Dustin Jaesuk (Mix) Moon is a graduate student in the Department of Chemical Engineering. When he is finished with his research in the laboratory during the day, he teaches intermediate Korean to the foreign students every Tuesday at 10 PM at DICE. The Postech Times interviewed him to hear more about foreign students learning Korean.

He started teaching because he felt the need to teach the colloquial style Korean to the foreign students. Also, he thought that it would be even more helpful because Korean students fluent in English live in DICE as well. Through this class, foreign students could not only learn useful daily Korean expressions but also actually practice them one-on-one with native Korean speakers.

Even in the intermediate course, while there are those who are very fluent in Korean, there are students who are only able to read and write Korean. For this reason, Moon chooses the contents of the class according to their level. The class is usually conversation-centered, meaning that he throws out the week’s theme in Korean, then the foreign students continue on the conversation in Korean.

While he has raked in know-how over the years, he is still faced with difficulties. The biggest is that no one wants to carry on after he leaves the campus because it requires commitment. Also, the leaders have to come up with their own set of lesson plans and adjust to a wide span of Korean levels. Another difficulty is the inconsistent attendance and level of Korean of students. Foreign students stay as short as 3 weeks to as long as 5 years.

In closing remarks he suggested three colloquial Korean expressions that could be very useful for beginner-level foreign students: jeokiyo, yeokiyo, and yigeoyo. The best translations of these would be ‘excuse me’, ‘right here or to here’, and ‘this please’ respectively.