KREN-3031: Korean Current Affairs 

Course Description: This course is designed for students who have completed KREN 311 Integrated Advanced Korean, KREN 313 Oral Communication, or its equivalent. The students will be exposed to current events and relevant news of Korea through the reading of various upcoming news articles. Although the course is focused on the reading, the class will integrate all five skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing, and culture). The class activity combines the student’s reading and understanding of the content in the material with other skills through a presentation, a performance, class discussions, writing short essays, and even by employing multimedia resources. The topics and current issues that are addressed in the course will include politics, economy, society, education, life in the workplace, North Korea, and Korean pop culture. At the end of class, the students will develop their language skills in order to communicate and express their own thoughts and opinions in Korean as they engage with the current issues covered in the course. Sociolinguistic competence will be emphasized so that students can learn to use Korean in a socially and culturally appropriate and sophisticated manner. The lecture will be presented in Korean and the use of English will be minimal.