A Framework for Implementing a Formal, Online English-Speaking Formative Assessment Course for Korean Young Professionals

This paper discusses the issues surrounding English-speaking assessment culture in ‘Confucian heritage cultures’ and more specifically, South Korea (Carless, 2011). Countries such as South Korea have a background with Confucian heritage culture that focuses on summative assessment in ‘high-stakes’ testing (Carless, 2011). However, the learning process has been put into question regarding formal, one-off, English-speaking assessments such as TOIEC where learner output has had limited success with improving English-speaking skills for Korean, young adults (Booth, 2018). Formative assessment has gained more focus in recent years and the focus on learning as opposed to grading made me think this type of assessment could be more suited to young, Korean professionals looking to improve their English-speaking skills (Stobart, 2008). Using a mixed methods research approach through a quantitative online survey and qualitative, follow-up interview sessions, the aim was to get an insight into the opinions and thoughts of Korean, young professionals. The topic for their opinions was the learning process and overall experience of taking current, formal, one-off English-speaking assessments. The two data sets provided some interesting points to analyse and work from. At the time of writing, there were no formal, English-speaking assessment models based on the use of formative assessment evaluation in Korea. This paper seeks to analyse the literature and data from the mixed methods research approach to see if there is a gap in the literature for a potential formative assessment model specifically for Korean, young professionals, that can be designed around learner and stakeholder needs.