The purpose of this article is to provide some ideas to generate cultural education contents for the Spanish-speaking world. The premises are that to make gound in Korean studies, in the Spanish-speaking world, including Chile, there needs to be a culture and language educational unit, putting emphasis more on the culture. The author wants to say that Korean studies can take root through cultural education, to raise appropriate issues that can lead to understanding and sensitivity to intercultural differences.
This article analyzes the Korean culture classes at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso since the second semester of 2004 and at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile since the first semester of 2006.
Many Korean texts which were developed in Korea deal with Korean cultural education as a part of a language education course. But that’s not appropriate for the Spanish-speaking learners whose interest is more practical, that is to learn how to facilitate and accomplish their business goals and activities through understanding cultural differences.
The aim of Korean cultural education has to be tailored to the learners interests and needs to learn more that what we Koreans want to teach them. Showing the role of tradition in modern Korean society and its meanings in other cultures can be the foremost element to introduce the students’ concerns and to create an appropriate Korean cultural text for futre application in the Spanish-speaking cultures throughout the world. (Catholic University of Chile)