Korean and English, language development within the context of a Korean community and international schools in Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to identify the functional use of Korean and English, and language development within the context of a Korean Community and international schools in Bangkok from the perspective of six Korean International students in Thailand. Through the analysis of the qualitative data from the six Korean students, such as observation, measuring the number of clauses, the complexity of nominal groups in English writing and the complexity of modifiers in Korean, the findings revealed that the six students learned their L1 (Korean) and L2 (English) through cooperation, mediation, and scaffolding in their interaction as described by Vygotsky in his "Sociocultural Theory". The contexts of the Korean Community and international schools seem to have had a positive effect on development of L1 and L2 based on Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar. Moreover, the practice of translanguaging among participants helped them to understand and mediate with others more effectively. Finally, through comparing the thematic discourse analysis of the participants' English writings, the development of the L1 also seemed to have influenced the development of L2.