“At Fordham, we don’t offer an official Korean course. But there has been this growth of interest in Korean culture and language,” said Hie-Myung Jo, Ed.D., associate director of the Institute of American Language and Culture, which hosts the workshops. “This was a good time for us to provide them that opportunity to learn.”

Two years ago, the institute received a grant from the Korean Education Center to offer a free Korean language workshop to Fordham students; in fall 2019, they held an elementary Korean language pilot workshop for about five students. The following semester, the workshop expanded to include about 15 students. When the workshop was offered for the third time in spring 2021, albeit virtually, the number of students continued to grow.  

This fall, there are now three Korean language and culture classes for more than 40 students at the Lincoln Center campus. On Wednesdays, students can attend a beginner’s Korean workshop at 1 p.m., a low intermediate Korean workshop at 10 a.m., and/or a Korean culture workshop at 4 p.m. for an hour-and-15-minute session. 

“I hope the students will become more confident about learning a new language and expand their perspective as a world citizen,” said the instructor for all three classes, Kyung Eun Lee, who has taught similar workshops at Columbia University and New York University. 

The workshops bear no credit, but they will appear on the students’ transcripts upon successful completion. More importantly, said Jo, the classes will help students learn to appreciate other languages and cultures and become global citizens. 

“One of the main purposes of these classes is to provide a fun, free, practical opportunity to learn the Korean language and explore aspects of the culture. This could be an especially good option for students who plan to study abroad in Korea and those who want to learn more about Korean heritage,” Jo said. 

Some of the students are Korean Americans who want to learn more about their heritage, like Davis Pak, a sophomore at Fordham College at Lincoln Center. He said he grew up in a household where his parents mainly spoke in English with him, but he wants to be able to communicate better with his extended family members, especially his cousins and grandparents. 

“I saw this class as an opportunity to refresh my memory and learn new words and phrases,” said Pak, whose Korean name is Saejoon. 

But most of the students are not Korean. Many of them are fans of South Korean pop culture, especially the music and dramas, who were inspired to learn the language behind the culture they love. 

“I want to learn the whole language,” said Rayne Davila, a first-year student at Fordham College at Lincoln Center. Davila is a K-pop fan who taught herself the Korean basics during the pandemic with the help of a Talk To Me in Korean workbook and routine FaceTime sessions with a friend. “I want to be able to talk fluently and go to Korea one day.” 

Tara Salem, also a first-year FCLC student, said she wants to not only visit South Korea as a tourist, but also work in the country. 

“I’m studying business, and that’s a very big field that can allow me to work abroad. I want to work in Asia at some point, so it might be good for me to have a basic understanding of the language and the culture,” said Salem, who majors in economics.

Last summer, she tried to teach herself Korean. Salem became a fan of Korean dramas during the pandemic, including popular shows like Crash Landing On You and It’s Okay to Not Be Okay, and said she wants to be able to enjoy her shows without English subtitles. 

“Everyone here is interested in Korean culture, whether it’s watching Korean dramas or listening to music,” said Salem, who plans on watching Squid Game, a South Korean dystopian show that currently holds the most-watched title on Netflix. “It’s nice to have a community in that sense.”

Fordham’s Institute of American Language and Culture hosted nine Chinese students at the Lincoln Center campus from Jan. 21 to 30 for its second annual Winter Institute—a language immersion program that helps participants sharpen their English language skills both inside the classroom and on the streets of New York City.

“These programs offer such a rich opportunity to showcase the best of New York and Fordham’s unique position in this city,” said Amy Evans, IALC’s associate director. “We love being able to share both with people from all over the world.”

For many institute participants, this trip is often their first time visiting an English language-dominated country. Evans said students, including this season’s participants, have told her it’s a chance for them to practice English in a native environment. Another reason why people join the annual institute is its quintessential location.

“There’s also the pull of New York City—a truly iconic place that symbolizes so much to so many people,” she said. “It’s American culture, but, like every mega-city, it has a culture, a history, and a social fabric that really are all its own.”

The past participants’ homes span across the globe: Taiwan, Guatemala, Norway, Vietnam, and Italy. But most of them hail from China, thanks to IALC’s partnership with Northwestern Polytechnical University, a public research institute in the city of Xi’an. And this year was no exception—all nine guests are NPU students.

One of them was Ewuer, a 22-year-old Mongolian-Chinese student from Xinjiang Province. (It is custom for Mongolians to have a single name.)

She came to New York to experience the archetypal American lifestyle she had seen in movies and TV shows, to improve her English language skills, and to help her confirm that she wants to earn her master’s degree abroad—perhaps in the U.S.

January 21 was her first day on American soil. In a way, it’s an adventure she has prepared for since the first grade—when she started learning English. But it wasn’t until now that she actively practiced speaking the language she had learned since she was a child.

“My English is more fluent than before,” Ewuer said. “I can make sentences more easily.”

So could Zhiyuan Shao, an 18-year-old student from Zhejiang Province. He described the Big Apple as one of the most famous cities in the world. When Shao was a child, he considered New York the capital of the U.S., rather than Washington, D.C. After watching The Wolf of Wall Street, he wanted to visit the city even more.

He got to try out his new language skills during a conversation with a stranger while they were standing on a subway platform.

“We complained about the subway,” Shao said, chuckling. “They say it’s terrible.”

Curriculum Developed by Fordham Students

Their improved English skills owe thanks, in part, to a curriculum co-developed by Fordham students. With their mentor, Hie-Myung Jo, Ed.D.—an IALC curriculum and instruction specialist and a professor in Fordham’s Graduate School of Education (GSE)—seven international Chinese students in GSE developed and compiled learning materials for the IALC participants.

“It’s a great opportunity for them to practice the real language—not just textbook English,” Jo said.

In a GSE class last semester, Jo and her seven GSE students created an intermediate-level curriculum centered around three themes: urban environment, arts and technology, and people and society. They researched online reading resources, brainstormed off-campus trips, and designed activities that would help the IALC participants practice their English. A few months later, they completed their final product—a 71-page welcome packet and workbook.

In the mornings, the IALC participants worked on the booklet. They completed fill-in-the-blank worksheets about the history behind New York City’s boroughs, read and analyzed excerpts from immigrant memoirs, and contrasted the 9/11 attacks with the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan.

“We wanted them to know that New York is a city of diversity, and we welcome immigrants,” Jo said. “Actually, it is a city of immigrants.”

In the afternoons, they embarked on excursions that linked their classroom lessons to reality. Destinations included the Museum of Chinese in America, the United Nations, and Ellis Island. They were often accompanied by the same GSE students who helped develop the curriculum, like Ruiqi Shang, GSE ’19.

“We always ask them, ‘How are you feeling? Do you think it’s very helpful for you to practice the things you learned during the morning?’” Shang said.

The students had two main assignments: Maintain a video diary with their smartphones; record themselves speaking in English during a trip outing—introducing the venue, describing their emotions, freely speaking about how they feel—and share it with their teachers and peers. And, keep a list of new vocabulary words they encountered, the definitions, and a sentence that correctly used each word.

One of the new words that Ewuer learned was “replica.” But what’s bigger than her list of vocabulary words is what she’s experienced over the past 10 days.

Ewuer recalled seeing the city skyline from the Empire State Building at night, watching the seagulls by Coney Island Beach, and drinking in the hecticness of Times Square. She said she’s still not used to drinking iced beverages in American restaurants (in China, she quipped, they always serve warm tea.) But packed in her suitcase are souvenirs from America—designer clothing and bags for her family, U.S. currency, Fordham mementos—and 10 days’ worth of memories.

“I never thought I could be here,” she said. “It’s a dream come true.”