SEOUL, KOREA — Ministry of Education, Science and Technology(MEST) announced that Korean Education Center in New York and State University of New York at Stony Brook(SUNY Stony Brook) signed a MOU on the establishment of Korean language teacher preparation curriculum.
This MOU is to systematically cultivate qualified Korean language teachers through the expansion of Korean classes in America’s first and secondary schools.
The MOU is more meaningful that a university in Eastern region has established a Korean language teacher preparation system following last year's MOU with a California State University in LA(CSULA) which is in Western region. Also, there has been no regular Korean language teacher preparation course in eastern part of the US until now.
Korean language teachers in regular schools in America should have a certificate in other major and must individually earn the Korean language certificate through additional training courses.
Based on this MOU, SUNY Stony Brook will add Korean language related curriculum in existing Korean major from autumn in 2012.
Also, from autumn semester in 2014, the university will recruit ten or more freshmen majoring Korean language as an undergraduate course with a goal to produce Korean language teachers in 2018.
To this end, MEST will financially support the university for the next five years from Sep. 2012 till Aug. 2017 through Korean Education Center in New York. As New York State has reciprocity agreements with 46 states in the US, Korean language teachers produced in N.Y will be able to work in other states as well.
MEST said that the MOU will pave a foundation for Korean language education to develop and expand throughout the United States.
