Korean Language Courses

KOREA 101 Basic Korean 1
This course is the first part of First Year Korean. The course provides students with basic conversation and grammar skills, with the assumption that students have no or little previous background knowledge of Korean. The objective of the course is to cultivate students’ communicative skills in speaking, listening, reading, and writing at the most basic level in Korean; students will learn how to make simple expressions regarding identities, attributes, locations, numbers, daily activities, etc. Students will also learn how to combine simple sentences to develop an idea for introducing oneself or explaining daily activities. The course also introduces students to knowledge regarding Korean culture, such as Korean symbols, greetings, games, costumes, address terms, collectivism, etc.

KOREA 102 Basic Korean II
This course is the second part of First Year Korean. The course provides students with further conversation & grammar skills beyond those learned in the first semester, emphasizing the active use of basic Korean in speaking, listening, reading, and writing; students will learn how to make simple sentences to describe time, past and future events, frequencies, transportations, neighborhood, hometown, etc. Students will also learn how to express desires, preferences, negation, surprise, and capabilities. The course also introduces students to further interactive activities to learn about Korean culture, such as the aging system, holidays, weather, honorific expressions, zodiac, and calligraphy, etc.

KOREA 201 Basic Korean III
This course is the first part of Second-Year Korean. This course, as a continuation of KOREA 102 (Basic Korean II), will provide learners with conversational and grammatical skills needed for communicating on daily life topics such as meetings, phone conversations, favorite activities, feelings, shopping, colors, foods, and tastes. Students will also learn how to speak in the formal speech style, and how to express conditions, willingness, intentions, obligations, suggestion, requests, permission, prohibition, etc. The four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing will be balanced in the course with Korean cultural information and activities, such as dating in Korea, cooking and eating shows, emoticons, etiquettes, etc.

KOREA 202 Basic Korean III
This course is the second part of Second-Year Korean. This course, as a continuation of KOREA 201 (Basic Korean III), will provide learners with conversational and grammatical skills needed for communicating on daily life topics such as appearances, clothing, travels, weather and seasons, outings, and cooking. Students will also learn how to speak in the intimate speech style, and how to express comparison, speculations, intentions, tendencies, decisions, involuntary results, plans, experiences, recollections, change of state, wishes, shifting of actions, completions, etc. The four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing will be balanced in the course with Korean cultural information and activities, such as “Konglish” words (a cultural mix of Korean and English), writing letters, cardinal directions, etc.

KOREA 215 K-culture Korean
Kyungsook Kim
This course leverages the growing interest in K-culture and provides students an opportunity to learn Korean through the contents of K-POP (Korean Pop) and K-drama (Korean drama). This course will provide learners with a beginner level of conversational and grammatical skills needed to understand various K-POP songs and K-drama. This course can be an additional supplement for students who wish to be better prepared when moving on to higher levels of Korean language courses.

KOREA 301 Intermediate Korean I
This course is the first part of Third-Year Korean. This course, as a continuation of KOREA 202 (Basic Korean IV), will provide learners with an intermediate level of conversational and grammatical skills needed in various social situations such as for living in Korea, public transportation and convenience stores, responding to gathering invitations, and maintaining a healthy life. Students will learn how to intricately speak and write in the plain speech style and how to quote a sentence directly and indirectly. The four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing will be balanced in the course with Korean cultural information and activities.

KOREA 302 Intermediate Korean II
This course is the second part of Third-Year Korean. This course, as a continuation of KOREA 301 (Intermediate Korean I), will provide learners with an intermediate level of conversational and grammatical skills needed in various social situations relating to the topics of reading books, traditional holidays, hospitals and drugstores, marriage, and majors & jobs. Students will learn how to communicate with confidence, fluency, and enhanced accuracy in speaking and writing in Korean. The four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing will be balanced in the course with Korean cultural information and activities.

KOREA 401 Advanced Korean I
This course is the first part of Fourth-Year Korean. This course, as a continuation of KOREA 302 (Intermediate Korean II), will provide learners with advanced-intermediate level of conversational and grammatical skills needed to understand and express various social and cultural lifestyles, using some idiomatic expressions and the vocabulary of abstract concepts. The course will deal with revised authentic reading and listening materials, such as Korean folktales, drama skits, lyrics, poems, essays, proverbs, and short stories. Enhancing the ability to present one’s view and discuss it with others is also a main goal of this course.

KOREA 402 Advanced Korean II
This course is the second part of Fourth-Year Korean. This course, as a continuation of KOREA 401 (Advanced Korean I), will provide learners with advanced-intermediate level of conversational and grammatical skills needed to understand and express various social and cultural lifestyles regarding legal issues, workplaces, media, changing societies, and environmental problems. The course will deal with revised authentic reading and listening materials of interviews, articles, columns, online blogs and chats, surveys, statistics, etc. The continuation in enhancing the ability to present one’s view and discuss it with others is the main goal of this course.