While all these testing methods may provide an accurate measure of something, that something is nothing like authentic communication.Ĭheck out part 2 of this article here: English Speaking Assessment: How to Give Transcribed Tests. Speaking ability can be tested en masse over the Internet. Other indirect testing measures such as describing a picture have little authenticity and less impact. When speaking is tested, grammar-graded speaking tests result in more grammar study, and memorizable role-playing speaking tests result in more memorizing. The restriction, the bottleneck, to improving speaking ability is speaking tests. The engine of speaking improvement is speaking. Step aside and let them speak. Beginners in any skill who do a lot, improve a lot.ħ. Most Korean students are advanced students, but beginning speakers. What is the purpose of your class? To prepare them for another standardized English test, or prepare them for life?Ħ. For teenagers and older, speaking a foreign language is a skill.And mastering any skill requires this ratio: 10% instruction, 90% practice.ĥ. Communicative ability will flow only from communicative tests. Good grammar comes after a lot of speaking, not before. Stop messing with mother nature. Grammar-based tests are used because it is easy to mark right or wrong, not because it improves communicative speaking.Ģ. Grammar is computer code. The human brain develops in children as language develops. Communication is in our genes, not grammar. Communicative classes require communicative testing.ħ reasons wh y communicative tests are necessaryġ. In consequence, a lot of speaking requires a way to test a lot of speaking. If given an interesting topic that they know a lot about (Me), opportunity (class time), and incentive (speaking tests), they are effusive speakers, as are all teenagers. The problem is not that students in a Confucian society are reluctant to speak. Thus, their communicative rank of 121st.ĭespite huge investment and educational zeal, the English language skills of Korea’s adults have not improved and have remained at a moderate level over the past six years. In all those 10 years, students have had none or very few communicative classes, or communicative tests. The three high school years are generally “test English”, that is, English courses geared to passing university entrance exams. They have had 10 years of grammar-focused, teacher-centered English education. In general, most university freshmen classes contain advanced students, but beginning speakers.
Thus – surprise – there is little communicative ability. Simply put, what gets tested gets done, and communicative speaking ability is not tested. In science class, they give science tests. Why do Korean students perform so well in Math and Science, and so poorly in speaking English? Well, in math class, they give math tests. On the other hand, also in 2010, in an educational ranking of developed countries, Korean 15-year-olds ranked first in the world in Math, and third in the world in Science. Japan has similar disconnect between effort and effect. In a similar vein, a 2010 article in the Korea Times, Korea ranked number 1 in the world in money spent on English language education and 121st in English speaking ability. The Korea Herald proclaimed English proficiency in Korea unimproved, while the Wall Street Journal pondered How to cure South Korea's English fever? Both the Korean and international press were quick to react to Korea's poor English ability when compared to 59 other countries. This month EF Education First published the English Proficiency Index survey.
0 kommentar(er)
