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Continued from page 20 the learning of her 8-year-old daughter, Ruby. “It’s very hard to learn language without community,” Scott pointed out. Scott said that her younger brother was fluent in Korean until they moved to the U.S. when he was 5 years old. Their parents didn’t push the siblings to continue to speak Korean. Her brother hasn’t retained much of the language.
I thought he was not proud of Korean culture, and even his Korean mom. CINDY RANCOURT
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“He regrets it,” said Scott. Scott offers this advice to parents based on her own family’s experience: “Even though it seems in the short run [that] really immersing yourself and taking on all of the American culture is going to benefit your child — and I think it’s probably true — it’s really important to hang on to the culture that they came from and the language.” Successfully maintaining that bond takes a lot of work. Korean school principal Shin attributes the success of her school to the parents. “It’s actually the parents who have to bring [the children],” she pointed out. In addition, many of them teach at the school. Some help to prepare snacks. “It’s a communal thing,” she said. Since the parents aren’t certified Korean language teachers to begin with, they attend professional development workshops run by the National Association of Korean Schools. Two
of them took classes to receive their teaching certification. Cindy Rancourt is one of them. She described the semester-long online course as “really intense,” requiring about 20 hours of work per week. Although the Korean school has a lot working in its favor — from having a designated space to meet free of charge to having strong parental involvement — Shin is aware that her program has limitations, as well. To become fluent in a language, you really need to be immersed in it, she said. The students have only three hours of instruction each week. So she keeps her expectations realistic. “That’s not enough time to learn a language,” she said. Besides, as the children grow older, their attention often turns to other extracurricular activities, like sports. In the last few years, the school has had to change its schedule to accommodate students’ busy lives. Shin said that there’s still plenty of time for her students to master the Korean language. “When they get older, they could investigate on their own,” she said. For now, the main thing she wants students to take away from their experience at the school is positive feelings about their Korean heritage. “It’s for them to have an exposure and to have that basic interest,” she explained — “having that good memory [of ] what being Korean is all about.” Rancourt said the transformation in her son makes her happy. “My kids think everything from Korea is cool,” she said. Since the family started watching a Korean drama series about soldiers serving overseas missions, Nick has started using the phrase tahn kyul. It means “unity of power,” and a soldier says it when giving the salute. Said Rancourt, “My son’s ‘yes’ is tahn kyul now.” K
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