Yoon, Jae Rim. 2014. Korean Popular Culture as a Resource for KFL Learners’ Intercultural Competence. Language Information. Volume 18. 91-112. In today’s multicultural world, language learners’ intercultural competence (Byram, 1997) in addition to their linguistic competence has been increasingly emphasized by researchers. For Korean as a foreign language (KFL) learners, Korean popular culture seems to have potential to be a useful resource to develop their intercultural competence, in that the intense popularity of Korean popular culture in many parts of the world (Toru, 2007) have an effect on Korean language learning. This study investigates to what extent Korean popular culture influences Korean as a foreign language (KFL) learners’ intercultural competence and suggests a few pedagogical implications. Drawing from Pavlenko’s (2007) narrative analysis, I analyze content, context, and form of two KFL learners’ narratives. The analyses demonstrate how learners can use diverse resources including Korean movies, dramas, and people in developing their intercultural competence by acquiring intercultural knowledge and undergoing the process of ‘decentering’ from their own cultural perspectives. The participants narratives also shed light on possible pedagogical application of Korean popular culture in Korean language teaching, in that teachers can incorporate popular culture and other steps to develop learners’ intercultural development in classroom settings.
Key words: intercultural competence, Korean popular culture, Korean as a foreign language, narrative analysis, footing