A study of Korean cultural competence of Korean as a foreign language students at high school in Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

The research objectives are to examine the level of students' Korean cultural competence, to study and analyze the relationship between students' background and students' Korean cultural competence. The samples consist of 254 students who study Korean as a foreign language from 8 high schools in Bangkok. The research instrument is a questionnaire about Korean cultural competence which consists of 4 components: Korean cultural knowledge, Korean cultural skill, Korean cultural awareness, and Korean communicative skill. The research data is analyzed by descriptive statistics and correlation analysis. The results are as follows: (1) Level of students' Korean cultural competence is moderate (2) students' background affects their Korean cultural competence at .01, the significant levels are review duration, Korean life experience, grade, Hallyu liking, tutorial class, motivation to study at the undergraduate level, and Korean language learning duration.