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Casual Talk(12:00~12:30)
Let’s talk about the Lunar new year's day.
Topic 1(12:40~13:30)
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/sports/2018/02/702_244673.html
$109 million main stadium to be demolished after Olympics
By Kim Hyun-bin
Hosting the Olympics could be seen as an opportunity to upgrade the country's infrastructure or to bring in more tourists from all over the globe. However, the event comes with a hefty price tag.
Korea has spent 13 billion dollars to host the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics including $1.5 billion in erecting state-of-the-art stadia used for the 17-day sporting event.
The average cost to the PyeongChang Olympics host reaches roughly $10 million dollars an hour.
But after the Olympics many of the shiny new stadia will be left unused, becoming costly burdens to the host cities to maintain.
Just the PyeongChang Olympic stadium alone cost $109 million to build.
The 35,000 seat stadium will only be used four times during the event including the closing ceremony, slated for Feb. 25. But it is scheduled to be demolished after the Winter Games.
PyeongChang with a population of 40,000, will find it impossible to regularly fill and operate Olympic-grade facilities, the reason why some of the stadia are scheduled to be decommissioned.
One option is to reuse the facilities to host regular sporting events; however, few countries have succeeded in covering the maintenance costs of their Olympic venues.
Brazil has spent $2.1 billion to host the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, but most of their facilities became ghost towns just six months after the Summer Games finished.
The Maracana Stadium in Brazil, which hosted the opening and closing ceremonies for the Rio Olympics, remains without power as no one paid the bills, while other key facilities including Olympic Park have been abandoned.
Russia, which hosted the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, spent nearly $51 billion. They initially planned to repurpose the facilities, but it did not go as planned and the shiny Olympic facilities have been quickly abandoned.
Athens, the founding city of the Olympics, spent 9 billion euros ($11 billion) hosting the Games and wanted to turn their facilities into a tourist attraction afterward. However, the government suffered a financial debt crisis and Olympic Park became an empty zone.
One study in 2016 shows that since 1960, host cities have overrun their budgets on average by 156 percent, with the biggest costs going toward constructing Olympic facilities. When South Korea won its bid, the estimated cost for hosting the Olympics was $5 billion under the actual price.
Questions
1.Did you enjoy PyeongChang Winter Olympics? How or why not?
2.What was the most interesting or impressive thing during the Olympics?
3.How about the opposite cases?
4.Is there anything which you have learned from the games?
5.What does hosting the Olympics mean or would bring to its hosting countries?
6.Do you think the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics was successful? Why or why not?
7.Do you think it was an opportunity to upgrade our country's infrastructure or to bring in more tourists from all over the globe?
8.After the Olympics many of the shiny new stadia will be left unused, becoming costly burdens to the host cities(개최도시) to maintain. So most of them are scheduled to be demolished(헐다) after the Winter Games.
a. What do you think about that?
b. Are there any ways to keep using them without demolishing?
Topic 2(13:40~14:30)
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2018/02/356_244541.html
Schools to hire more native English speakers
By Lee Kyung-min
The government wants to increase the number of native English speakers at elementary schools to teach third graders and above. The move is to strengthen regular curricula for public education amid brewing criticism over the banning of extra-curricular English classes for first and second graders.
The measure comes in response to criticism from parents of first and second graders that they are forced to turn to expensive private education so their children "are not left behind" during the first two crucial years. The government's repeated flip-flopping on this has only fanned confusion and skepticism.
The Ministry of Education said Wednesday that it would increase exchanges with foreign schools, book reading and discussion in English as well as speaking exercises, all part of efforts to help the competence and confidence of students and their parents.
A consultative body — comprised of 19 members including teachers, parents and parents-recommended education experts, with the cooperation of the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE) — will carry out a comprehensive review of English education.
The joint team will devise mid- to long-term plans by the end of the year, following multiple hearings as well as gathering public opinion.
"Prior to the confirmed plan to improve English education at school, the ministry will consider offering state subsidies for extra-curricular activities in English during school years or on vacation for third graders and above in elementary schools in rural areas," a ministry official said.
"We will also review teacher performance evaluation and ways to strengthen their teaching capability. Details of the specific plan will be unveiled at the end of the year to be implemented next year."
The ministry's decision to ban extra-curricular English classes for first and second graders as well as those at daycare centers followed the Constitutional Court's ruling in February 2016 that found the government's prohibition of English education for children in the first few grades of elementary school was constitutional.
In the unanimous ruling, the court said, first and second grades in elementary school are where students first learn Korean and civic education in the public education system, and therefore the ban was constitutional.
The ruling pointed out, "Some experts said teaching both languages at the same time could hinder developing students' Korean proficiency while causing other problems to English education as well.
"It therefore follows that English education must be limited in order to teach children more about civic ethics."
However, the decision drew criticism from educators, who claimed that learning a foreign language early on could actually help children enhance their linguistic ability.
Questions
1.When did you begin to study English and its conversation?
2.Did you enjoy studying English when you were a student?
3.When was the first time you tried to talk to a native English speaker? How was it?
4.What do you think about the government’s banning of extra-curricular English classes for first and second grade elementary students? Pro or con?
5.The government wants to increase the number of native English speakers at elementary schools to teach third graders and above. What do you think about it?
6.If parents of first and second graders do not turn to expensive private education, would their children be left behind during the first two crucial years?
7.To have good English skills, which part of efforts do you think is important, book reading, discussion in English or speaking exercises?
8.Should English-language education be mandatory spending a lot of money in Korea?
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