Alumnus Kim Do-wan Earns Master’s Degree

while Commuting from Vietnam

-Has Goal of Writing Korean as a Second Language Textbooks

Yonsei alumnus Kim Do-wan made sixty trips between Vietnam and Seoul, for a total distance of 480,000 kilometers, in order to earn his Master’s degree from Yonsei’s Graduate School of Education. His degree is in Teaching Korean as a Second Language.

As an undergraduate, Mr. Kim majored in Korean Literature and Language and taught at a college prep academy in Daegu after graduation. In 2004, he went to

Vietnam to pursue a career opportunity with a Korean corporation. Due to the growing presence of Korean businesses in Vietnam, Kim noticed that there was significant interest among the Vietnamese in learning the Korean language. As such, Kim began teaching Korean in the country, establishing a learning center there. Currently, he is president of the Hilltop Second Language Learning Center, which is officially recognized by the Vietnamese government.

Need for Proper Korean Language Textbooks

As the number of students increased at his learning center, Kim began to wonder if he was teaching the language properly. He struggled to find an appropriate textbook for teaching Korean as a second language, eventually deciding that he needed different methods in order to more effectively teach his students. This realization led him to pursue a Master’s degree in Teaching Korean as a Second Language at Yonsei.

On February 18, Kim’s determination to earn a graduate degree was reported in the Dong-A Ilbo; the article was titled “Earns Master’s Degree after International Commute of 480,000 kilometers.” In the interview, Kim said: “The commute was definitely difficult and grueling but I was able to learn so much. Now I plan to apply my degree by writing practical and proper Korean as a Second Language textbooks.”