In the spring semester of 2021, the University of Sheffield became the first institution in the UK to offer a Korea Foundation e-School Korean language program using the Korean-language textbook Learn! Korean with BTS. Over the last year, Middlebury College in the US, École Normale Supérieure in France, and Thang Long University in Vietnam all opened a BTS Korean Language course.

The University of Sheffield is a leading member of the Russel Group, a prestigious association of UK universities. The school introduced a Korean-language program about 40 years ago, long before the emergence of the Korean Wave. While the program was at one point on the brink of closure due to a lack of students, enrollment had swollen to 130 by 2020 thanks to support from the Korea Foundation for a professorship, the efforts of the lecturers in the program, and the momentum of the Korean Wave.

“We were going to reduce the size of the program by half when the campus shut down for the pandemic, but we ended up offering the maximum, three classes, because so many students applied,” said Lee Seri, a lecturer in the program. “The student group is diverse, ranging from undergraduates to doctoral students. We even have a medical student who takes time between practice at the hospital and comes to class with a medical mask still on.”

Photo. Students at the University of Sheffield posing for the picture with their textbooks

(Source: https://www.kf.or.kr/kf/main.do)

Last year, the Korea Foundation signed an agreement on the promotion of overseas Korean language education with Big Hit Edu and Hankuk University of Foreign Studies to launch the KF e-School BTS Korean Language Course Special Project. The goal of this project is to help global universities open Korean language courses. A total of eleven universities in eight countries, including in the US, UK, Japan, and Vietnam, are planning to launch a program as a regular credit course under this project.

Celebrating the tenth anniversary of the KF Global e-School Program, the Korea Foundation will strive to further position itself as a key provider of online Korean language courses.

Source

https://www.kf.or.kr/kf/main.do