A study on Achievements and Issues on Language Education in Multi-cultural Era

The purpose of this paper is to assess the accomplishments of current language education and to explore the direction in future study based on inductive analysis of previous research. This study also attempts to investigate current state of policy support as well as theoretical achievements through analyzing related materials and policy research. Multi-cultural Korean education shows vividly the current situation that on-site demand creates policy which in turn brings about hasty educational process followed by related research. Despite these problems, there were several meaningful studies that shed a light on new direction in Korean education. First, the Korean language programs with a focus on individuals and small groups have been developed departing from intensive Korean programs initiated by language institutions. Second, there have been accumulations of research using qualitative methodology academic research beyond theoretical and quantitative researches. Third, there has been an expansion of research area in terms of contents in that the areas relatively unnoticed such as discourse, human rights connection, identity and attitudes are included beyond pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. Fourth, there has been an increase in numbers of studies linking theory with field. While research volumes on teaching and policy theory are still dominant over research on contents, there have been efforts to actively address the problems in the field in light of policy assessment research.