By Kim Cheong-won
Staff Reporter

A Canadian professor Tuesday called for more national investment in the Korean language and in Korean studies programs to foster Korean specialists, warning against an excessive boom for English learning here.

``I think everybody in Korea is absolutely crazy about learning English,’’ said Ross King, associate professor of Korean Language and Literature at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada, in an interview with The Korea Times.

``What happens in the process is that they forget who they are. They also forget about their own language. This is a great shame,’’ he said.

The professor, who is visiting Korea to attend seminars on the Korean language and Korean studies at Kangnam and Korea University, is dean of ``Supsogui Hosu’’ (Lake of the Woods), a Korean immersion village in Minnesota, the United States.

``It’s a part of a bigger organization called Concordia Language Village (CLV), which started 1961. Recently, a lot of different English language villages have started in Korea. But the village concept actually started with CLV. We are the pioneers in the field,’’ said the professor, who holds a doctor’s degree in linguistics from Harvard University.

The CLV was started in 1961 with the aim of initiating an experimental program using immersion techniques to teach languages.

Now a total of 13 language camps are in operation. The Korean language camp was established in 1991.

``I have run the camp since its foundation. We offer a one-week exploratory, two-week immersion, and four-week high school credit sessions,’’ King said.

In the camp, the ``villagers’’ are given many other opportunities in addition to learning Korean. They have the chance to learn the proper way to wear ``hanbok,’’ or traditional Korean dress, how to prepare authentic Korean food, and they get a glimpse of taekwondo, Korea’s martial art.

``Our philosophy is very different from the average `hangul hakkyo’ (Korean language school) in the U.S., which is very specific to the local Korean community. We get kids from all 50 states across the U.S., and from different ethnic backgrounds,’’ the professor said.

Asked about Koreans’ enthusiasm for learning English, the multilinguist pointed out that their interest in their own culture and language is really ``pathetic’’ compared with their zeal to learn English.

``Kyonggi Province and Seoul City are spending tens of millions of dollars promoting English and building English language villages. Right now, the only funding that our Korean language village gets is $6,000 U.S. per year from the Korea Foundation, which is a nice gesture, but in the bigger scheme, it is a pathetically small amount of money,’’ he said.

He also stressed that the Korean government should set aside a bigger budget to foster Korean specialists.

``I think the size of the Korea Foundation budget is about one-sixtieth of the Japan Foundation budget,’’ he said, adding that Korea has to invest aggressively to train Korea specialists, who have some sort of understanding about Korea.

kcw@koreatimes.co.kr