Korean American Students' Language and Literacy Practices at a Korean Language School Mihye Han
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University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs Education ETDs 9-12-2014 Korean American Students' Language and Literacy Practices at a Korean Language School Mihye Han Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/educ_llss_etds Recommended Citation Han, Mihye. "Korean American Students' Language and Literacy Practices at a Korean Language School." (2014). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/educ_llss_etds/13 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Education ETDs at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Mihye Han Candidate Language, Literacy & Sociocultural Studies Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Dr. Lois M. Meyer, Chairperson Dr. Holbrook Mahn Dr. Lucretia (Penny) Pence Dr. Soyong Lee i Korean American Students’ Language and Literacy Practices at a Korean Language School by MIHYE HAN B.A., Business, Seoul National University of Technology, 1997 M.A., TESOL, The University of New Mexico, 2003 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Language, Literacy & Sociocultural Studies The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico July 2014 ii ©2014, Mihye Han iii DEDICATION To God, my heavenly Father. To my dear father, Kyo-Won Han (한 교원). To my dear mother, Kyoung-Sook Lee (이 경숙). To my dear sister and two brothers. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I give thanks to God, my heavenly Father, for his sincere guidance and walk with me through this academic journey in a foreign country. May His name be glorified and honored through this work, which has been full of His faithful and endless love, grace, and help. I love you, Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my dissertation chair, Dr. Lois M. Meyer, for her consistent and patient support, encouragement, feedback, and guidance throughout my entire doctoral program. She has been one of the most amazing professors I have ever known. I also want to thank my other committee members, Dr. Holbrook Mahn, Dr. Lucretia (Penny) Pence, and Dr. Soyong Lee, who are wonderful people, mentors, teachers, and scholars. I also give thanks to my pastor, Jong Jai Yoo, and my brothers and sisters, in the name of Jesus, who prayed for my successful accomplishment through this journey. Thanks to their prayer, it became possible for me to reach this final stage. I am indebted to Jim Wagner, who became a wonderful friend, for his editing service free of charge, and for his encouragement. I also want to thank to my beautiful friends for their love and care; they have been through this same academic journey, Simoni Valadares, Claudia Lombana, Jannette Hermina, Hien Tran, Mikyung Shin, Kwangjong Park, Seonsook Park, and Yanghee Kim. Lastly, I give my special thanks to my father and mother, wonderful and amazing parents, who never give up hope and faith in me. They raised me to be the woman I am now. I thank God for giving me such great parents. 엄마 아빠, 제가 두 분을 얼마나 사랑하는지 아시죠? 감사해요. 사랑해요. v Korean American Students’ Language and Literacy Practices at a Korean Language School: by Mihye Han B.A., Business, Seoul National University of Technology, 1997 M.A., TESOL, University of New Mexico, 2003 Ph.D., Language, Literacy and Sociocultural Studies, University of New Mexico, 2014 ABSTRACT This study explores how Korean American young adolescent students engage in and construct meaning in Korean and English language and literacy practices at a Korean Language School (KLS) in the United States. From a sociocultural perspective, it focuses on the KLS, a social context where the students are exposed to and engage in Korean language and literacy practices. This study investigates what kinds of language and literacy practices in Korean and/or English are embedded in the KLS in the particular Korean community in which this study was conducted, how the Korean American students respond to those language and literacy practices through their attitudes, and what social and home factors influence their attitudes toward those practices, toward people they interact with, and toward the social setting of the KLS. Findings show that while the students were participating in the Korean lessons, utilizing CS in the KLS, their construction of meaning varied and their meaning making was related to their complex identity construction, which might have been influenced by their parents’ parenting at home and their Korean ethnic heritage. Not every student constructed meaning in the vi same way, therefore they revealed different attitudes toward learning Korean language and literacy. They were surrounded by the Korean academic learning social context, but their degrees of engagement with meaning construction in Korean and English were different. These young adolescent learners, displaying their own agency, made a decision to be part of the surrounding social context of the KLS, or not. Their decisions were possibly made based on adolescent social and ethnic identity construction, self-esteem, young adolescent developmental stage, and parents’ language ideologies. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES....................................................................................................... xiii LIST OF TABLES......................................................................................................... xiv CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION..................................................................................... 1 Background...................................................................................................................... 1 Purpose of the Study........................................................................................................ 5 Significance of the Study................................................................................................. 6 Organization of Chapters................................................................................................. 8 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW....................................................................... 11 Theoretical Framework.................................................................................................. 11 Korean Americans in the United States......................................................................... 17 History of Korean Americans..................................................................................... 18 Social and Demographic Characteristics.................................................................... 20 Heritage Language and Heritage Language Learners.................................................... 24 Heritage Language Education..................................................................................... 26 Discourse Analysis......................................................................................................... 28 Code-Switching.............................................................................................................. 32 Ethnic Identity................................................................................................................ 37 Language Ideology......................................................................................................... 39 CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY........................................................... 43 Research Methodology and Rationale........................................................................... 43 Research Site: The Korean Language School................................................................ 46 Student Participant Criteria............................................................................................ 48 viii Data Collection.............................................................................................................. 49 Classroom Observation at the KLS............................................................................. 50 Participant Interviews................................................................................................. 51 Students and their Family Contexts............................................................................... 54 James........................................................................................................................... 55 Kevin........................................................................................................................... 60 Elise............................................................................................................................. 64 Dana............................................................................................................................ 68 Korean Language School Teachers............................................................................... 73 Ms. Song..................................................................................................................... 73 Ms. Kim...................................................................................................................... 74 Data Analysis................................................................................................................. 75 Researcher Positionality................................................................................................