Outreach program

Outreach Program visits to schools

Monash Korean Studies has been actively engaging primary and secondary school students in an outreach program that educates students on the Korean language, culture and history and introduces the possibility of studying engaging in studying Korean at a university level.

This program gives local school students the opportunity to experience a range of interactive programs and activities across the study areas provided by Monash University Korean Studies.

Due the COVID-19 social distancing restrictions outreach programs in 2020-2021 were postponed as the safety and wellbeing of the community is our top priority. With the current ease in restrictions, we were able to continue our outreach programs this year. Our experiences of teaching via ZOOM allowed us to extend our reach to international schools as well.

Korean Cultural Teaching on Monash MBA Programme (7 September 2022)

On September 7, Associate Professor and Monash University Korean Studies Research Hub Director, Andrew David Jackson, led a session for Monash University MBA students at Caulfield around South Korean business culture. As part of the MBA Programme, students will be travelling to South Korea to increase their awareness, understanding and knowledge of businesses and companies in South Korea. On their trip, they will have the opportunity to directly interact with Korean employees and attend site visits to various locations. To prepare for the trip, Monash Korean Studies taught the session ‘Cultural situations for business people dealing with South Korea.’ This involved presenting Korean-related scenarios and having students work in groups to answer questions. The situations ranged from drinking and food etiquette, exchange of business cards, business meetings, bowing and showing respect, and negotiations. The MBA students actively engaged in learning about Korean culture through the scenarios and the session was successful in giving them insight into Korean business culture. Korean culture may not have been familiar to many of them but by the end of the session, the MBA students had developed greater awareness of the peculiarities of Korean cultural practices and looked forward to their trip to Seoul.

Kyle Han-Menz (Monash University Korean Studies Research Hub Student Teaching Assistant).

Engaging Activities for Effective Korean Language Learning (28 September 2022)

On 28th September 2022, Monash University Korean Studies Research Hub member and Korean language instructor Heekyung Ahn held a one-hour ZOOM workshop for Korean language teachers and students at the Hanoi Pedagogical University 2, Vietnam entitled 'Engaging Activities for Effective Korean Language Learning.' The session focused on communicative teaching activities in Korea language classrooms for introductory level learners. The event was jointly organised by Nguyễn Thị Hồng Nhật Dean of Faculty of English, lecturer of English at Hanoi Pedagogical University 2, Vietnam and the Monash University Korean Studies Research Hub. In total, 100 participants attended the event.

Visit to Huntingdale Primary School (9 October 2019)

On October 9 2019, Associate Professor Andrew David Jackson and Dr Adam Zulawnik visited Huntingdale Primary School; a public, bilingual English-Japanese school that currently has approximately 700 students.

Dr Adam Zulawnik first gave a short presentation on Korea, the Korean language, and the Korean Studies department at Monash University to the grade 5/6 students (aged 11-12) who study Japanese as a second language through the school’s bilingual curriculum. Dr Zulawnik noted the linguistic similarities between Korean and Japanese (e.g., word order and Chinese character compounds) and that a number of our Korean Studies students at Monash choose to complete a double major in both languages.

Dr Zulawnik went on to emphasise the significance of Korean Studies and important role that South Korea plays in popular culture (K-Pop) and business globally.

All of the student showed great enthusiasm during the presentation. Many were already well informed about topics such as K-Pop and South Korean brands and cultural items such as taekwondo, hanbok, and kimchi. The presentation was followed by an interactive Kahoot! Quiz which student completed in groups.

All of the students were very excited and showed a fantastic level of engagement with the presentation. The outreach visit was concluded by exchanging Korean greetings that had been learned during the session.

Monash Korean Studies welcomes inquiries from schools in the Melbourne Metropolitan area. Please contact us for further information about the program.