은

교회에서 약 30 분에서 60 분 정도로 이루어질 것이며, 인터뷰 중에는 오디오 녹음이 동반될 것 입니다. 모든

자료는 오로지 박사논문을 위해 수집될 것이며, 학술지나 학술계 컨퍼런스에 발표되어질 것입니다.

여러분의 동의는 자발적인 것이며 제 연구에 참여하는 중 어느때라도 참여거부 의사를 밝힐 수

있음을 알려드립니다. 인터뷰 중 중간에 참여를 중단하는 경우에는 그때까지 얻어진 자료는 모두 저장되어

자료분석용으로 쓰일 것입니다. 여러분들의 이름과 프라이버시는 모두 비밀리에 붙여질 것이며,

교회이름은 물론 모든 선생님들, 학부모님들과 학생들의 이름으로 가명이 사용될 것 입니다. 수집된 모든

자료들, 제 노트, 동의서에는 코드가 붙여져 잠긴채로 보관 될 것 입니다. 비디오와 오디오에 녹음된 자료 및

컴퓨터에 저장된 파일들은 암호화되어 패스워드로만 사용될 것입니다. 모든 자료들은 제 연구가 끝난

뒤로부터 5 년후에 처리가 될 것입니다. 모든 종이는 잘게 잘라 버리고, 오디오와 비디오자료들은

지울것입니다. 전산자료는 학술지 출판 목적으로 인해 더 긴 기간동안 저장될 것입니다. 이 전산자료는

총괄적이며 식별자가 없을 것 입니다. 자료수집 중이나 후에, 이민자 자녀들의 이중언어 발달에 관련한

워크샵이 이 주제에 관련한 이해를 돕기위해 선생님들과 학부모님들께 주어질 것입니다. 이 연구에 관한

출판물들을 여러분들과 기쁘게 나누겠습니다.

여러분들께서 이 연구에 참여하는 것에 동의하신다면, 서명을 해 주시고 첨부된 동의서를 저에게

제출해 주십시오. 그리고 이 초대장과 동의서의 복사본은 간직하십시오. 여러분의 협조에 많은 감사를

드립니다.

박사 후보자, 장순영

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/토론토 대학

193

교육적 연구에 참여하는 동의서

저는 장순영의 연구에 참여할 것에 동의합니다. 이 연구자는 연구목적과 이 연구에 어떤 참여가

필요한지에 대하여 말로 또한 글로 설명하였습니다. 저는 연구에 대한 정보에 대해 들을 기회를 가졌고

제 질문들은 모두 만족스럽게 답변되었습니다. 저는 이 연구에 의무적으로 참여하는 것이 아니며

언제라도 참여거부 의사를 밝힐 수 있음을 알고있습니다. 저는 이 연구자가 연구자료를 비밀로 하며,

모든 참여자들의 이름을 가명으로 함으로 익명을 보장할 것임을 알고 있습니다. 저는 이 연구자가

연구결과를 학술지나 학계에 발표할 것을 알고 있습니다.

저는 제가 질문이 있을때에는 언제라도 이 연구자에게 연락을 할 수 있음을 알고 있습니다. 저는

토론토대학의 윤리위원회 (ethics.review@utoronto.ca or by telephone at 416-978-2798)로 연락할 수 있음을

또한 알고 있습니다.

마지막으로, 저는 이 동의서를 읽었으며 온전히 이해하였음을 인정합니다. 저는 자발적으로 이 동의서에

싸인합니다.

저는 포커스 반의 선생님으로서 이 연구에 참여할 것에 동의합니다.

이니셜: ________________

저는 교실참관 중 오디오와 비디오 녹음을 허락합니다.

이니셜: __________________

저는 선생님 인터뷰에 참여할 것에 동의합니다.

이니셜: ____________________

저는 인터뷰 중 오디오 녹음을 허락합니다.

이니셜: ____________________

저는 교실 자료를 사진에 담는 것을 허락합니다.

이니셜: ____________________

날짜: ______________________

성명 (please print): ______________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

Signature 서명

연구결과를 보내주십시오: 네 ______ 아니오 _________

이메일 주소: __________________________________________________

194

Appendix F Information Letter and Consent Form for Church Leaders

(to be copied onto OISE letterhead)

Doctoral Candidate Soon Young Jang

September 11, 2016

Dear Church Leaders:

I am pleased to invite you to participate in my research “Bilingualism of Korean Immigrant Children: A

Church-based Heritage Language Classroom in the Greater Toronto Area.” I am a graduate student at the Ontario

Institute For Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. Under the supervision of my thesis supervisor, Dr.

Shelley Stagg Peterson, I will conduct this research for my doctoral thesis.

The goal of my research is to learn about the ways a church-based heritage language school supports the

language and literacy learning of Korean immigrant children. More specifically, my study will ask about 1) the goals

and expectations of the heritage language school in relation to children’s language and literacy development, 2) the

ways teachers in the heritage language school and church support Korean children’s language and literacy

development, 3) the use of Korean and English in the classroom, 4) the levels of language proficiency of children in

the Korean and English language, and 5) how language competency of children is defined by teachers, parents, and

children.

This study will provide invaluable information about how a church-based heritage language school

supports Korean immigrant children’s heritage language maintenance and acquisition as well as their bilingual

development. Besides, considering the very limited number of studies on Korean immigrants in Canada, this study

will play a significant role in filling the gap in the literature and extending our understandings with respect to

Korean immigrant children’s bilingual and bicultural development.

This study involves classroom observations of one focus class and interviews with the teacher(s), 3-5

parents, and 3-5 children of the focus class. In addition, 2-3 more teachers and 2-3 church leaders will be

interviewed. Classroom observation will take place every Sunday from 10 to 11 AM throughout the 2016-2017

school year and during the observation, audio-recording of the teacher and the video-recording of the classroom will

supplement my observation. Interviews will take place at church or your homes depending on your preference and it

will take you about 30-60 minutes, and during the interview, audio-recording will supplement my interviews. The

data is being collected for the purposes of a PhD thesis and for subsequent scholarly articles and presentations.

Please note that your consent is voluntary and can be withdrawn at any time while I am working on this

research. When you decide to withdraw while participating in the interview, all the data obtained up to that point

will be stored and used for data collection and analysis. The rights of privacy, confidentiality, and anonymity of all

participants will be respected through the use of pseudonyms for all teachers, parents and children as well as the

church. Hard copies of all the generated data, fieldnotes and consent forms will be coded with the appropriate

pseudonyms and stored in a locked cabinet. Digital files (including video and audio-taped data) will be encrypted

and password protected. All written data and audio as well as video recordings will be disposed five years after the

study’s conclusion. All the papers will be shredded and all audio as well as video recordings will be erased. I would

like to keep the electronic records for a longer term for the purpose of any type of publication. This data will be

generic and without identifiers. During (or after) the course of data collection, a workshop on immigrant children’s

bilingual development will be offered to teachers and parents in order to assist your understandings with this topic. I

will be happy to provide you with copies of publications resulting from this study.

If you choose to consent to your participation in this research, please sign and return one copy of the

attached consent form, and keep a copy of this letter and the consent form for your records. Thank you for your

consideration of this request.

Soon Young Jang, Doctoral Candidate, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto

195

CONSENT FOR PARTICIPATION IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

I consent to participation in Soon Young Jang’s research. The researcher has explained orally and in writing the

purpose of the study, what participation will entail and how much time it will take. I have had the opportunity to

get additional information regarding the study. My questions have been answered to my full satisfaction. I

understand that I am under no obligation to participate and am free to withdraw from the research study at any

time without penalty. I understand that the researcher working on this study will keep the data confidential.

Anonymity will be ensured through the use of pseudonyms for participating church leaders, teachers, parents,

children, and church. I understand that the researcher intends to present findings in scholarly and professional

presentations and publications.

I understand that if I have questions or concerns about participant rights and ethical conduct of research, I can

contact the researcher. I may also contact the University of Toronto Office of Research Ethics at

ethics.review@utoronto.ca or by telephone at 416-978-2798.

Finally, I acknowledge that I have read and fully understand the consent form. I sign it freely and voluntarily.

I agree to participate in this study as an interviewee.

Initials: ____________________

I give permission to audio recordings during the interviews.

Initials: ____________________

Date: ______________________

Name (please print): ______________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

Signature

Please send the results of this research: Yes ______ No __________

Email address: __________________________________________________

196

연구 참여자들에게 연구관련 정보를 드리며 허가를 구하는 동의서 (교회리더들용)

장순영

2016 년 9 월 11 일

교회리더님들께,

안녕하세요. 여러분을 제 연구 “한국이민자 자녀들의 이중언어: GTA 의 한 교회가 운영하는 모국어

교실” 로 초대하게 되어 기쁩니다. 저는 토론토 대학에서 박사과정을 밟고 있으며, 제 지도교수이신 Peterson

박사의 감독하에 제 박사논문 연구를 시행하려고 합니다.

제 연구의 목적은 교회에서 운영하는 모국어학교가 한국이민자 자녀들의 언어계발과 언어교육에

어떻게 도움을 주고있는지를 배우는 것에 있습니다. 더 상세히 말씀드리면, 제 연구를 통해 다음사항들을

알고자 합니다: 1)한국학교의 학생 언어계발과 언어교육에 관련한 목표와 기대치, 2) 한국학교 선생님들과

교회가 학생 언어계발과 언어교육을 위해 돕는 방법들, 3) 교실내에서의 한국어와 영어 사용, 4) 학생들의

한국어와 영어구사 능력, 5) 선생님들과, 학부모님들, 아이들에 의해 정의된 언어능숙자.

이 연구는 교회에서 운영하는 모국어학교가 어떻게 한국인 이민자 자녀들의 모국어 습득 및 유지,

그리고 이중언어 발달에 도움을 주는 지 귀중한 정보를 제공할 것 입니다. 또한, 캐나다 내 한국인

이민자들에대한 연구가 아주 드문 점을 고려할 때, 이 연구는 한국인 이민자 자녀들의 이중언어 및 이중문화

발달에 관련하여 우리의 이해를 높이는 것으로 학술계에 귀한 공헌을 할 것 입니다.

이 연구는 포커스로 정해진 교실의 참관과 그 반의 선생님, 3-5 명의 학부모님들과 3-5 명의

학생들과의 인터뷰를 수반할 것 입니다. 추가로, 2-3 명의 선생님들과 2-3 교회 리더들이 인터뷰에 참여하게

될 것 입니다. 교실참관은 2016- 2017 년도 수업시간 (일요일 10 시에서 11 시까지) 에 있을것이며,

참관중에는 오디오와 비디오 녹음이 동반될 것입니다. 인터뷰는 참가자의 선호에 따라 집에서 혹은

교회에서 약 30 분에서 60 분 정도로 이루어질 것이며, 인터뷰 중에는 오디오 녹음이 동반될 것 입니다. 모든

자료는 오로지 박사논문을 위해 수집될 것이며, 학술지나 학술계 컨퍼런스에 발표되어질 것입니다.

여러분의 동의는 자발적인 것이며 제 연구에 참여하는 중 어느때라도 참여거부 의사를 밝힐 수

있음을 알려드립니다. 인터뷰 중 중간에 참여를 중단하는 경우에는 그때까지 얻어진 자료는 모두 저장되어

자료분석용으로 쓰일 것입니다. 여러분들의 이름과 프라이버시는 모두 비밀리에 붙여질 것이며,

교회이름은 물론 모든 선생님들, 학부모님들과 학생들의 이름으로 가명이 사용될 것 입니다. 수집된 모든

자료들, 제 노트, 동의서에는 코드가 붙여져 잠긴채로 보관 될 것 입니다. 비디오와 오디오에 녹음된 자료 및

컴퓨터에 저장된 파일들은 암호화되어 패스워드로만 사용될 것입니다. 모든 자료들은 제 연구가 끝난

뒤로부터 5 년후에 처리가 될 것입니다. 모든 종이는 잘게 잘라 버리고, 오디오와 비디오자료들은

지울것입니다. 전산자료는 학술지 출판 목적으로 인해 더 긴 기간동안 저장될 것입니다. 이 전산자료는

총괄적이며 식별자가 없을 것 입니다. 자료수집 중이나 후에, 이민자 자녀들의 이중언어 발달에 관련한

워크샵이 이 주제에 관련한 이해를 돕기위해 선생님들과 학부모님들께 주어질 것입니다. 이 연구에 관한

출판물들을 여러분들과 기쁘게 나누겠습니다.

여러분들께서 이 연구에 참여하는 것에 동의하신다면, 서명을 해 주시고 첨부된 동의서를 저에게

제출해 주십시오. 그리고 이 초대장과 동의서의 복사본은 간직하십시오. 여러분의 협조에 많은 감사를

드립니다.

박사 후보자, 장순영

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/토론토 대학

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교육적 연구에 참여하는 동의서

저는 장순영의 연구에 참여할 것에 동의합니다. 이 연구자는 연구목적과 이 연구에 어떤 참여가

필요한지에 대하여 말로 또한 글로 설명하였습니다. 저는 연구에 대한 정보에 대해 들을 기회를 가졌고

제 질문들은 모두 만족스럽게 답변되었습니다. 저는 이 연구에 의무적으로 참여하는 것이 아니며

언제라도 참여거부 의사를 밝힐 수 있음을 알고있습니다. 저는 이 연구자가 연구자료를 비밀로 하며,

모든 참여자들의 이름을 가명으로 함으로 익명을 보장할 것임을 알고 있습니다. 저는 이 연구자가

연구결과를 학술지나 학계에 발표할 것을 알고 있습니다.

저는 제가 질문이 있을때에는 언제라도 이 연구자에게 연락을 할 수 있음을 알고 있습니다. 저는

토론토대학의 윤리위원회 (ethics.review@utoronto.ca or by telephone at 416-978-2798)로 연락할 수 있음을

또한 알고 있습니다.

마지막으로, 저는 이 동의서를 읽었으며 온전히 이해하였음을 인정합니다. 저는 자발적으로 이 동의서에

싸인합니다.

저는 인터뷰에 참여할 것에 동의합니다.

이니셜: ____________________

저는 인터뷰 중 오디오 녹음을 허락합니다.

이니셜: ____________________

날짜: ______________________

성명 (please print): ______________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

Signature 서명

연구결과를 보내주십시오: 네 ______ 아니오 _________

이메일 주소: __________________________________________________

198

Appendix G Information Letter and Consent Form for Parents (as well as their children)

(to be copied onto OISE letterhead)

Doctoral Candidate Soon Young Jang

September 11, 2016

Dear Parents:

I am pleased to invite you to participate in my research “Bilingualism of Korean Immigrant Children: A

Church-based Heritage Language Classroom in the Greater Toronto Area.” I am a graduate student at the Ontario

Institute For Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. Under the supervision of my thesis supervisor, Dr.

Shelley Stagg Peterson, I will conduct this research for my doctoral thesis.

The goal of my research is to learn about the ways a church-based heritage language school supports the

language and literacy learning of Korean immigrant children. More specifically, my study will ask about 1) the goals

and expectations of the heritage language school in relation to children’s language and literacy development, 2) the

ways teachers in the heritage language school and church support Korean children’s language and literacy

development, 3) the use of Korean and English in the classroom, 4) the levels of language proficiency of children in

the Korean and English language, and 5) how language competency of children is defined by teachers, parents, and

children.

This study will provide invaluable information about how a church-based heritage language school

supports Korean immigrant children’s heritage language maintenance and acquisition as well as their bilingual

development. Besides, considering the very limited number of studies on Korean immigrants in Canada, this study

will play a significant role in filling the gap in the literature and extending our understandings with respect to

Korean immigrant children’s bilingual and bicultural development.

Your child’s class is the focus class of this study. This research involves classroom observations of your

child’s class and interviews with the teacher(s), 3-5 parents, and 3-5 children of the class. While selecting

interviewees, I will try to reflect diversity of participants (e.g. a parent or child from a newcomer family, “Gireogi

Gajok” – the newly-split transnational family where one of the parents and children migrate to a foreign country for

the children‘s education while the other parent remains behind for the financial security of the family, and different

generations of immigrant children: 1, 1.5, 2 generation, different generations of immigrant parents: 1, 1.5, 2

generation, Korean parents or intermarried parents).

Classroom observation will take place every Sunday from 10 to 11 AM throughout the 2016-2017 school

year and during the observation, video-recording of the classroom and photographing children’s products such as

drawing and writing will supplement my observation. Interviews will take place at church or your homes depending

on your preference and it will take you about 30-60 minutes, and during the interview, audio-recording will

supplement my interviews. The data is being collected for the purposes of a PhD thesis and for subsequent scholarly

articles and presentations.

Please note that your consent is voluntary and can be withdrawn at any time while I am working on this

research. When you decide to withdraw while participating in the interview, all the data obtained up to that point

will be stored and used for data collection and analysis. When you choose not to participate in this study for your

child, your child’s interactions and activities will still be videotaped because of the nature of the study that

explores ‘naturally occurring interactions’ (and it is almost impossible to exclude a few individuals when

videotaping the whole classroom); however, I will blur out all their faces from the recordings and I will not

transcribe any of their talk. The rights of privacy, confidentiality, and anonymity of all participants will be

respected through the use of pseudonyms for all teachers, parents and children as well as the church. Hard copies of

all the generated data, fieldnotes and consent forms will be coded with the appropriate pseudonyms and stored in a

locked cabinet. Digital files (including video and audio-taped data) will be encrypted and password protected. All

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written data and audio as well as video recordings will be disposed five years after the study’s conclusion. All the

papers will be shredded and all audio as well as video recordings will be erased. I would like to keep the electronic

records for a longer term for the purpose of any type of publication. This data will be generic and without identifiers.

During (or after) the course of data collection, a workshop on immigrant children’s bilingual development

will be offered to teachers and parents in order to assist your understandings with this topic. I will be happy to

provide you with copies of publications resulting from this study.

If you choose to consent to your participation in this research, please sign and return one copy of the

attached consent form, and keep a copy of this letter and the consent form for your records. Thank you for your

consideration of this request.

Soon Young Jang, Doctoral Candidate

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto

CONSENT FOR PARTICIPATION IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

I consent to participation in Soon Young Jang’s research. The researcher has explained orally and in writing the

purpose of the study, what participation will entail and how much time it will take. I have had the opportunity to

get additional information regarding the study. My questions have been answered to my full satisfaction. I

understand that I am under no obligation to participate and am free to withdraw from the research study at any

time without penalty. I understand that the researcher working on this study will keep the data confidential.

Anonymity will be ensured through the use of pseudonyms for participating teachers, parents, children and

church. I understand that the researcher intends to present findings in scholarly and professional presentations and

publications.

I understand that if I have questions or concerns about participant rights and ethical conduct of research, I can

contact the researcher. I may also contact the University of Toronto Office of Research Ethics at

ethics.review@utoronto.ca or by telephone at 416-978-2798.

Finally, I acknowledge that I have read and fully understand the consent form. I sign it freely and voluntarily.

I consent to my child’s participation in this study (classroom observations).

Initials: ____________________

I give permission to audio and video recording of my child during the classroom observations.

Initials: ____________________

I give permission to photographing my child’s classroom products (e.g. writing, drawing).

Initials: ____________________

I consent to my child’s participation in the study as an interviewee.

Initials: ____________________

I give permission to audio recordings during the interview with my child.

Initials: ____________________

I agree to participate in this study as a parent interviewee.

Initials: ____________________

200

I give permission to audio recordings during the interview with me.

Initials: ____________________

Date: ______________________

Name (please print): ______________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

Signature

Please send the results of this research: Yes ______ No ______

Email address: __________________________________________________

연구 참여자들에게 연구관련 정보를 드리며 허가를 구하는 동의서 (학부모님들과 자녀용)

장순영

2016 년 9 월 11 일

학부모님들께,

안녕하세요. 여러분을 제 연구 “한국이민자 자녀들의 이중언어: GTA 의 한 교회가 운영하는 모국어

교실” 로 초대하게 되어 기쁩니다. 저는 토론토 대학에서 박사과정을 밟고 있으며, 제 지도교수이신 Peterson

박사의 감독하에 제 박사논문 연구를 시행하려고 합니다.

제 연구의 목적은 교회에서 운영하는 모국어학교가 한국이민자 자녀들의 언어계발과 언어교육에

어떻게 도움을 주고있는지를 배우는 것에 있습니다. 더 상세히 말씀드리면, 제 연구를 통해 다음사항들을

알고자 합니다: 1)한국학교의 학생 언어계발과 언어교육에 관련한 목표와 기대치, 2) 한국학교 선생님들과

교회가 학생 언어계발과 언어교육을 위해 돕는 방법들, 3) 교실내에서의 한국어와 영어 사용, 4) 학생들의

한국어와 영어구사 능력, 5) 선생님들과, 학부모님들, 아이들에 의해 정의된 언어능숙자.

이 연구는 교회에서 운영하는 모국어학교가 어떻게 한국인 이민자 자녀들의 모국어 습득 및 유지,

그리고 이중언어 발달에 도움을 주는 지 귀중한 정보를 제공할 것 입니다. 또한, 캐나다 내 한국인

이민자들에대한 연구가 아주 드문 점을 고려할 때, 이 연구는 한국인 이민자 자녀들의 이중언어 및 이중문화

발달에 관련하여 우리의 이해를 높이는 것으로 학술계에 귀한 공헌을 할 것 입니다.

여러분 자녀의 반은 이 연구의 포커스 반 (focus class)으로 선정되었습니다. 이 연구는 여러분

자녀반의 수업참관과 선생님을 비롯하여 3-5 명의 학부모님들과 3-5 명의 학생들의 인터뷰를 수반할

것입니다. 인터뷰참가자 선정시에는 참가자들의 다양성을 고려할 것 입니다. (예를 들어, 근래에 캐나다로

온 가족들의 부모나 자녀를 포함하여 1 세대, 1.5 세대, 2 세대 이민자 부모들과 자녀들, 국제결혼을 한

가정의 자녀들과 부모들). 교실참관은 2016- 2017 년도 수업시간 (일요일 10 시에서 11 시까지) 에

있을것이며, 참관중에는 오디오와 비디오 녹음이 동반될 것입니다. 또한 교과서 등의 수업자료들은

카메라에 담겨질 것입니다. 인터뷰는 참가자의 선호에 따라 집에서 혹은 교회에서 약 30 분에서 60 분

정도로 이루어질 것이며, 인터뷰 중에는 오디오 녹음이 동반될 것 입니다. 모든 자료는 오로지 박사논문을

위해 수집될 것이며, 학술지나 학술계 컨퍼런스에 발표되어질 것입니다.

여러분의 동의는 자발적인 것이며 제 연구에 참여하는 중 어느때라도 참여거부 의사를 밝힐 수

있음을 알려드립니다. 인터뷰 중 중간에 참여를 중단하는 경우에는 그때까지 얻어진 자료는 모두 저장되어

자료분석용으로 쓰일 것입니다. 자연스럽게 일어나는 상호작용을 고려하는 연구의 특성상, 반에서

일어나는 대화 및 활동은 모두 비디오 녹음이 될 것입니다. 하지만 자녀의 연구참여를 원치 않으시는

201

경우에는 비디오 화면에 얼굴을 흐리게하여 보이지않도록 할 것이며 그들의 대화 또한 연구데이터에

포함하지 않을것 입니다. 여러분들의 이름과 프라이버시는 모두 비밀리에 붙여질 것이며, 교회이름은 물론

모든 선생님들, 학부모님들과 학생들의 이름으로 가명이 사용될 것 입니다. 수집된 모든 자료들, 제 노트,

동의서에는 코드가 붙여져 잠긴채로 보관 될 것 입니다. 비디오와 오디오에 녹음된 자료 및 컴퓨터에 저장된

파일들은 암호화되어 패스워드로만 사용될 것입니다. 모든 자료들은 제 연구가 끝난 뒤로부터 5 년후에

처리가 될 것입니다. 모든 종이는 잘게 잘라 버리고, 오디오와 비디오자료들은 지울것입니다. 전산자료는

학술지 출판 목적으로 인해 더 긴 기간동안 저장될 것입니다. 이 전산자료는 총괄적이며 식별자가 없을 것

입니다. 자료수집 중이나 후에, 이민자 자녀들의 이중언어 발달에 관련한 워크샵이 이 주제에 관련한 이해를

돕기위해 선생님들과 학부모님들께 주어질 것입니다. 이 연구에 관한 출판물들을 여러분들과 기쁘게

나누겠습니다.

여러분들께서 이 연구에 참여하는 것에 동의하신다면, 서명을 해 주시고 첨부된 동의서를 저에게

제출해 주십시오. 그리고 이 초대장과 동의서의 복사본은 간직하십시오. 여러분의 협조에 많은 감사를

드립니다.

박사 후보자, 장순영

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/토론토 대학

교육적 연구에 참여하는 동의서

저는 장순영의 연구에 참여할 것에 동의합니다. 이 연구자는 연구목적과 이 연구에 어떤 참여가

필요한지에 대하여 말로 또한 글로 설명하였습니다. 저는 연구에 대한 정보에 대해 들을 기회를 가졌고

제 질문들은 모두 만족스럽게 답변되었습니다. 저는 이 연구에 의무적으로 참여하는 것이 아니며

언제라도 참여거부 의사를 밝힐 수 있음을 알고있습니다. 저는 이 연구자가 연구자료를 비밀로 하며,

모든 참여자들의 이름을 가명으로 함으로 익명을 보장할 것임을 알고 있습니다. 저는 이 연구자가

연구결과를 학술지나 학계에 발표할 것을 알고 있습니다.

저는 제가 질문이 있을때에는 언제라도 이 연구자에게 연락을 할 수 있음을 알고 있습니다. 저는

토론토대학의 윤리위원회 (ethics.review@utoronto.ca or by telephone at 416-978-2798)로 연락할 수 있음을

또한 알고 있습니다.

마지막으로, 저는 이 동의서를 읽었으며 온전히 이해하였음을 인정합니다. 저는 자발적으로 이 동의서에

싸인합니다.

저는 제 자녀가 이 연구에 참여할 것에 동의합니다 (수업참관).

이니셜: ________________

저는 교실참관 중 제 자녀의 오디오와 비디오 녹음을 허락합니다.

이니셜: __________________

저는 제 자녀의 글이나 그림이 사진에 담기어지는 것을 허락합니다.

이니셜: __________________

저는 제 자녀가 인터뷰에 참여할 것에 동의합니다.

이니셜: ____________________

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저는 자녀의 인터뷰 중 오디오 녹음을 허락합니다.

이니셜: ____________________

저는 제가 인터뷰에 참여할 것에 동의 합니다.

이니셜: ____________________

저는 저와의 인터뷰 중 오디오 녹음을 허락합니다.

이니셜: ____________________

날짜: ______________________

성명 (please print): ______________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

Signature 서명

연구결과를 보내주십시오: 네 ______ 아니오 _________

이메일 주소: __________________________________________________

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Appendix H Activity Examples

As explained in the section, Pedagogical Changes: Creating the Third Space, in the third part of

Chapter Four, upon Mr. Park’s request, I slowly became involved in activity planning and

implementation. With ongoing pedagogical considerations such as culturally relevant pedagogy,

funds of knowledge, and the third space, I generated 12 activity sheets whose themes are relevant

to students’ lives. Due to the limited space in the main body of my thesis, I could not use all the

examples that I obtained but had to select some that best represented the findings. For this

selection, the themes that emerged from the findings (translanguaging, bilingual and bicultural

competency, identity positioning, and multimodality) were considered. This appendix presents

the activity examples that I could not include in the main body of this thesis; however, these are

still powerful examples that demonstrate how the third space could be created in the context of

heritage language learning of young students.

Example 8. Giving Bilingual Instructions

Creating space for translanguaging in this class also means giving all students access to

classroom instructions. When classroom instructions are carried out only in Korean, Zoe has no

clue unless Jin Soo lets her know what others are doing. However, this isolates her from the

group. In other words, there are two parallel talking going on in the same classroom. Also, Jin

Soo does not translate everything Mr. Park says but focuses on the task that students are expected

to do only. Thus, when I was teaching, I used both Korean and English, especially when I was

delivering a message that everybody should know. The following is an example of the instruction

that I gave to the students about the reading log activities that Mr. Park and I decided to try to

enhance their reading in Korean.

Soon Young: Okay. 이제 집에 가기전에 listen, please. Each of you will take a book

with you every week now 매주 이제 책을 가져갈건데 책이 in the Ziploc, you have a

book with an activity sheet. It is like a reading log. Okay? 이거 가져가서 your family

member, 엄마나 아빠가 혹은 할머니나 할아버지 whoever is able to help you with,

read it together and answer 하는데 You have three different questions. You can answer

in Korean or in English or in both. But you have to read this first. 읽고서 거기에 대해서

얘기하는 거야. And then you need to put this [book] back to the Ziploc 그리고 you

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need to bring it back to school the following week. 질문있어요? 자, 이제 한 권씩

가져가세요.

Since I was sharing the information that every student should know, it was important to ensure

every student has access to this information, and it was done through translanguaging. After

class, each student selected one book out of the book basket Mr. Park and I made and brought it

back the following week along with their activity sheet completed by themselves.

Example 9. Learning About Peers: Does A Different Country of Birth Mean A Different Nationality and Language?

The goal of the activity, “All about me” was to help students to learn about each other. This

activity sheet asks students to answer four questions: 1. the place of their birth; 2. the food they

like to eat; 3. games they like to play, and 4. their future professions. The students were asked to

answer these in their preferred language(s), and to choose their partners to work with each other

to make this text both in Korean and English. Then, in order to maximize their speaking practice

in Korean, they were asked to present what they learned about their partners in Korean, as we did

for most activities. In the following, Mr. Park asks students about their birth places while

teaching a target expression, “~에서 태어났어요 (I was born in ~)” before the students started

writing on their activity sheets.

1 Mr. Park: 소라는 어디서 태어났어요?

[Where were you born, Sora?]

2 Sora: 미시사가.

[Mississauga]

3 Mr. Park: Full sentence 로 이야기 해 주세요.

[Speak in a full sentence]

4 Sora: 저는 미시사가에서 태어났어요.

[I was born in Mississauga]

5 Mr. Park: 보람이는?

[How about you, Boram?]

6 Boram: 저는 청동, 중국에서 태어났어요.

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[I was born in Qingdao, China]

7 Sora: My mom was born in China, too.

Here, Mr. Park asks Sora and Boram about their birth places. While listening to their

conversation, Boram’s answer about her birth place prompted Siwoo to ask following questions.

8 Siwoo: (to the TA, Jin Soo) Is she Chinese? (with a surprise)

9 Jin Soo: (with a smile) No. She was born in China [but] she is Korean.

10 Siwoo: (turning to Soon Young and asks) Do people who live in China

learn the language? Do people who were born in the country learn their

language?

11 Soon Young: That’s a very good question. So, if they were born in the

country, for example, where English is spoken, if that person was raised in

the country, that person would be most likely able to speak the language.

But if that person was born in the country but was not raised in the country,

we don’t know if that person would speak the language or not.

12 (Siwoo nods his head)

13 Soon Young: Boram was born in China but does it mean she speaks

Chinese?

14 Siwoo: No. We don’t know.

In this excerpt, Siwoo’s emergent question links between the country of birth and the national

and/or ethnic identity. Besides, Siwoo is questioning about the relation between the languages

people speak and the countries in which they were born. When Boram said she was born in

China, Siwoo was questioning to the TA, Jin Soo, if she was Chinese (line 8). However, the

answer from Jin Soo was no (line 9), emphasizing her Korean ethnic identity rather than the

place of her birth. Then, Siwoo’s question moved onto the language, if they would speak Chinese

if they were born in China (line 11). While talking with me, he understood that the fact someone

was born in the place does not necessarily mean that the person speaks the language of the place

(line 11 and 12). While learning about the birth places of his peers, Siwoo had an opportunity to

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connect the birth place with national and/or ethnic identity and language, expanding his global

understanding.

Example 10. Why Are We Here in the Korean Language School?

1 Soon Young: 왜 한국학교에 오는 지 얘기해 주세요.

[Please tell me why you are coming to Korean language school]

2 Joohan: My mom forced me.

3 (students laugh loudly)

4 Minjee: I am learning Korean because I want to speak with my relatives

in Korea when we are visiting them.

5 Soon Young: 한국에 가려고? 한국에 가서 여행하고 그럴려면 우리말

해야되니까.

[To visit Korea? You need the Korean language if you are travelling in

Korea]

6 Hana: (raising her hand) My mom wants me to know more about Korean

cause she speaks Korean, but I am really bad at it.

7 Siwoo: (raising his hand) If I don’t speak Korean to my brother, I get

맴매 [a scolding]. Because my dad doesn’t understand English that

much, he told us to speak Korean now. [He said] If we don’t [speak

Korean], we get 맴매.

8 Yechan: 옛날에 할머니하고 할아버지랑 같이 말도 잘 못하고 그래서

더 배울려고.

[I want to learn more Korean because I wasn’t able to freely talk with

grandma and grandpa in the past]

From this conversation, I learned that some students (line 2 and 6) in this class were asked or

‘forced’ to come to Korean language school and ‘forced’ to speak Korean with their siblings

(line 7) by their parents whereas some students are motivated to learn the Korean language to be

able to speak with their family members in Korea (line 4 and 8). Then, Joohan and Hana

continued talking, giving me the reasons why the Korean language school is boring to them.

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9 Joohan: I have been in 한글학교 [Korean language school] in my whole

life. Basically, for six years? That’s why it’s boring for me now.

10 Hana: I have been in Korean school for my whole life, too. Not really but

it’s boring and stressful.

11 Soon Young: 선생님은 궁금한게 어떤것 때문에 boring 하지요?

[I am curious what makes it boring?]

12 Hana: Because it’s stressful to learn new words as I use them when I talk

but actually, I learned a lot. That’s why my mom wants me to learn Korean.

13 Soon Young: 그러니까 한국말을 배우기는 배워야하는데 너무

어려워서 boring 한거야?

[So, you have to learn Korean, but it is too difficult to learn. Is it why it is

boring?]

14 Hana: [It’s boring] Because I don’t understand. I was born in Canada!

Korean language school is boring to Joohan and Hana. For Joohan (line 9), it is because he has

been attending this school for so long, and for Hana (line 10, 12, and 13), it is because it is too

difficult and stressful to learn the language, although she acknowledges that she learned a lot

from the school (line 12). While Joohan and Hana considered learning Korean boring, Soobin

and Minjoon raised their hands when I asked, “자 그러면 한국말을 배우기는 배워야 하는데.

여기에 한국말이 재밌다고 생각하는 사람있어 여기에? [So, you have to learn the Korean

language. Then, is there anybody here who thinks learning Korean is fun?].” From this

spontaneous interaction that I had with the students, some students showed that they are

motivated to be here in the classroom whereas some did not, although most of them said they

need to learn Korean.

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Example 11. Learning Korean Tradition Is Fun and Writing Korean Alphabet Is Boring

1 Soon Young: 우리 수업 중에 workbook writing 하는거 했고, activity

sheets 도 했지. 이런거를 많이 했는데 what activities you liked most

and what you learned from them 얘기해 주세요.

[In our class, we did workbook writing and activity sheets. Please tell me

what activities you liked most and what you learned from them]

2 Soobin: I learned the New Year’s activities and I learned how to make

딱지 [Ddakji (pasteboard dump)].

3 Minjee: Same thing and I learned that it was a Korean game.

4 Soon Young: Why is it special to you?

5 Soobin: Cause we are Koreans.

6 Minjoon: Because it’s traditional.

7 Joohan: It is only for our culture?

8 Soon Young: 우리가 한국인이니까 한국문화를 배워야 한다고요.

그러면 다른거 뭐가 재밌었어요?

[So, because we are Koreans, we need to learn Korean culture. Then,

what else was fun?]

9 Soobin, Minjoon: Family Tree.

10 Soon Young: 왜 더 재밌어요?

[Why is it more fun?]

11 Minjoon: Because 기역, 니은, 디귿 [Korean alphabet, ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ]

Writing all that is very boring.

12 Joohan: And it’s very hard working because it hurts your fingers and you

can break your wrist.

This conversation took place when the school year was almost over. When I asked students what

activities they liked most (line 1), Soobin and Minjee chose Ddakji (pasteboard dump), one of

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the New Year’s activities we implemented (line 2 and 3). Then, when I asked why it was special

to them (line 4), Soobin, Minjoon, and Joohan replied that they are Koreans (line 5), and it is a

traditional game that is unique to our culture (line 6 and 7). Soobin and Minjoon also selected

‘our family’ as one of their favourite activities (line 9), and Minjoon stated that it is more fun

because writing Korean alphabet is so boring (line 11). Then, in line 12, Joohan added jokingly,

“And it’s very hard working because it hurts your fingers and you can break your wrist.” Here,

the students show their like toward Korean traditional games and their dislike toward

orthographically-oriented activities.

Example 12. We Want Korean and English In Our Class, and We Are Konglish Speakers

1 Soon Young: 수업시간에 ‘한국말만 써야된다’ 하는 사람 손들어

보세요.

[Raise your hands if you think we should use Korean only in our class]

2 (No one raises hands)

3 Soon Young: 자 그럼 ‘한국말이랑 영어를 같이 써야 한다’는 사람

손들어 보세요.

[Then, raise your hands if you think we should use Korean and English

together]

4 (Joohan, Yechan, Minjoon, Hyunwoo, Soobin, Siwoo, and Hana raise

hands)

5 Soon Young: 자, 그럼 왜 그렇게 생각하는 지 얘기해 주세요.

[Then, tell me why you think that way]

6 Yechan: 왜냐면은 새로운 단어를 배웠으면은 translation 을 모르잖아요.

English 에. Translation 을 모르면은 meaning 을 잘 understand 를 잘 할

줄 모르잖아요. 그러니까 English 를 translate 해주면은 더 쉬울거

같아서요.

[Because if we learn new words (in Korean), we don’t know translations in

English. If we don’t know the translations, we can’t understand the

meanings. So, if we translate using English, I think it will get easier]

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7 Siwoo: (raising his hand) Cause some words in Korean are like similar to

English words.

8 Soon Young: Oh … Like what?

9 Joohan: 텔레비젼 [Television].

10 Yechan: 버터 [butter]

11 Hana: 바나나 [Banana].

In this excerpt, I am asking students about their views on the language use in the classroom.

When I asked if we should use Korean only, no one responded (line 1 and 2). On the contrary,

when I asked if we should use both Korean and English, all the students who attended on that

day except Minjee raised hands (line 3 and 4). In line 6, Yechan shares his rationale for using

both languages in class. According to him, it is easier to learn Korean words when they are

translated to English because that helps them to know the meanings of the words. Besides, in line

7, Siwoo points out that when we use Korean and English together, we learn about similar words

in these languages. Then, in line 9, 10, and 11, Joohan, Yechan, and Hana give the examples of

English loanwords in Korean—Korean words borrowed from English—such as 텔레비젼

(television), 버터 (butter), 바나나 (banana). So, from this conversation, the majority of the

students in this class showed their preference to utilize both languages to assist their learning of

the Korean language in class.

Then, Hana brought a matter of mixing languages to our conversation, which led us to talk about

Konglish.

12 Hana: (raising her hand) You know French plus English equals Frenglish.

13 Soon Young: How about Korean and English? 더하면 어떻게 되지?

[What happens if we mix]?

14 Joohan: Konglish.

15 Soon Young: Who speaks Konglish?

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16 Joohan: Me, me!

17 (Soobin, Hana, Siwoo, Minjee raise hands)

18 Soon Young: 어떤게 Konglish 야?

[What does Konglish look like?]

19 Joohan: 안녕하세요 [Hello]. My name is Joohan.

In this excerpt, the students demonstrate their understanding about mixing languages: French and

English make Frenglish (line 12). Korean and English make Konglish (line 14). Five out of the

eight students who attended the class on that day responded that they speak Konglish (line 16

and 17), and when I asked for an example of using Konglish, Joohan replied in line 19,

“안녕하세요 [Hello]. My name is Joohan,” codeswitching from Korean to English. These

serendipitous discourses created in the pedagogical space revealed the students’ views on the

language use in the classroom and their practice of language mixing or code-switching.

Example 13. Writing About the Interview Video In Both Languages

The following week, as a way to build on their learning on the rocket scientist, students were

asked to work with peers to answer the questions on the activity sheet that I created. This activity

sheet asks; 1. the profession of the interviewee; 2. new words and expressions I learned; 3. new

facts I learned. When talking about the first question, some students were having difficulty

pronouncing the word, 직업 (jig-eob) [profession], and Siwoo thought it was 지갑 (jigab), which

means ‘wallet.’ Then, I wrote down these two different words on the whiteboard and repeated

their pronunciations with the students. While this interaction was taking place, one of the mini

cameras captured the conversation between Zoe and Soobin.

1 Zoe: So confusing. I have to write these down. (to Soobin) So, what’s job?

2 Soobin: Job? This (pointing to the word on the whiteboard, 직업). 직업.

직업 (repeating slowly to Zoe)

3 Zoe: 지익업 (jiig-eob). 직업 (jig-eob)

4 (Soobin nods her head)

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5 Zoe: What is wallet?

6 Soobin: (pointing to the word on the board) 지이갑 (jiigab). 지갑 (jigab)

7 Zoe: (writing the word) 지이갑. 지갑.

While learning about these two new words, Zoe asks Soobin for assistance. Soobin slowly

pronounces those words for Zoe and Zoe writes them down using her phonetic transcript (see the

orange circle in Zoe’s example, Figure 19). Throughout this writing activity, Zoe repeatedly

asked Soobin for help and Soobin helped Zoe by slowly pronouncing the words and showing her

how to write them.

Before students started the activity, I gave students an instruction on the activity that they can

answer only in Korean for question 1 and 2, and in their preferred language (Korean or English)

for question 3. I also encouraged the students to learn from each other by working together.

1 Siwoo: (to Yechan) Do you remember any new word?

2 Yechan: 로켓디자이너.

[A rocket designer]

3 Minjoon: Oh, how do you spell astronaut? No, wait. (turning to Yechan)

Was his job an engineer? A rocket engineer?

4 Yechan: Yeah. Rocket scientist or rocket engineer.

5 Minjoon: 우주과학자?

[Space scientist?]

While working together, Siwoo is asking Yechan if he remembers any new word from last week

(line 1). Yechan chooses 로켓디자이너 as his new word (line 2), and that prompts Minjoon to

remember Dr. YeonSeok Chae is a rocket engineer, not an astronaut (line 3). Then, Minjoon

translates it as 우주과학자 in Korean (line 5). After students answer the questions on the activity

sheet, I recap what we have learned last week.

213

1 Soon Young: 하나야, 그 사람 직업이 뭐였지?

[Hana, what was his job?]

2 Hana: 로켓?

[A rocket?]

3 Soon Young: 로켓과학자.

[A rocket scientist]

4 Soon Young: 우리가 지난주에 얘기했어요. Rocket 이 뭔지.

[We discussed what a rocket is last week]

5 Sora: It is something that can hold air in it and it flies to space.

6 Soon Young: 응. 로켓이 하늘로 날라갈려면 뭐가 필요해요?

[Yes. What does a rocket need in order to fly?]

7 Sora: Oxygen.

8 Yechan and Minjoon: 산소.

[Oxygen]

9 Soon Young: 맞아요. 로켓이 하늘로 날으려면 그냥 날 수 있어요?

선생님이 차를 운전하려고 하면 what do I need?

[Yes. Can a rocket fly without something? When I am driving my car, what

do I need?]

10 Yechan: Fuel.

11 Soon Young: 응, 연료 [Yes, fuel]. 우주에는 산소가 없기때문에 연료를

태울 수 없어요 [Because there is no oxygen in space, we can’t burn fuel].

That’s why rockets carry oxygen and fuel with them.

In line 1, I ask Hana if she remembers the profession of the interviewee on the video. When

Hana answers, 로켓 (rocket) in line 2, I simply state in line 3, 로켓과학자, informing her about

the Korean word that refers to a rocket scientist. Then, I ask students what a rocket is, and Sora

summarizes what she learned last week about rockets (line 5). When I further ask what a rocket

needs to fly (line 6), Sora answers it in English (line 7), and Yechan and Minjoon in Korean (line

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8), reflecting their learning in either language. Additionally, I ask what I need to drive my car

(line 9). Yechan answers I need fuel (line 10) and then, I respond that I need 연료, switching the

English word to the Korean word, and summarizes our learning about rockets, again

translanguaging, that is, “우주에는 산소가 없기때문에 연료를 태울 수 없어요 [Because there

is no oxygen in space, we can’t burn fuel]. That’s why rockets carry oxygen and fuel with them”

(line 11).

In Figure 19, I have included some examples of the activity sheets that students worked on.

Figure 19 Examples of Student Activity Sheets: After Watching an Interview Video Top left: Soobin’s. Top right: Zoe’s. Bottom left: Siwoo’s. Bottom right: Minjoon’s.

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Following my instruction, the students wrote down the profession of the interviewee (question 1)

and the new words and expressions they learned (question 2) only in Korean—with the exception

of Zoe, who wrote in both Korean and English—and all these students wrote the facts they

learned in English (question 3) when they were given a language choice. The answers of the

students are not identical, reflecting a different level of their learning. Students were encouraged

to help each other when writing in Korean but whenever needed, Jin Soo and I helped them with

their writing as Mr. Park was getting the reading log Ziploc bags ready for next week. After this

writing activity, students watched the second video, the sand artist, Ha-Joon Kim. However, due

to the limited time on that day, we had to end the class as soon as the video was over.

Additionally, we could not have a follow up activity the following week as Mrs. Kim, the

director of the school, had a planned activity on that day. Since it was Children’s Day in Korea

that week, Mrs. Kim prepared a video about Jeong-Hwan Bang, a children’s rights activist, who

played a key role in establishing Children’s Day in Korea.