KOREAN LANGUAGE AND CULTURE STUDIES STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION OF THE KOREAN VOWEL SYSTEM

Abstract

The Korean Alphabet is called Hangeul. Hangeul is one of the most innovative scientific writing systems in the world. Like Vietnamese, Hangeul also includes a system of vowels and consonants, including 21 vowels and 19 consonants. In fact, 21 Korean vowels are divided into 10 single vowels and 11 diphthongs. In fact, by the teaching process, the author found that the first-year students were not properly aware of the vowel system when learning about Hangeul, especially not able to distinguish between single vowels and double vowels. Therefore, by conducting a survey for 100 first-year students of the Department of Korean Language and Culture, University of Foreign Languages, Hue University, combined with statistical methods, analyzing and comparing data, this article will point out, analyzing and clarifying the rationales causing students’ misleading perception of the Korean vowel system. Thereby, the author proposes some recommendations to help researchers, teachers, learners, and compilers of the Vietnamese curriculum to draw out research methods, teaching, learning and compiling teaching materials. The program is suitable and consistent with the Korean curriculum, contributing to helping learners have the most systematic viewpoints about the Korean vowel system.