This interesting video lesson is all about South Korea’s basement apartments. It can be used for one-on-one classes, online classes, or large classes of advanced students looking to talk about something a little different.

Warm-up questions

Ask and answer these questions in small groups. (10-15 minutes)

1. What do you know about South Korea?
2. Would you like to visit South Korea?
3. Have you seen or heard of the movie Parasite? If yes, what do you know about it?
4. What do you think a basement apartment is?
5. What do you think the positives and negatives of living in a basement apartment could be?

Vocabulary

Give students a chance to match the vocabulary. Check their answers as a class. Encourage students to tell you some example sentences for each vocabulary word after you’ve checked the definitions. (5-10 minutes)

Answers: 1. e, 2. b, 3. f, 4. a, 5. c, 6. d

Watch the video.

This video about basement housing in South Korea from the BBC is 6 minutes and 30 seconds long. After you’ve played the video, go to the comprehension and discussion questions. (5-10 minutes)

Comprehension questions

Answer these questions first, and then check the answers together. (10-15 minutes)

1. What city is the video talking about?
2. What is a semi-basement apartment?
3. Why are they dangerous?
4. What is the government planning to do about them?
5. Where did the family live before they lived in the semi-basement apartment?
6. How does the son in this family feel about living in this apartment? How does his mother feel?
7. What is the job of the young man who lives by himself?
8. Where was the young man when his apartment was flooded?
9. The elderly woman doesn’t live in a basement apartment. Why was she in the video?
10. Why does the elderly woman need money?

Comprehension question answers:

1. Seoul
2. It’s an apartment that is almost totally underground, but typically has some kind of window or ventilation to the outside.
3. Because they can be flooded during heavy rains.
4. The government plans to ban basement housing.
5. The family used to live in social housing, but now the father earns too much to live there.
6. The son says he has happy memories of living in the semi-basement apartment, but his mother is sad that she feels she didn’t give her son the best place to live.
7. The young man works for the national parliament.
8. He was out of town.
9. She is the landlady of several basement apartments.
10. She needs money for medical bills.

Discussion questions

In partners, discuss the following questions. (20-30 minutes)

1. What did you learn about Seoul’s basement apartments from the video?
2. Why do these apartments exist?
3. Do you think they’re necessary? Why or why not?
4. Do you think the government is right to get rid of them? Why or why not?
5. Do you think the government should do anything else about this situation? If so, what? If not, why not?
6. How do you feel about the young man’s situation? How about the family? How about the elderly woman?
7. The elderly woman said that she hoped the problem would be solved, but not in this generation, the next generation? What do you think about this statement?
8. If the government does get rid of these apartments, what do you think each of these people should do?
9. Is there similar housing where you live? If yes, what do you think about this housing?
10. Is there social housing where you live? If yes, what do you think about this housing?
11. Have you or anyone you know ever lived in a basement apartment? What did you/they think?
12. Would you ever live in a basement apartment? Why or why not?
13. What do you think the struggles of living in an apartment like the ones pictured in the video would be?
14. Are there any positives to living in such an apartment? If yes, what are they?
15. If you were to live in a basement or semi-basement apartment, what would you do to combat some of the struggles of such a living situation?

Hopefully your students learned a lot in this lesson and had lots of chances to speak about an interesting topic.

If you want more advanced conversation video lessons, check out this one about wildlife photography.