The purpose of this study is to make ready the ways of developing the Web textbook of Content-based Instruction for Multi-cultural children who may have problems during elementary school because of their deficiency the Korean language.
For this study, one survey was conducted where multi-cultural children and teachers are the subject. It proves that their Korean skills are at various levels and only a small number of them are scattered around several schools. Multi-cultural children are willing to study Korean in order to get good grades. However, they refused to be separated from the other students after school. Consequently, it was difficult for them to get proper Korean language education in reality.
To solve this problem, using a Web based education can be an alternative. But the existing Web sites of Learning Korean prove that they cannot meet the needs and interests of multi-cultural children.
In these situations, this study is going to suggest principles of developing Web Textbook of Learning Korean such as the following. First of all, Web Textbook of Learning Korean should be developed at various levels considering multi-cultural children's needs and interests. Also, Web Textbooks must include the content which comes from the analysis of elementary curriculum. In addition, Web Textbooks should give chances to learn academic vocabulary as well as literary vocabulary to strengthen the process of Korean Learning.
When designing the web pages, the needs and interests of students must be considered so that learners can pay close attention to their own learning. This is because the web-based learning would not be effective at all unless learners concentrate on their own learning even with good programs and learning web sites. Therefore, web programs should be designed for learners to apply a variety of strategies for motivation and to manage their own learning process, which result in autonomous learners. Also, web boards should be utilized in a way to improve interactions between teachers and students, and between parents and students.
This Learning Korean Web textbook will be a good alternative to Korean Education for children of multi-cultural families, if thing discussed in this paper will be considered.
I admit that this study is based on the survey which was conducted in only one elementary school in Gyeong-nam province, which can raise the question of generalization and this study is just to show the possible and virtual models of Web textbooks which could be superficial. In spite of these shortcomings, I hope that this study could be a stepping stone for developing the web textbooks that can benefit multi-cultural children in many ways.