The government will introduce a state-certified English proficiency test from 2012 to improve practical English skills of students and eventually replace TOEFL and other foreign exam material.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology announced this and other measures to help reduce the amount of money people spend on private cram schools and language institutes.
The new test, tentatively named the State English Aptitude Test, will be modeled on Japan's Eiken English test, which has earned international recognition.
``We believe as long as we can develop a quality test, many overseas schools will accept it,'' Education Minister Ahn Byong-man said Thursday.
If you will it to be so.
The thing is, as with the on-again off-again plans to conduct classes entirely in English, this new test with its emphasis on "practical English" goes against the quote-unquote skill set of the current generation of Korean English teachers, who were trained to teach exclusively to standardized tests. Why are Korean teachers by-and-large so against teaching English and other subjects in English? Because neither the teachers nor the students can handle that, that's why. Moreover, nobody wants to lose their job to "lecturers" and, let's be honest, few really want foreigners in the schools anyway.
The Eiken is accepted at 290 universities in North America, according to Wikipedia, though only six of those schools are in Canada. Browsing the list of institutions that recognize it I see that they're community colleges or lower-tier public and private schools, and in Pennsylvania's case none of the big names like Pitt, Penn State, UPenn, Allegheny, Grove City, Carnegie Mellon, Temple, or even my alma mater accept it. The listed schools are perfectly fine institutions that will provide a foreign student with a valuable study-abroad experience---or an American degree to augment a resume---and probably save plenty of unassuming Japanese students the headache of trying to cram for an inappropriately difficult exam. But the TOEFL, on the other hand, is the most-used test of English proficiency in the world and is necessary for the top public and private schools in the country. It's not a good idea to become even more localized when the purpose of taking the test in the first place is to study internationally.
But wait, this is where the article is murky. Is the Korean test actually designed for international purposes, or to serve the domestic functions now handled by the TOEFL? The Eiken, for example, has been around since 1963 but wasn't recognized by an overseas institution for admission until 2003. If the test serves merely domestic purposes, why wait until now to create one?
But let's not get ahead of ourselves, or think that a "practical English" exam will be any better than what's around now. And are we really ready to accept Korea's own definition of "good at English" as dictated by a domestic exam? I mean, we see how much teachers struggle with the language, and that's as much an indictment of their training as it is their attitude. And I've just finished doing some recording work for one of the teachers at school, reading aloud from a TEPS prep book which had grammatical errors in nearly every passage. Pity the student who can't pick them out and who takes the book's word for it. Why wouldn't s/he?
Anyway, the Eiken has some sample tests online here. One is the highest level, but it's pretty easy, considerably more so than the CSAT Korean high school students took last month.
10 comments:
I had an interesting exchange of ideas with my English partner teacher the other day. We don't teach in the same class at the same time, rather we swap students every hour.
Anyways, I explained to him that I thought there should be some kind of minimum standard amount of English used in the highest level English classes. My examples were simple ones such as when students ask to use the bathroom or say simple things like "I don't understand" or "Could you say that again?" while the Korean teacher is conducting class.
I'm not a supporter of total immersion classes, which "teaching English in English" seems to be about. From personal experience, I became so stressed in immersion classrooms that I quit three different courses before completing them. I'm a supporter of mixed English/Korean classes with an emphasis on encouraging students to use the English that they know, while getting explanations for *new or difficult* grammar in Korean. I think foreign language learners will always need native langauge help in the classroom, just that it should not be the only thing Korean teachers do.
The current system is one of divided labor. Koreans teach grammar in Korean and foreigners teach various things in English. This sort of system preserves foreigner jobs since Koreans remain dependent on foreigners for the speaking role.
My partner teacher said he'd think about what I said, and that was the interesting part of the exchange.
And there's Roboseyo's post showing up on the bottom of mine again, heh.
Ed I agree with you about using simple classroom English like that. I see no reason not to. However, I know some Korean teachers are insecure about speaking English in front of their students. One of my coteachers speaks English a lot to the students, but most of the others don't. When they do the students laugh, and admittedly their pronunciation and tone is pretty off, but you know the more the teachers practice, and the more students hear the language, the less laughter there will be.
Then again the students laugh at my English a lot, too, so who knows.
And yes, for the record these mixed classes can be ideal provided both teachers are good and have sufficiently prepared. I know I hate being put on the spot, and I know it sucks to have teachers mistranslate or explain things incorrectly.
But even advanced learners of a language benefit from having a bit of guidance in their native language . . . don't see why there needs to be any difference. In my case, though, I try to use English as much as possible. I see each class once every two weeks, so no reason to let a Korean teacher speak Korean half the time in it. I know they're not using English in *their* English class, so the students need as much practice as they can get.
Who is designing the test? Princeton Review? Yes, the TOEFL is even harder now, since it has the speaking component built in, like the IETLS. Good luck studying in Canada with a homegrown Korean English exam. It's useless.
Bangs...head...against...wall...AGAIN!
Man, talk about truly shooting yourself in the foot!
- Driftingfocus
So much for Korean students studying in Canada. They accept TOEFL almost exclusively. Canadian schools won't accept the SEAT test just because Korea says they should.
A school sets up one standard for all international admissions, and they are not going to make an exception for just one country.
But Korea's situation is unique.
Isn't that the excuse that gets thrown around a lot?
I'm going to steal some of your words for my own post, if that's okay.
Of course it's okay.
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