The present study investigated students’ preferences for the types of tasks used to assess English speaking performance. It further examined whether students’ task type preferences affected their perceptions of test effectiveness. One hundred eighty-two high school students responded to a self-report questionnaire. A series of frequency analysis and paired samples t-tests were used for the analysis. The results showed that students’ most preferred task types and their least preferred ones overlapped with each other, suggesting that the task types of English-speaking performance tests used in schools are limited. The four key reasons determining students’ task type preferences were identified, including task difficulty, emotional comfort, practical value, and interest. In addition, the results indicated that students’ task type preferences could affect their perceptions of task effectiveness. Overall, the results suggest the need for developing more varied task types for English-speaking performance tests as well as helping students become familiar with English speaking performance tasks. Pedagogical implications were discussed along with study limitations.

The purpose of this study was two-fold: to evaluate the effectiveness of an English program under a practical curriculum for English majors in college and to investigate the relationships among students' perceptions of the program, language learning styles and strategies, perceived and actual improvement in English, and their satisfaction with the program. To this end, the study followed the changes in college students' perceptions of the program and their learning of English for four semesters from their freshman to sophomore years. Questionnaires were administered four times to measure and trace the students' perceived utility of the program, affective attitude, use of language learning styles and strategies, perceived and actual improvement in English, and satisfaction with the program. The results showed a statistically significant increase every semester in actual improvement in the students' TOEIC scores. Compared to their high expectations for improvement, the students' perceived improvement was shown to be the lowest at the end of the first semester, after which it got slowly higher each semester during the 2-year period. However, their overall satisfaction with the program got lower each semester. Native speaker instructors and interactive activities in class were found to positively affect the students' perceptions of program utility and affective attitude, which, in turn, significantly affect the students' use of language learning styles and strategies.

This study investigated the effects of pairing based on English proficiency and gender on high school students’ speaking task performance. A total of 16 high school students - 4 female advanced, 4 female intermediate, 4 male advanced, and 4 male intermediate learners - performed two information gap tasks spotting differences between two pictures, once with a same-level learner and once with a different-level learner. Their performance was analyzed in terms of degree of task completion, amount of utterances and fluency. The results showed (a) advanced level learners performed the task more accurately, more fluently, and in higher length when they were paired with advanced level learners than paired with lower level learners, although the differences were not significant; (b) For intermediate level learners, male students demonstrated a better performance when paired with higher level learners, but female students performed better when paired with the same level learners. The findings are discussed with regard to more feasible and more effective ways of grouping for pair work in high school English classes.

This study attends to the importance of performance standards in teacher education and evaluation system and suggests a primitive guideline for English teaching standards in Korea. For this purpose, first of all, the notion of ""teaching expertise"" and ""performance standards"" are reviewed with the previous studies. Second, this study introduces recent changes in Korean teacher education programs and some efforts to develop Korean teacher standards. Third, teaching standards (for ESL/WL) established by NCATE, NBPTS, and INTASC are reviewed to investigate their domains, standards, and evaluation rubric. Finally, this study addresses some implications and suggestions for establishing English teacher standards in Korea. It is hoped that the findings of this study provide subject-specific information on teacher training and assessment to teacher researchers and education policy makers in Korea.

The deficiency of competent native English speaker raters and the inherent problem with intra-rater and inter-rater reliability of the oral proficiency interview (OPI) has precluded the full-fledged implementation of English performance testing, inevitably ushering in the computer- based oral proficiency interview (COPI) as its viable alternative with the help of automatic speech recognition (ASR). The plausibility and feasibility of implementing ASR-based COPI has recently been investigated with favorable results, which warrants more sophisticated research focusing on development of desirable test methods that will meet the rigorous criteria required by high-stakes language tests. In this respect, employing varied statistical methods as correlational, regression analyses, and ANOVA, the present study attempts to explore strengths and limitations of test method facets and to identify valid test methods to maximize the validity and reliability of ASR-based COPⅠ. Within the theoretical framework of communicative language components to be measured, the statistical findings reveal that some test methods prove to be more effective than others in producing COPI test results with better discriminability and reliability. The survey of students and teachers also suggest their favorable attitudes toward utilizing the COPI for in-class evaluation. Both findings strongly corroborates potential of the COPI in question as a valid performance testing tool to measure overall communicative competence. The current research is expected not only to shed light on advancement of performance testing, but also to serve the purpose of enhancing communicative English teaching.