Research on Korean Culture Education for Intercultural Competence Improvement: With a Focus on Collaborative Learning among Foreign Students in Korean Universities

Objectives The purpose of this paper is to propose a teaching approach that enables academic-oriented learners to understand and interpret Korean culture from an intercultural perspective, and present their findings as they ac-tively reflect on their own experiences and engage in discussions. Throughout this process, the researcher is ex-pected to validate learners’ improvement in their intercultural competence through team projects. Methods For this purpose, a survey was conducted on 23 students from University A in Incheon and 24 students from University B in Seoul taking the class “Presentation and Discussion”. The results of the survey were reflected when designing the class and directing students to work on their presentation projects. Results Initially, a survey was conducted to identify learners' experiences in learning Korean, their preferences re-garding collaborative learning, as well as their interest in Korean popular culture and specific elements of Korean culture they found interesting in particular. Subsequently, the content on Korean culture presented by the teams for their mid-term exam was analyzed to examine the learners' process in interculturally understanding Korean culture. Conclusions The research revealed that academic-oriented learners, through collaborative learning and compar-ing Korean culture with their own, gained an intercultural understanding on various aspects of Korean culture. Furthermore, by sharing their personal experiences in Korean culture with other learners, they were able to en-hance their intercultural competence.