According to a report from the American Association of Teachers of Korean in 2005, about 80% of total enrollments in college level Korean classes in the US are Korean heritage speakers. In other words, most US University level Korean programs have been established to serve ethnic Korean descendants such as second or third generation Korean Americans and their focus is to expand their programs and reach out to the true beginners who want to learn the Korean language. Our Korean program can be considered quite different from these traditional programs as it has been comprised mostly of non-heritage speakers and has been growing very successfully. In the infancy of our Korean language program, it was offered as one or two extension classes with 8-30 students each quarter starting 1993. When our Korean program joined the department of Asian Languages and Literatures (ALL) in spring semester of 2001, the Korean program faced a dilemma. At that time, we offered one beginning and one intermediate class with 27 students. However, in any given beginning level class, approximately half of the enrolled students were heritage speakers of the language, having basic verbal and writing skills in Korean and the other half of the students were ‘true beginners’ with no prior knowledge of the language, thus putting them at a disadvantage. If we concentrated on serving the language needs of only one group, we ran the risk of losing the other. It was through meetings with the Chair of ALL discussing this situation and through his vision that we set long-term goals for the program transforming it into a true KFL (Korean as a Foreign Language) program by placing students with prior experience in Korean in an accelerated class (the class was canceled due to low enrollment). In turn, we have seen significant growth in enrollment of true beginning students. It was a very insightful vision, considering our location and the small size of Korean community in Minnesota.

This emphasis on KFL has made our program more accessible to other American students of true beginners than any other Korean program in the nation. This academic year (2007-8), we have 273 students (90% non-heritage) enrolled in 14 sections (excluding summer classes). Still, we value the contributions and learning of the Korean heritage speakers within our program and continue to see strong enrollment among this sector of students. We are currently trying to expand our program to reach out to Korean heritage students and students who have a previous Korean exposure (like substantial study abroad experience in Korea) with placement test and by adding advanced level classes such as fourth year Korean and Readings in Sino-Korean texts.