Fulbright U.S. Education Center

An article appeared in the Korea Times yesterday that illustrates the high profile and potentially controversial nature of English testing in South Korea.  The article deals with an ETS Korea scholarship program that selected eight high school students as “ETS Ambassadors.”

The article notes that the ETS promotion comes at a time when foreign language high schools in Korea have dropped TOEFL requirements.  I might add that the general context for this article involves the important question of whether or not TOEFL is an appropriate test for middle school and high school students, many of whom have been taking it in recent years, for lack of an alternative.

As noted in a recent article in the Chosun Ilbo, almost 2,000 students dropped out of Korea’s highly competitive foreign language high schools between 2004 and 2008.  This represented a dropout rate of approximately two percent.  The report suggested that those who dropped out had found themselves on the lower rungs of academic accomplishment, so chose to drop out and take the high school equivalence test instead.

According to an article in the Chosun Ilbo today, eight out of ten salaried workers think they are underpaid because of their poor English skills.  In the survey of almost 1,500 employed workers conducted by a jobs site, 89.9 percent of respondents said that if they had a better command of English they would be better paid.

When asked what they would do if they had a better command of English, most said transfer to a larger firm (54.4 percent), followed by working in another field (20.4 percent), negotiating their salary (13.3 percent) and leaving the company to found their own business (7.8 percent).

Today’s Joongang Daily carries an interesting account of the leakage of copies of a simulated version of the college admission test, just days before the test.  According to the police, a leak earlier this year involved school teachers, several other hagwon and printers who made copies of test sheets, police said yesterday.

After wrapping up its investigation, the Seoul Metropolitan Police applied for arrest warrants for the head of a cram school (hagwon) and a high school teacher.  According to the Joongang Daily,  “The leak shows how poorly test sheets are managed by education offices across the country,” a police official said. “The hagwon world doesn’t regard such leaks as anything newsworthy. They think of it as a practice that’s been around a long time.”
According to police, Choi handed over test sheets for a simulated college entrance to an official surnamed Yu from an online hagwon, Megastudy, on more than 20 occasions between March 2005 to June 2007.

Both The Korea Times and The Joongang Ilbo have articles on a new TOEIC cheating scandal uncovered by police.  The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency detained two suspects, named Kim and Park, on charges of raking in some 50 million won ($38,750) from 28 university students and job seekers in exchange for using electronic devices to send test takers answers during the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC).  The scheme worked as follows:

• Kim would place a posting on the internet 20 days before a TOEIC exam, guaranteeing customers a high score on the exam.
• Upon receiving replies, he would explain the scheme to potential customers, after checking to be sure they had no police officers in their family.
• Customers were given the choice of two methods to receive answers during the test, either by text message on a cellphone, or via a small earphone, the size of a grain of rice.
• On the test date, Park, who is fluent in English, would enter the test site wearing an antenna resembling a necklace.  He would use a small wireless device with buttons to send answers to Kim, using a code of one buzz for A, two for B and so forth.  Then Kim would announce the answer to the examinee through the earphone.

According to the Korea Times, test takers who previously scored an average of 500 points, raised their scores to over 900 points.  Most of them were in their 20s and 30s, 13 jobseekers, nine office workers and six university students.

This is not the first cheating scandal for TOEIC in Korea.  Also, it should raise a red flag for everyone connected with the administration of TOEFL and other high stakes academic tests.    Because the benefits of a high score (the “stakes”) are so high in English testing, there is no substitute for thorough, consistent and intelligent application of test security measures.

As reported in the Korea Times today, Korea ranked second from the bottom worldwide in the General Training Module (GTM) for the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), according to the British Council.  The number of Koreans taking IELTS increased to 27,000 last year, up from 23,000 in 2007 and 14,000 in 2006.   Last year Korean test takers gained an average score of 5.33 out of 9 on the GTM, up 0.12 from the previous year.   This placed it ahead of only the United Arab Emirates, which had an average score of 4.55.   Testing experts claim that Korea’s low scores are partly due to the large number of elementary and middle school students who take the test.

IELTS tests are held in over 500 centers around the world and some 12 million people take the test every year.

An online tutoring service started in the year 2000 was founded by a former tutor at a private education institute.  His inspiration for the company came while watching a home-shopping channel on television and he intended to help reduce the education inequality that is produced when nearly eight in ten students supplement public education with study in private cram schools, or hagwons.  As noted in a New York Times article by Choe Sang-Hun, Megastudy.net, the online tutoring service Mr. Son Joo-eun started, may be the perfect convergence of South Korean’s dual obsessions with educational credentials and the internet.  By tapping into those concerns, which increase during a recession, Megastudy has become South Korea’s fastest growing technology company, with sales expected to grow 22.5 percent this year to 245 billion won ($195 million) even as the country’s economy is expected to contract.

Online commercial services like Megastudy charge a relatively small fee, averaging 40,000 to 50,000 won ($30 to $40) for each course a student selects from thousands of online tutorials.   Megastudy competes with the government sponsored EBS, which offers similar tutorials for free.    However, it hires teachers with followings that rival those of pop stars.  Last year one Megastudy teacher generated 10 billion won (nearly $8 million) and pocketed 23 percent as his share.

With the country pouring billions of dollars into making the internet ten times faster by 2014, Mr. Son suggested that the world turn to South Korea for a glimpse of what education might look like in the future.  ”Offline schools will become supplemental to online education,” he predicted.  ”Students will go to school, perhaps once a week, for group activities like sports.”

The Korea Times and other local papers highlighted today’s government announcment that it intends to develop a new test that will hopefully replace much of the TOEFL exam volume in South Korea.  As announced by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, one purpose of the new test is to reduce the amount of money people spend on private cram schools and language institutes.  The new test, tentatively named the State English Aptitude Test, will be modeled on Japan’s EIKEN test, which has earned international recognition.  ”We believe, as long as we can develop a quality test, many overseas schools will accept it,” said Education Minister Ahn Byoung Man.   He further stated that he expects the new test to replace TOEIC and TOEFL in university admissions and job applications.  The government will run pilot tests between 2010 and 2011 before formally introducing the new test in 2012.

Nearly 70 high school administrators, teachers and counselors from seven different nations attended the first AP Summer Institute in Asia, co-sponsored by Fulbright and the College Board.  To see the Institute brochure, use the following link.

AP Institute in Asia Brochure

The powerpoint presentation given by Dr. James Larson of Fulbright on the morning of Tuesday July 29th may be downloaded here. (double click on the link below to view the document or right-click and save to download it to your computer).

ap-institute-july-2008-final

Since 1984, the Fulbright Commission has served as ETS’s representative in Korea for TOEFL, GRE and other high-stakes academic tests.   The Commission has also worked with other major testing organizations including LSAT, SAT, and SSAT, to name a few.  The public provision of up-to-date and accurate information about admissions testing is important to the Fulbright mission of promoting educational and intercultural exchange between the United States and Korea.  Therefore we take it very seriously.  This section of the blog will discuss and invite comments on issues relating to high-stakes educational testing.