First Things First: Bringing Back a Sinographic Component to Korean Language Education (KLE) in North America

In the context of a special issue on education outside Korea, this paper surveys the current status of sinograph education in Korean Language Education (KLE) for foreigners, and finds that there is a dearth of both research on and teaching materials for hancha kyoyuk. Hence the “First Things First” in the title: we can hardly expect to make progress in hanmun education when so little exists in the way of resources for and courses in sinograph education—the single most basic prerequisite for teaching hanmun. After suggesting a number of reasons for the current lamentable neglect of hancha education, the paper draws some illustrative comparisons with sinograph education in Japanese Language Education and Chinese Language Education before rehearsing a number of compelling justifications for including a robust hancha education component in KLE (whether for Koreans or foreign learners of Korean). The remainder of the paper introduces the pedagogical ideology and methodology behind the Advanced Korean: Sino-Korean Companion textbook and its companion online resource, the UBC Interline Reader.