Early Korean language teaching Hangul, the Korean alphabet, is the written form of the official Korean language and has been used by Koreans since its creation in 1446 by
Sejong the Great of the
Joseon Dynasty. Most Korean language learning institutions outside Korea targeted second or third generation descendants of Korean immigrants, while Korean-language learners in South Korea were mostly foreign students, migrant workers, or spouses of Koreans.
Rising numbers of Korean learners The last twenty years has seen a rise in interest and demand for the Korean language due to cultural and commercial globalisation and the Internet/Communications Revolution. International interest in Korean culture such as
dramas and
music has increased tremendously, especially in Asia, leading to what has been termed the "
Korean Wave". This has been accompanied by an increase in foreign students studying in Korea. Demographically there has also been an increase in marriages between Koreans and foreigners. With the increase in international cooperation and business, the South Korean government has been striving to standardize the names of locations, people, and other proper nouns in Hangul. Also, there was a need for more up-to-date Korean dictionaries, as most were made during the 1990s.
Establishment of "King Sejong Institute" With such demand, the South Korean government established the concept of "King Sejong Institute" so as to provide integrated and standardised information and service for learning the Korean language as well as to coordinate and expand the institutes where people can learn or teach it. The Institute will be developed as
the brand commonly used by all Korean language education institutes. The South Korean government has recently launched its homepage at Sejonghakdang.org in Korean and
English. Following enactment of Framework Act on National Language in 2011, the King Sejong Institute Foundation (KSIF) was founded in the following year as a central organisation responsible for running the Institutes and their programmes. Song Hyang-keun served as the first president of KSIF from October 2012 to July 2018 and
Kang Hyounhwa serves its second president from September 2018. ==Logo==