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Welcome to the Advanced North Korean Dialect Materials!

Purpose

The Advanced North Korean Dialect Materials(ANKDM) are part of the Korean Language Learning Materials, which can be incorporated in any basic, intermediate and advanced courses based on proficiency level, as well as course topics.

The purposes of developing these North Korean Dialect Materials are to provide optimal learning environments in which students can achieve higher levels of proficiency - level 3 and above - in Korean Language, and to challenge language educators. Featured in these materials are linguistic differences that have developed for over half a century during the division of South and North Korea, along with historical and socio-cultural references being used in North Korea today.

The current materials are interactive, online content-based instructional materials, which provide students/learners with cultural and regional information concerning North Korea, through different topics in the Final Learning Objectives. These materials will guide students in learning a variety of subject matters regarding North Korea. At the same time, a variety of linguistic activities will lead to understanding and acquiring the lexical, grammatical, orthographical, phonological, semantic, and sociolinguistic differences between the Dialect and the Standard Korean language.

In order for students/learners to effectively gain these higher proficiency skills, the learning activities are carefully designed to incorporate Higher Level Thinking Skills, i.e. Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation skills, rather than the outdated methods of Memorization, Comprehension and Application skills. At the same time, the texts used in these materials are also carefully selected to represent projective and evaluative text modes, non-standard linguistic features, and a high level of cultural references.

The Organization

The entire 42 units are sorted, first by ILR levels from 2 to 4. They are also sorted by ten FLO (Final Learning Objectives) topics: Culture and Society; Economy and Politics; Geography and Environment; Military and Security; Science and Technology.

It is recommended that instructors allocate about 4 hours for each unit when used in the classroom. However, the content volume of each unit varies significantly, so please use your discretion in omitting some portions of the unit in order not to overwhelm the learners with heavy content.

Important Pedagogical Considerations

  1. Interactive Web-deliverable materials: The units in these materials are designed to be used in a live classroom with an instructor's presence. Although the materials can be used as self study materials and downloaded as word files, the authors of these materials recommend an instructor's help, which will guide students in the right direction due as they absorb a high volume of new information with regards to cultural references and the use of higher order thinking skills.
  2. Authentic North Korean Texts/materials: The Reading and Listening Texts and materials used in these units are authentic materials taken from North Korean media websites and publications, as well as materials culled from the media websites of organizations established by North Korean defectors residing in South Korea. Included are live conversations and monologues that have been recorded of actual North Korean defectors who reside in the States and have supported the project as contractors. Most of the scripts for such recordings are either from North Korean websites or websites of defectors, but some of the scripts are live, spontaneous conversations between North Korean defectors based on prompts.
  3. Comparisons of beliefs and attitudes: One of the most critical elements the authors have tried to stress in these learning materials is for students to read and listen to North Korean materials with critical minds. The North Korean government produced these materials for propaganda purposes, and so the authors of these instructional units found it necessary to counterbalance and contrast those ideological claims and attitudes with articles and information from South Korean and American media sources, which provide the viewpoints and perspective of democratic nations.
  4. Skills Integration with Focus on Receptive Skills in North Korean Dialect: The learning activities in this website mainly focus on acquisition of Receptive Skills, Reading and Listening Skills. However, students will be asked occasionally to use North Korean orthography, pronunciation, grammar patterns, and lexical items in their productive skills, Speaking and Writing, although they may not actually need to speak or write in North Korean in their fields. We include these exercises because we believe language learning takes place most effectively when all four language skills are integrated.

Structure of Each Unit

We have included 42 units on this website, starting from level 2 to level 4. Each unit consists of Brainstorming, Pre Activity, Main Activity, and Wrap-up Activity, ending with a unit quiz.

  • Brainstorming (생각해 보기): In this stage, students, with the instructor, share what they already know and how they relate it with the new unit being introduced. In other words, it is a stage of schemata-building, where students' attention is drawn to organizing their thoughts and knowledge and providing a framework for better understanding of the unit materials.
  • Pre Activity (선행 학습 활동): Here, students are introduced to texts that outline the foundational basics before students engage in more challenging learning activities on the Main Activity pages. In order for students to reach the unit's target proficiency of levels 3 and above, as seen in the Main Activity, the Pre Activity introduces the students to materials from proficiency levels below 3.
  • Main Activity (주 학습 활동): In this stage, students are introduced to the target proficiency level of the learning unit. They are introduced to both reading and listening activities of the target proficiency level and are advised to actively engage in them to maintain their own proficiency at these same levels.
  • Wrap-up Activity (정리 학습 활동): In this portion of the unit, students are asked to wrap up what they have learned throughout the entire unit by organizing newly gained information, analyzing and synthesizing this knowledge, and presenting these in productive skills, Writing and Speaking. The language they use in these productive skills would be Standard Korean Language, unless they are asked to use the North Korean Dialect.
  • Unit Quiz: A unit quiz is a simple assessment tool provided at the end of each learning unit to briefly check whether the student has acquired the main content and linguistic elements introduced in the learning unit.

Helpful Web Features: Buttons for Pop-up windows

There are different buttons on each page that will direct the student to a few learning resources.

  1. 단어장 (glossary): Glossary of the North Korean words introduced in the unit.
  2. 문법장 (grammar note): Grammatical explanations of unique grammatical patterns of the North Korean Dialect which are different from the ones in Standard Korean Language.
  3. 참고장 (culture note): Notes from cultural and area references
  4. 내공책 (my note): Printer-friendly MS Word versions of entire lesson units.

  5. 첫페지(the front page in “North Korean word”): The first page of the entire materials
  6. 목록(list): Directory of the 42 units indexing proficiency levels and topics
  7. 도움말 (hints): Helpful hints for instructions, key answers to some activities, and other instructional suggestions
  8. 듣기 (listening): Button for audio materials
  9. 읽기(reading): Button for reading materials
  10. 지문 (script): Script for audio or video materials
  11. 동영상 (video): Video materials for listening activities
  12. 이전 (before): Go to the prior page
  13. 다음 (next): Go to the next page

The North Korean Language Situation: “Cultured Language” vs. Regional Dialects

It is worth mentioning what we mean by “North Korean Dialect” here. This term refers to North Korea’s Standard Language, which we use in contrast to the Standard Korean Language being used in South Korea. North Koreans refer to their Standard Language as the "Cultured Language" (Munhwa-eo: 문화어), which is mainly the regional dialect of Pyeongyang, the capital city of North Korea. North Korean sources vilify the Standard Language of South Korea as "coquettish" and "decadent," corrupted by English and Japanese loanwords, and full of nasal twangs. Two documents, or "instructions," by Kim Il Sung, Some Problems Related to the Development of the Korean Language, promulgated in 1964, and On the Development of the National Language: Conversations with Linguists, published in 1966, define basic national policy concerning the Cultured Language. According to research by the National Academy of Korean Language in South Korea, the North Korean government has added roughly 4,000 vocabulary items of regional dialects into this Cultured Language. The two regional dialects spoken in North Korea are North-Western dialect, spoken in Pyeongan-Buk-do and Pyeongan-Nam-do provinces, and North-eastern dialect, spoken in Hamkyeong-Buk-do and Hamkyeong-Nam-do provinces. In fact, the North-Western dialect includes the dialect of Pyeongyang, the Capital of North Korea, which is the central area of the entire dialectal region. (“Differences between Standard Languages of South and of North Korea,” Kang 2008)

Because correspondences to or within North Korea are impossible, two North Korean defectors, who have been residing in Southern California for between three to five years, have worked with us as contractors. One of them is originally from Pyongyang and the other from Hamkyeong-do, though both graduated from universities in Pyongyang and so, use the Munhwa-eo, or Cultured Language. They have reviewed the authenticity of the language materials we collected from the sources mentioned above. They also have helped us to clarify and verify meanings of lexical items and expressions.

The project team has also frequently used Chosunmal Daesajeon(조선말 대사전), an official North Korean dictionary published by Chosun Sahoe Kwahakwon (조선 사회 과학원) in North Korea to validate the North Korean Standard Language usages. Chosun Sahoe Kwahakwon is North Korea’s governmental research institute for humanities and social studies. Other North Korean resources referred to are Cho Uisung’s Chosuneo Yonkusil (조의성의 조선어연구실 ), (http://www.tufs.ac.jp/ts/personal/choes/Nmain.html ), Chosun Munhwaeo Kyubum (조선문화어문법규범) and Chosunmalthopyonlam (조선말토편람).

Contact us

If you have any questions, comments, ideas, suggestions, and/or concerns with the current materials, feel free to contact us .  We would be able to reflect some of your inputs to improve the materials.  Any kinds of constructive feedback are welcome and greatly appreciated.

Thank you!


Advanced North Korean Project Team
Technology Integration Division, DLIFLC