Research Article
On the Policy of Language & Culture Educationin 21th Century's Korea- Based on the Case Study of Singapore as a Multilingual Society -
경인교육대학교
Published: January 2006 · No. 25 · pp. 217-246
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Abstract
Language education of 21th Century's Korea aims to be a culture education, instead of communicative education. In this point of view, I studied on the case of Singapore as a multilingual society to compare two nations and search any perspectives of policy of language and culture education. Singapore use English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil. It has have multiple basement by historical, geographic, ethnic and political condi- tion. Nowadays, most of Singaporean use Singlish and Mandarin as a lingua franca. Ministry of Education of Singapore has some firm policies on the language education - bilingual education, unifying people through English, and culture education of mother tongue. It caused some disruption of language use in everyday living and school education. The disruption comes from discord between racial identity and national identity, localization and globalization, utilitarianism and culturalism. Policy on the language and culture education of Singapore served for unifying people and powering international competitiveness of nation, but it setbacks language culture and variety of linguistic ecology, also. Therefore, we have to think about the balance among thinking, comm- unication and culture. And it needs to understand the value of English education as lingua franca and mother tongue education as a cultural competence.
