S. Korea to enhance promotion of language, martial arts

By Shin Hae-in
SEOUL, March 17 (Yonhap) -- South Korea will unify the name of its language
institutes across the world and launch a project to promote its martial art
taekwondo to improve the country's national brand, the culture ministry said
Tuesday.

To better manage the growing number of foreigners wanting to learn the Korean
language, the government plans to unify the name of its language academies to
"King Sejong Institute."
"While other countries have a unified name and program for their language
schools, we have lacked such efforts so far," culture ministry spokesman Yoo
Byung-han said in a news briefing. "We need to provide a unified educational
service to foreigners to further promote the language."
Largely due to the popularity of Korean pop culture in Asia, more than 6.15
million people from 133 countries are learning the Korean language through
institutes or private tutors each year, according to state data.
Under the plan, an Internet homepage will open this year, providing educational
content in foreign languages such as Japanese, English, Chinese and Vietnamese.
The existing institutes will be advised to use the unified name by 2012 and
recommend to students to obtain qualifications through exams sponsored by the
education and labor ministries. The government also plans to increase the number
of Sejong Institutes in Asia to 60 from the current 17 by 2012.
The government also plans to launch an "Enjoy Taekwondo Project" to promote the
sport to foreigners as Korea's symbolic cultural asset. More than 70 million
people in 188 countries have learned or are learning the martial art, the culture
ministry said.
A survey in France underscored the effect of sports on a nation's brand. While
less than 20 percent of French people said they had a "favorable image" of Korea,
more than 80 percent gave a positive answer after learning taekwondo, according
to last year's survey by the Korean Embassy in France.
"Under the project, taekwondo masters will be dispatched overseas to promote the
sport," Yoo said. The government will also work to promote South Korean cinema,
food, computer games, animation and tourism, he said.
The government plans to launch a hospitality campaign beginning this year to make
Korea a "more pleasant country to visit," Yoo added.
Nearly 7 million foreign tourists visit Korea each year, with the number
increasing steadily by an average of 350,000 annually since 2006 despite the
ongoing global economic downturn.
hayney@yna.co.kr
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