Can 14-year-olds work part-time? A discussion lesson your middle schoolers will have opinions about

Why this topic works

In January 2024, Korea's Ministry of Employment and Labor revised the Youth Protection Act to allow 14-year-olds to work part-time with parental consent. Your students have seen the headlines. Some have friends already working café counters or handing out flyers. This is not abstract.

The lesson below takes thirty-five to forty-five minutes and requires no prep beyond printing the handout. It works for classes of eight to twenty-four.

What you need

• One copy of the student handout per learner
• A way to display the debate question (whiteboard or screen)
• A timer

That is all.

How to run it (40 minutes)

Warm-up (5 min) Write on the board: What jobs do teenagers do in Korea? Elicit answers as a class. Expect: convenience store clerk, flyer distributor, café staff, tutor. Write five or six on the board. Ask which jobs they think are hardest, easiest, or pay best. Keep it quick.

Introduce the topic (3 min) Tell them the law changed in 2024. Before, you had to be 15. Now you can be 14, with a parent's signature. Ask: How many of you are 14 or will be soon? Hands up. How many know someone who already works part-time? More hands.

Read and check (8 min) Hand out the sheet. Give them four minutes to read the Pros and Cons table silently. Then do a quick vocabulary check. Point to independence, sacrifice, exploitation. Ask a student to explain each in simpler English or Korean. If they cannot, you explain—fast.

Pair discussion (12 min) Put them in pairs. Display the question: Should 14-year-olds be allowed to work part-time in Korea? Each pair talks for six minutes. They must use at least three points from the handout, but they can add their own. Walk and listen. Do not correct yet. Note two or three good sentences and two or three errors you heard repeated.

Class debate (10 min) Draw a line down the middle of the board: YES on the left, NO on the right. Go around the room. Each student gives one reason for their side. They cannot repeat what someone already said. You write short versions under YES or NO as they speak. If someone wants to switch sides mid-debate, let them—it happens.

Wrap-up (2 min) Share the two or three good sentences you heard. Then give the two or three corrections everybody needs. Do not name students. Ask: Did anyone change their mind? Let two students answer. Done.

What usually happens

Some kids have thought about this already. Others have not. The confident ones dominate the first three minutes, then the quieter students start talking because the handout gives them language to borrow.

You will hear the same grammar mistakes you always hear—third person -s, articles, tense shifts. That is fine. Note them, address two or three at the end, and let the rest go. The goal today is fluency and opinion, not accuracy.

If the class is very quiet, shrink the pair discussion to four minutes and give them this sentence frame on the board: I think 14-year-olds should / shouldn't work because ___. For example, ___.

If they finish early, add a second question: What kinds of jobs should be banned for 14-year-olds?

Why it fails (and the fix)

The lesson dies if you lecture for ten minutes about the law. Introduce it in under three minutes, then hand them the sheet and get out of the way.

It also dies if you correct every mistake during the pair work. Walk, listen, note—but do not stop them unless they are speaking Korean for two minutes straight.

One more thing: if your hagwon director is in the room, they may not love a debate about child labour. We have not had trouble with this topic, but you know your room better than we do.