December 24, 2025
SEOUL – Vietnam’s classrooms have been taking on a new energy in recent years, one that extends far beyond the infectious beats of K-pop. It reflects a growing, ground-level movement to integrate the Korean language into regular school curricula across the country. While the global Korean Wave, driven by icons like BTS, the steady appeal of K-dramas, and newer hits like “KPop Demon Hunters,” lit the spark, the current momentum is fueled by something deeper: cultural exchange and economic opportunity.
Vietnam is now at the forefront of this surge in Southeast Asia. In 2021, the nation adopted Korean as a primary foreign language in schools. That same year, a staggering 60,000 Vietnamese students sat for the TOPIK exam. By 2025, 48 universities across the country are expected to offer dedicated Korean programs. This expansion is not the result of a single policy decision, but the culmination of coordinated efforts across multiple stakeholders. Korea’s Ministry of Education, through its Overseas Korea Education Division, lays the groundwork by promoting policies for school adoption and standardized exams.
In tandem with these efforts, the International Korean Education Foundation provides essential resources like textbooks, teacher training, cultural programming and academic conferences. Meanwhile, local centers in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi are mapping local systems and crafting tailored strategies to empower local teachers for self-sustaining growth.
During my visit, I found the atmosphere on the ground to be electric. I was stunned by the sheer number of students streaming onto school campuses, matched only by the endless sea of motorbikes zipping through the streets like a big dragon uncoiling through the city’s veins. The energy is palpable: Pre-service teachers prepare diligently, university-based teacher educators conduct research and center staff, ministry officials, and foundation leaders toil tirelessly despite the load.
I also witnessed this convergence firsthand at a conference titled “Korean Language Education in Vietnam: Current Status and Prospects,” hosted by the Vietnam National University of Languages and International Studies in Hanoi. VNU’s Dr. Tran Thi Huong presented on the rapid development of Korean education in Vietnam. Her presentation underscored a key point: Local educators are not merely passive recipients of aid; they are actively turning student enthusiasm into structured programs and lasting institutional capacity.
This vibrant human factor in language education raises a practical question: Where might technology fit in? As an AI-in-education scholar, I came to Hanoi to explore how AI could strengthen this system without flattening the local expertise that sustains it. A useful framing is that tools do not inherently drive change; people do, wielding them within specific contexts and intentions. A smartphone can be a source of endless distraction, yet it can also build profound senses of belonging. YouTube risks feeding short-form addictions, but equally serves as a vast repository for diverse viewpoints. At its core, technology evolves into whatever we habitually practice it to be.
This lens recasts AI as a palette of deliberate choices. In language classrooms, those choices must be informed by what experienced teachers already understand intimately: students learn best through purposeful practice, feedback they can actively apply, and environments safe enough for repeated trial and error.
I shared several AI use cases designed to support instruction while keeping teachers firmly in the loop. First, a student selects an image and articulates their thoughts in Vietnamese. An AI writing assistant then helps translate that into level-appropriate Korean, offering phrasing options and explaining why one fits better. Teachers can require students to annotate these revisions, ensuring the AI functions as a tutor rather than a shortcut. Second, traditional classrooms often expose learners to just one adult voice. Text-to-speech AI can generate dialogues in multiple voices, spanning ages, styles and accents, providing critical exposure for students with limited access to native speakers. Third, Retrieval-Augmented Generation can constrain AI outputs to vetted sources, such as textbooks and teacher-curated grammar notes, keeping responses curriculum-aligned and verifiable. Beyond these, handwriting recognition can digitize student work for swifter, personalized feedback at scale, while AI-generated music can set target phrases to melodies, naturally connecting rhythm and retention.
To be clear, AI does shine in scalability and can amplify human-led insights, sparking richer teacher-student discussions, without usurping the irreplaceable emotional function of teaching. However, it cannot intuit a student’s waning confidence, cultivate a classroom community intellectually safe enough for unpolished utterances or champion the long-term view of a student’s well-being.
So, what did I learn? AI holds promise in language education, but exporting a country’s language is ultimately built on relationships — empathy, trust and sustained investment. More importantly, this progress depends on often unseen teams on the ground, traveling public servants, and local partners whose goodwill sustains what policy alone cannot. Their quiet, tireless work shows that national visions become real only when committed educators and leaders translate them into daily practice — the irreplaceable bedrock of what comes next.