韓国の継承日本語教育活動をめぐる実態 -母親たちによる自助グループに関する調査を中心に-

Abstract

Since the year 2000, with the increase of Korean-Japanese couples, the issue of ‘heritage Japanese language (JHL)’ education their children has been brought into focus. In the past, Japanese language education was conducted at home, however due to the changes in Korean society, support groups are being formed by the Japanese mothers of these children. The purpose of this report is to investigate the real current situation of the support groups of JHL in Korea and to analyze the overall trend and the characteristics of their activities. Through the surveys conducted in 2016 and 2018, the following six characteristics have stood out. First, there is not enough infrastructure. Second, the form of activity is flexible. Third, classroom activities are managed on a small-scale. Fourth, the target of heritage Japanese language education tends to concentrate on preschool children and lower grades of elementary school who have relatively more time. Fifth, activities focus on developing literacy. Sixth, mothers who belong to self-help groups are active only within the groups, and tend to have closed management communicate within (mobile-based) closed online communities. However, JHL support groups continue to show progress which can be summarized with the three main points. First, there is a tendency to break away from a ‘one leader system’ in which a person leads the group for stable and long-term operation. Second, the content and scope of activities are expanding. Third, members belonging to self-help groups have grown stronger bonds. Members of these groups have grown stronger bonds in running their organization. For future studies, further research will be needed to seek a concrete analysis on what direction needs to be taken for effective, stable, and long-term management of JHL support groups.