There have been various attemps to rethink Korean language education for the past few years, in the context of the 'crisis of schooling' which is often described as the 'breakdown of classroom'. It is broadly agreed that the 'breakdown of classroom' is caused by the huge differences between teacehrs and young students that exist in Korean schooling today, in terms of the kinds of learning that each party regards as meaningful to the lives of students. In this context, the attempts to relfect youth culture in Korean language education have certainly made some progress. Such progress can be found in the ways that the recent curriculum and the textbooks, as well as the theoretical discussions, have included the areas of language use that were often considered as inappropriate for young people to learn about, e.g., language in popular culture. This article argues that while such attempts to include the elements of popular culture can be regarded as a step forward to reflect young people's language use in their everyday lives, more thorough discussions and debates are yet to begin, particularly on why the 'breakdown of classroom' was caused and how Korean language needs to be taught. Such discussions should include theoretical and practical considerations on how young people today can develop their communication skills with various media (beyond print-based media) and how they can reflect on their own language use that are intertwined with popular media culture in more creative and critical ways.