Korea's Dog Meat Ban: A Discussion Lesson Your High Schoolers Actually Have Opinions On
This lesson uses South Korea's law banning dog meat farming and sale, passed in January 2024 with a grace period running until February 2027, to run a balanced pro/con debate for high school students who've already heard the argument at home.
Park English2026-09-052 min read
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Korea's National Assembly passed a special act in January 2024 that bans breeding, slaughtering, distributing, and selling dogs for meat. It isn't a light-switch ban. Farm and restaurant owners get until February 2027 to close down or switch businesses, and the government has promised compensation, though the exact amounts are still being worked out region by region. Estimates of how many dog farms exist nationwide range from the low thousands to higher, depending on who's counting and what counts as a "farm" — that gap alone is worth mentioning to students, because it shows them real policy debates run on messy numbers.
This works well with high schoolers because most of them have an opinion already, usually inherited from a grandparent or a parent, and the vocabulary sits right at the edge of what they can produce versus what they can only recognise. It also avoids the trap of "should students wear uniforms," a debate topic that has been sitting untouched in textbooks for twenty years.
Running the class (45 minutes)
- Warm-up (5 min). Ask: "Has anyone in your family ever eaten dog meat, or refused to?" Don't push for detail — this is just to surface that opinions already exist in the room.
- Vocabulary preview (5 min). Board these six words before reading anything: ban, tradition, livelihood, compensation, generation gap, animal welfare.
- Short reading (10 min). Give students the handout below. Have them underline one fact and one opinion in the text.
- Pro/con table work (10 min). In pairs, students fill in the blank column of the table with their own reasons, then compare with the sample arguments.
- Debate (15 min). Split the class in half regardless of personal opinion — assign sides. This is the part students resist and then love.
Sample arguments for the table
| Position | Argument |
|---|---|
| For the ban | Animal welfare standards in farming were widely criticised; the law brings Korea in line with changing public opinion |
| For the ban | Recent surveys have shown a majority of young Koreans, especially in cities, don't eat dog meat and support ending the trade |
| Against (or "too fast") | Older farmers, some in their 60s and 70s, say they have no other trade to switch to before 2027 |
| Against (or "too fast") | Markets like Moran Market in Seongnam built decades of business around this trade; compensation details are still unclear |
Discussion questions
- Should a government ban something that's legal but unpopular, even if it hurts a small number of people badly?
- Is three years enough time to change a livelihood?
- Compare this to a food tradition in another country that's changed or been banned. What made people accept it, or resist it?