This book is a compilation of papers presented at the 9th Annual Seminar of the Association of Korean Language Educators in India (AKLEI) held in 2015. AKLEI was conceived and formed in 2005 with the intention of bringing into its fold all the educators of Korean language in India and it has been holding either a workshop or a seminar every year. With Korea and India forging closer and closer relationship in every sphere and the prospects for the future seeming bright a number of institutions started showing an interest in expanding their erstwhile department of Japanese and Chinese language and studies to include Korean as well since the early 2000s. Consequently, the number of teachers teaching Korean language and studies in India started rising and it became necessary to share the experiences and knowledge with one another and gain from those. Thus the idea of AKLEI was born. Another objective of AKLEI has been to invite experts from Korea to deliver special lectures as part of the training programme for the participants in India. This has also helped in exposing the teachers in India to the latest material and methodology adopted in Korea. Some of the experts who have contributed towards this end have been Professors Cho Dong-II, Min Hyun-Shik & Yun Yeo-Tak. In fact, more recently, Prof. Yun has been very supportive in ensuring that the workshops/seminars are held every year and do not get cancelled because of lack of funds. He has been delivering keynote addresses & special lectures for the past 4 years. We are greatly indebted to him for his inputs and support. Of late, yet another objective of AKLEI seminars has been to provide the doctoral students of Korean language and studies at the various institutions in India an opportunity to write and present papers on the theme of the workshop. They have gained immensely in confidence and in honing their skills through this. The members of AKLEI feel that this would go a long way in grooming the young scholars. The themes for the Workshops and Seminars have been on a wide range of topics of relevance to the educators of Korean language, like Teaching Methodology of Grammar; Writing Skills; Curriculum and Syllabus framing; Error Analyses; Culture and Korean Language Education etc. The theme last year, i.e. 2015 was 'Methodology for Comprehension and Expression in Korean Language Education'. two very important components for language proficiency. The papers presented there have been collected and edited to form this book. We express our deep gratitude for the financial assistance by the Academy of Korean Studies and the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in organizing the seminars. We whole heartedly thank H.E. Dr. Cho Hyun, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea for his interest and support for the development of Korean language in India. This volume is a joint effort by Kim Do Young, Ravikesh and me. While the papers may not stand up to scrutiny by experts on the subject, what needs to be borne in mind is that these are outcomes of teaching experiences of individual teachers, as well as initial attempts of budding scholars in the field, and, therefore, should be treated as just that. We hope the students and teachers will find this collection useful and we dedicate it to them.
