PROGRESS TEST – LISTENING

Teacher: Nguyễn Thị Hạnh Phúc

Full name: Trần Thị Quyên
Date of birth: 29/10/1999
Class: K20C- Bắc Giang

Question: Listen to the presentations then summarize the presentations by the

three students Fahad (from Egypt), Mika (form Japan) and Ahmet (from
Turkey).

Fahad, Mika and Ahmet, they are discussion about how to take care of old people
in their country.

Fahah was talking about changes in the situation of elderly people in Egypt. First,
he explained the importance of the family bond in Egyptian culture. For Egyptians,
family is a huge part of the identity and the main source of social support. The
parents is usually the provider as the children grow up, but as they become older,
the parents’ ability to provide for their children declines. This leads to the child’s
role changing from being a dependent to supporting the family, providing for the
parents and other family members in their old age. Then, he presented some figures
about change population in Egyptian. Egypt is about 85 million, but it’s expected
to be around 100 million people by the year 2050. The population increase stems
from the fact that people are living longer. The fertility rate in the country is an
average of 2.7 births per woman, which contributes only slightly to population
growth. According to United Nations fi gures, today, 4.7 per cent of the population
is over 65. By 2050, this will steadily increase and could be as high as 16.8%.
Finally, he explained one way that the Egyptian government is preparing for the
population changes over the next decades.

About Mika, she discusses similar issues about Japan too. As she says, family in
Japan is very important like Egypt. Unlike Fahad’s opinions, the focus in Japan is
on what is called the ‘family line’. When elderly people can no longer look after
themselves, they move in with their children. We can see Japan has one of the
highest life expectancies in the world. There are about 29 million people over the
age of 65 in Japan today, nearly 23% of the population. Because a low fertility
rate, which has plummeted to just 1.5 children per woman, the population of
children is decreasing day by day. This also results in the same issues that Egypt is
facing: more and more elderly people to take care of, with fewer younger people to
take care of them. The Japanese government has taken steps to deal with the
situation by the government supports the over-65s. Some elderly people living at
home with family, go to a daycare centre a few times a week in social activities.
This enables them to have some independence and to feel cared for at the same
time.

Ahmet’s topic is how elderly people are cared for in Turkey. First, he gave some
background on how the elderly are usually cared for. There are more and more
common in both Egypt and Japan for elderly people live in institutions when their
ability to care for themselves declines. However, in Turkey, 80% of households
have an older person in them. They see this as the natural solution to dealing with
old age. After that, he talked about some of the drawbacks and benefits of this
system.The system has drawbacks. The family caring for elderly people can feel
that they aren’t free to do as they like in their home. Beside, the older people also
not feel completely free. However, there are many benefits to these
arrangements.In many house, the older people participate in domestic jobs and take
care of children. Finally, he explained the challenges ahead by giving specific
figures about the population situation of both Egypt, Japan and Turkey.In his
opinion, the solution is for Turkey to continue caring for the elderly at home.