Korean is the new school lingo
Schools in WA are teaching Korean for the first time.
Willetton and Mt Lawley Senior High Schools are teaching the language to students in Years 7 and 8 for the first time this year.
The classes were made possible with help from University of WA Asian studies honorary research fellow Kyu-Suk Shin.
She recently won a grant from the Australia-Korea Foundation to work with university academics from NSW and South Australia to promote the language in schools.
Dr Shin said Korean pop culture had a huge following among young people, fuelling a surge in enrolments in the language at UWA, and could also inspire teens to learn the language in schools.
Korean was one of five Asian languages designated as "priority" languages by the Federal Government.
South Korea was also an important trade partner and WA had a big population of Korean migrants.
Korean's unique writing system made it slightly easier to learn than some other Asian languages.
"It's not like Chinese or Japanese - it's a phonetic alphabetic system, so it's very easy to learn," Dr Shin said.
Willetton's head of languages Nathan Harvey said it was a good start to get interest from enough students to form two classes of 20.
"We would expect over the next few years that more students will study it," he said.
Mr Harvey said the Sydney-based Korean Education Centre had provided funding for books and other teaching resources. The support had allowed Willetton to build links with NSW schools that offered Korean.
"Languages are a priority in our school," Mr Harvey said. Mt Lawley SHS had 10 students enrol in Korean this year.
