POSTED: January 2nd 2012
SpeakingUp
CHOI: Languages and Olympic education a priority for PyeongChang 2018
LAURA WALDEN / Sports Features Communications
TAMPA/PYEONGCHANG: Gangwon Province is busy in this 2012 New Year getting some special education programs off the ground for the PyeongChang 2018 Games. The focus is on the staff and the local residents at the grassroots level.
Gangwon Governor Moon Soon Choi spoke exclusively with SportsFeatures.com about how the provincial government is investing in targeted language programs and also beginning to work on communications skills in the schools.
Choi said, “Special education programs targeting government staff of Gangwon Provincial Government and 18 municipal offices will be operated in two phases.
“The Global Leader Program, a 44 week-long educational course, will provide 36 staff a year with foreign language training such as English, Chinese, and Japanese. The course also aims to raise the awareness and understanding of the Winter Olympics plans among staff, as well as hands-on business competence and global service mind for supporting international events.
“A course entitled “Understanding of the Olympic Winter Games” will be established as a regular training program in the Gangwon Province Human Resources Development Center.
“Overseas training opportunities will also be provided for the staff. They will research previous host cities’ Olympic organization cases so that those results can be used directly in the PyeongChang Olympics preparation process,” he concluded.
For the successful staging of the Olympic Games another huge challenge is for the local people involved with the hospitality and tourism sectors to have the language skills to deal with the onslaught of foreign visitors.
Choi specified, “Gangwon Provincial Education Office and the OCOG, as well as the provincial government, will put great importance on improving the residents’ foreign language skills in a number of ways.
“Education reinforcement in schools will be enhanced by bringing in native-speaking teachers and professional English teachers and strengthening after-school tutoring. We will also be implementing educational programs on winter sports and a variety of local information in order to nurture future volunteers.
“Communication skills will be built up in the local community by teaching foreign languages to workers related to food and beverage, accommodation, and transportation businesses. We will also be operating educational programs in order to nurture professional interpreter volunteers and consequently targeting married immigrants.
Gangwon will also be focusing on some high tech solutions and Choi added, “We will supply communication tools using IT technologies by developing software easily available for both domestic and foreign users (establishment of systems and applications).
“We also plan to develop an integrated manual that foreigners can make use of by locations and situations.”
He emphasized that various foreign language learning programs for citizens will be implemented along with the others including Olympic Academy courses that will be organized step by step in order to break through the language barrier.
PyeongChang will host the 2018 Olympic Winter Games from 9 to 25 February and the Paralympic Winter Games from 9 to 18 March.
Eungyeong Choi and Jongdae Yoon contributed to this article
Keywords · PyeongChang 2018 · Moon Soon Choi · winter Games
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