According to stats from the International English Language Testing System, South Korea ranked 19th out of 20 countries in English ability in 2006. And in fact South Korea only does slightly better than North Korea on English exams. One reason why South Korean scores are so low is that so many people take the test; earlier stats showed that although South Koreans routinely rank among the world's worst at English, they have the highest number of students taking the Internet-based test.
Korean English teachers don't test too well, either, and a 2006 survey found that fewer than half were able to teach an hour-long class in English. Those are some figures to keep in mind when bureaucrats tell the papers we're not needed.
Things are looking up for South Korea, though, as they boast the world's highest IQ. *cough* *cough*
5 comments:
One reason why South Korean scores are so low is that so many people take the test;
If you hadn't said this, I was about to.
This reminds me of a magnet school in a largely blighted neighborhood, in Missouri, I think. The Federal government and the state government had spent millions of dollars for a state-of-the-art school and had focused all sorts of energy on this place.
After a few years, a 60 Minutes piece noted, while it was good news that the drop-out rate had dropped dramatically (from memory, I'm guessing 50 or 70%), standardized test scores had actually gone down slightly.
The "pro-education crowd" was scratching their heads (according to 60 Minutes and some other items I read) and the Rush Limbaugh crowd was calling it an abject failure exemplifying the failure of the liberals' solution of throwing money at problems without considering results.
Ahem... nobody was factoring in that the decrease in dropout rate would naturally cause a decrease in test scores: the ones dropping out are far more likely to be those performing poorly in school.
That the school had dramatically cut dropout rates was in and of itself a huge success that almost all sides ignored. And that they did so with only a minor downtick in standardized test scores was also a coup.
And that, kiddies, is why idiots should not be in charge of the media or government.
hmm...well, beyond Koreans not showing up in the top 10 scores, I do find it interesting to note that only one (Germany) of the top ten takers showed up in the top 10 scorers.
Rather than claiming that Koreans rank so lowly, I would rather like to postulate that people take this test needlessly in most cases. I realize that thy're trying to become an international country or something-something, but they really take this test for freaking everything...not that the results of which are ever really that important. And they take the test just to prepare themselves for future needs to take it. I had a student who would take it every year...just as practice to see how well he could do and if he could improve.
so who/what is to blame? There are several factors i know, but im curious with the degree of contributions of each factor to this problem.
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