Daewon Foreign Language High School (also known as Daewon, Daewon FLHS, or DFLHS; Hangeul: 대원외국어고등학교, 대원외고; Hanja: 大元外國語高等學校) is a private preparatory school located in Seoul, South Korea. Students choose one primary language as a major from Chinese, French, Japanese, Spanish, or German to study during their three years at the school. Korean and English are mandatory subjects, regardless of which focus language students choose when entering the school. There does exist, however, an English department with sub majors in Japanese and Chinese. Like most schools in Korea, Daewon starts its school year in March, starts its second semester in August, and ends the school year in February. There is a weeklong spring break in mid-February. Daewon is one of the four schools run by the Daewon Education Foundation, all of which share a campus in Junggok-dong, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul. The school's primary language of instruction is Korean. History Origins Daewon was founded in 1984 by Dr. Lee Won Hee, then an executive director at Samsung subsidiary Cheil Jedang. Lee had submitted plans for a private foreign language school to the government in 1982, beginning construction of the prospective school's campus expecting the charter to be approved. But when the Ministry of Education rejected his proposal, Daewon Girls' High School was established to take the place of the language school. The following year, however, Daewon's charter was approved, along with that of Daeil Foreign Language High School, and in 1984, the two opened their doors as the first two foreign language high schools in Korea. Admissions In 2011, Daewon put into effect an entirely new admissions procedure that effectively superseded the admissions examination. The change was mandated by a government directive that required all Special Purpose High Schools to select students based on a uniform two-step procedure that involved middle school English subject scores and a brief interview. The new system eliminated the English listening examination that had been the centerpiece of the previous admissions system, in addition to forbidding the school from considering students based on scores from other subjects or extracurricular achievements. This change followed another government mandate, which had in 2010 limited the area from which the school could receive applications to within the bounds of Seoul. These mandates were part of President Lee Myung-bak's education policy, which aimed to expand access to specialized secondary education. The policy has met with mixed results and reactions: while more students