Volunteers Attend Foreign Language School
Enthusiasm for foreign language learning enables learners to forget about their age
By Kim So-yeon (2015 Gwangju Universiade Organizing Committee Press Support Team)
One by one, students enter the university campus at the time of sunset. They are headed toward the Language Education Center. Inside their bags are the English textbooks that they have long ago deserted. The people who fill the classroom in the late evening are the students of the Universiade Foreign Language School. Students with diverse backgrounds including office workers, housewives and retired persons are listening attentively to the blue-eyed lecturer.
The zeal for the Universiade Foreign Language School, in its third year of operation this year, is intense. The first task that the Gwangju Universiade Organizing Committee (GUOC) set out to complete to encourage the volunteers who will play an essential role in running the Universiade was the establishment of the Foreign Language School. The GUOC believes that the success of the Universiade depends on the ability to communicate with the foreigners visiting Gwangju from various parts of the world. Language proficiency, however, does not come overnight. It is an area that requires strenuous effort and investment over a lengthy period of time. The GUOC formulated a plan to conduct language education for volunteers five years ago and has put the plan into action.
In the last two years, more than 6,500 students (comprised of middle school students who would become university students in 2015, as well as Gwangju citizens) have graduated from the English Language Schools conducted in the Language Education Centers of seven universities and middle schools. Last year, Chinese, French and Spanish were added to enable the future volunteers to take courses in the Language Education Centers in regional universities. In addition, an online learning system was developed to enable future volunteers to learn seven foreign languages, including English, anytime, anywhere.
Online educational courses, including English, Japanese, French, Spanish, Russian and Chinese, are offered free of charge, and anyone with determination and passion can take a course. The biggest advantage is that students who go through the Universiade Foreign School can work in international events held in Gwangju as volunteers and build up a solid body of experience.
Of those who underwent language training last year, more than 200 registered as volunteers for interpretation and translation at the Gwangju Volunteer Center through the GUOC and performed the role of volunteer interpreters even before the Universiade. One such volunteer is Lee Mi-sook (a 51-year-old housewife) who is attending the Highly Advanced Class at Gwangju Women’s University. “I want to do some volunteer work during the 2015 Gwangju Universiade and make Korea and Gwangju known to the world,” says Lee, who has demonstrated her language proficiency while undertaking foreign language volunteer work during the opening ceremony of the 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale. The students of the Foreign Language School are filled with passion and zeal for providing volunteer interpretation during the Universiade, just like Lee. Although their ages and occupations are diverse, they all share one vision – to tirelessly study language and play a vital role in the successful staging of the Universiade.
The goal of the Gwangju Universiade Organizing Committee is to train some 20,000 volunteers by the year 2015. In addition to training the citizens and young people, the GUOC, from next year, plans to gradually expand education on the fields of expertise for university students, professional interpreters and translators and those engaged in the tourism industry who will play the pivotal role in the success of the Universiade.