This study investigated the feasibility of adopting an automatic scoring system (ASS) in a domestic English-speaking education context. Scope, test items, assessment criteria, scoring methods, and reporting strategies of six overseas English-speaking tests utilizing ASSs were examined. Moreover, a comparative analysis was conducted to identify disparities between ASS-based and non-ASS-based speaking tests. Findings were: 1) some ASS-based tests utilized ASS technology throughout the assessment, while others adopted a hybrid scoring system involving human raters; 2) compared to non-ASS-based tests, ASS-based tests used more test items targeting low-level skills such as sound and forms but fewer test items targeting conversation and discourse level skills; 3) pronunciation, fluency, and vocabulary were widely employed as evaluation criteria with sparse use of organization, content, and task completion in most ASS-based tests; 4) differences were minimal in assessment criteria application and score calculation between ASS-based and non-ASS-based tests; and 5) some ASS-based tests provided criteria-specific results and feedback with total scores and proficiency levels.

Spontaneous motion is one of the most basic event types, but different languages use varying patterns to express it. For example, English usually encodes path information in prepositional phrases or adverbial particles, while Korean maps path information onto verbs (Talmy, 1985). This study predicts that this typological difference would affect English spontaneous motion expressions produced by Korean learners and analyzes two English-language speech corpora, one, the data from native speakers (600 recordings), and the other, data from L1-Korean learners of English (400 recordings). It finds that the learners significantly underuse satellite-framed patterns, but not verb-framed patterns, compared with the native speakers, suggesting that the L1 plays a role in their L2 production. The satellite-framed patterns, however, account for the greatest portion of spontaneous motion expressions in the L2 corpus, suggesting the dominant effect of input on L2 production. These findings lead to pedagogical implications concerning preventing L1 interference and fostering input-based L2 acquisition.