2016 Annual Conference

This session will present findings from a study on adult immigrants’ barriers to participation in second language education in South Korea. Three major factors of barriers will be described; five groups of non-participants depending on their deterring factors and strategies for recruitments and retention for each group will be discussed.

Administrators and teachers, policy makers, researchers

The presentation will consist of the following components.
1. We will briefly introduce the immigration situation in South Korea, how the circumstances are similar to and different from American immigration situations in order to enhance the utility of the findings from this research.
2. Then, we will present the findings from this quantitative survey research. Specifically, we found three major underlying factors of barriers that make immigrants hard to participate in Korean as Second Language courses in Korea: negative attitude toward learning Korean, social isolation, and competing demands. Detailed meanings of each factor will be discussed.
3. We revealed five groups of people differently deterred by these three factors of barriers: those who a) highly deterred by negative attitude toward learning Korean and competing demands but highly undeterred by social isolation, b) highly deterred by only social isolation, c) much deterred by competing demands but much undeterred by negative attitudes, d) a little deterred by all three factors, and e) highly deterred by social isolation and negative attitudes. The demographic features of each group will be added.
4. Strategies for reducing barriers, thereby increasing recruitments and retention rates based on the research findings will be discussed with session participants.