The market always moves ahead of the government. This is no exception to test takers for the National English Ability Test (NEAT). Students began to enroll in private schools to prepare.
The state-run test will possibly start from 2015 when current middle schools seniors take a scholastic aptitude test for college entrance. It will be an Internet-based English proficiency test featuring reading, listening, speaking and writing.
The government hopes that NEAT will replace the current TOEIC and TOEFL exams. It has three levels. The first is for adults, and the other two are for college-bound students.
The salient points are the inclusion of English tests for writing and speaking, in addition to the current other tests’ format of checking proficiency only in reading and listening. It also tests the English presentation skills of the examinees. Candidates will receive scores for each of the reading, listening, writing and speaking sections unlike the current one combined score.
It is commendable that the test includes writing and speaking skills in which Koreans are poor. The government says test-takers need 3,000 words for writing, less than the English vocabulary of 4,226 words for the current exam for college-bound candidates. However, this is a tall order for those who have little experience in writing. Mastery of writing a vocabulary of up to 3,000 words is possible only through daily practice. Teachers should be able to help students get professional evaluation and guidance in this area.
Samples of the test indicate that even teachers have difficulty in achieving high scores unless trained well. The test will be less burdensome to students when the test content is taken from textbooks. Things will be different when the content comes from beyond textbooks.
The writing test also requires students to have logical thinking and reasoning, which students can develop only through experience.
The government will face a dilemma in grading writing tests as there are multiple ways of expressing the same topic in English. Manual grading is time-consuming and subject to fraud but Internet-based mechanical grading will likely spell trouble.
The same dilemma will confront the government in the speaking test. Same examinees will get different scores depending on how examiners grade their pronunciation.
Students have ample reason to be concerned over the new testing system as they need extra preparation for writing and speaking. NEAT is more challenging and subjective than TOEIC and TOEFL.
Students need to make it a habit of writing and speaking daily if they want to score highly. Policymakers need to check how many middle and high school English teachers are able to write and speak fluently.
Full preparation is necessary to preclude technical glitches in test taking and grading. The tests should include more local content so that students can learn to speak and write about Korean life, society and history rather than about things foreign. Confining tests to textbooks will not fan private tutoring.