August 27, 2007 (Vol. 6, No. 1)

Alumna Spearheads Korean Language Program in Bronx Public Schools

Lehman alumna Mikyong Cho will direct the expansion of Korean language instruction this fall to five Bronx public schools—P.S. 68, 87, 111, 112, and Truman High School—in collaboration with the schools' principals. Cho's project is one of only two Korean language programs in the nation to be funded this year by the Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP), which is part of the U.S. Department of Education's National Security Language Initiative (NSLI).

The goal of the NSLI is to increase the number of Americans learning strategic languages, like Korean, by beginning foreign language instruction as early as kindergarten. FLAP grants for projects like Cho's, which has been awarded $110,163 for fiscal year 2007, can be renewed annually for up to three years.

Cho has taught Korean at John Philip Sousa Middle School (M.S. 142) in the Bronx for the last three years. Her classes have been popular from the start, which she attributes to a couple of factors.

"First, I love my students," she says. "Second, I make the subject fun to learn. I don't call homework 'homework,' but 'funwork.'" She has introduced her students to the Korean community and has them sing Korean songs at various functions.

"In February, to celebrate Black History Month, my children sang and played the janggoo, the Korean drum, and recited 'Dreams,' by Langston Hughes, in four different languages: English, Spanish, Korean, and Sign," she said. For the past three summers, some of her students have visited Korea. Her dream is to take all of her students on a trip there.

Cho emigrated from Korea to New Jersey at age 12 and moved to New York in 1987. The reputation of Lehman's faculty led her to study here, and she graduated in 1995 with a B.A. in social work. English was not her first language, and she worked hard to master it. By 2001, she had earned master's degrees from Lehman in reading and also in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL).

"She was an excellent graduate student and has demonstrated an extraordinary ability to bridge culture differences," said Bronx Institute Executive Director Herminio Martinez, who encouraged Cho during her studies. In 2007, a recommendation from Middle and High School Education Professor Joye Smith-Munson, Cho's mentor and former teacher, helped her win the Division of Education's TESOL Lehman Urban Teacher and Counselor Education award.

In addition to directing the Korean language project, Cho will pursue a third master's degree in educational leadership at Lehman. "As of now, I am not interested in becoming a principal—although one never knows. Maybe I will want to become one at a school in Queens where there are many Korean-American students who could really use a principal with whom they could empathize," she said.

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