The purpose of this study is to investigate how Korean language education majors perceive the key competencies for Korean language teachers. For this aim, this study reviews previous literature on the key competencies for the teachers and reconstructs the components of the key competencies for Korean language teachers. Next, this study examines the perception of Korean language education majors on those key competencies. The survey is composed of three sections and asks participants the importance of the key competencies, difficulty in performing the key competencies, and the extent of contribution of current teacher development curriculum to the key competencies. In particular, this study compares the results between groups separated into two; natives vs. nonnatives.
The results showed that participants evaluated language knowledge, language performance, and problem-solving competencies are the most important abilities for korean language teachers, and there was no significant difference between groups. however, the nonnative group responded differently that the acquisitions of language knowledge competency such as Korean grammar system, instructive information of how to pronounce, and the precise and fluent language performance competency are the most difficult to perform. According to the research findings, the most significant difference between two groups was found in the extent of contribution of current teacher development curriculum to the key competencies. Nonnative group evaluated that the current course is helpful to improve their key competencies, while native majors rated the contribution of it relatively much lower than that of the other group.
In conclusion, this results suggest that current teacher training course should be revised and separate to satisfy each part''s desires. At the same time, the curriculum developers and faculties or teacher''s trainers should continuously monitor the evaluation program for teachers and further studies need to be conducted for better understanding of Korean language teacher''s characteristics.