Rosemont Middle School is located in La Crescenta, where many Korean-American households call home nowadays. Starting its fall semester, the school began offering Korean as one of its foreign language courses.
Many of the students taking the new course are the ones who have already learned basic Korean while attending Monte Vista Elementary School. Half of the class at Rosemont Middle School are either Caucasians or Hispanics.
For many years in the past, parents of Korean-American students have been pushing hard to lead the schools to offer Korean classes, but such an effort gained momentum as parents of non-Korean students began to express interest in the language. Ultimately, the Glendale Unified School District has provided a $800,000 budget to start offering Korean classes.
Case in point, many Southern California schools are following suit by offering Korean classes on their own.
As of August 2017, 51 middle and high schools in the L.A. region are offering Korean classes, according to the Foundation for Korean Language and Culture in USA (KLAC USA). The number surpasses to more than 100 when Northern California, Arizona and other states are included. Including the elementary schools offering bilingual classes, about 130 schools in the U.S. are offering a Korean language course. About 75 percent of the students in those classes are non-Koreans.
In L.A. Koreatown, Ambassador School of Global Leadership, Third Street Elementary School, Wilton Place Elementary Schools, Berendo Middle School and L.A. High School are also offering Korean. Recently North Hollywood High School, Lawrence Middle School and Northwood High School began offering Korean classes. Chatsworth Charter High School, which disbanded its Korean classes, revived the program starting this fall.
“As K-pop and Korean culture are getting more popular, the interest level in the Korean language is also soaring,” said KLAC USA director Monica Ryu. “I believe that is why schools are also showing interest in offering Korean classes.”
Ryu added: “More non-Korean students are now taking Korean classes compared to Korean classes. This is a trend that simply didn’t exist only two to three years ago. We’re making changes to the curriculum to make sure Korean language and culture are being taught in a way that’s easier to learn for non-Korean students.”
By Nicole Chang
