Foreign Language Fever Heats Up for 2015 Gwangju Universiade

GWANGJU – While preparing for the 2015 Universiade, the citizens of Gwangju have been participating in various foreign language courses and volunteering services for foreign visitors to learn languages as well as gain confidence and practical experience.

Since 2010, initiated by the Gwangju Organising Committee, the foreign language programme has provided practical language courses for attendees in order to secure volunteering resources available during the Gwangju Universiade. The courses are taught by native speaking instructors in five languages (English, French, Japanese, Chinese and Spanish) twice a week during 10 to 14 weeks every half year. 3,300 attendees have completed the courses so far in nine foreign language centres.

At the end of the courses, the Universiade foreign language contest was held to assess course-taker’s language proficiency. The contest, which has been held twice since its launch, has drawn the attention of many course attendees, from teens to septuagenarians and from all walks of life, to evaluate and improve their language proficiency.

A survey conducted to estimate the degree of attendee satisfaction on the courses reveals that 70% of survey respondents said they had taken the courses to participate in volunteering works during the Universiade, while 26.6% ticked that they had attended the courses to improve their language skills. 95% of respondents expressed high satisfaction with the programme but also wanted to take additional courses. In addition, 90% showed high interest in participating as volunteers in the 2015 Universiade.

The programme will run until 2015 to improve the language skills and global mindset of course attendees and to further provide an opportunity to play a key role during the Universiade, an OC official said.

(Source: Gwangju 2015 SUOC)