미국에서의 한국어 교육 평가: SAT Ⅱ 한국어와 응시자들의 사회 언어적 배경을 중심으로

Abstract

The composition of students in Korean language classes in U.S. colleges has been characterized by a dominant number of Korean heritage speakers over non-heritage speakers, In spite of growing enrollment in Korean classes (K-16), however, very little research has been conducted on linguistic and sociolinguistic features of the language that Korean heritage learners bring to the classroom at the university level. This paper focuses on an assessment and testing measurement for Korean heritage and non-heritage learners. By analyzing the result of a Korean placement test administered at a college (a total of 110 subjects), a multiple choice test was found to exhibit a severe limitation. The research result indicates that heritage speakers have a severe !lap between receptive and productive skills. In particular, there is very little correlation between heritage speakers' listening and writing skills.

Furthermore, a comparative analysis of writing samples gathered from both heritage and non-heritage speakers illustrates that heritage speakers make significantly more errors than non-heritage learners on orthography and conjugation. In contrast, heritage speakers make very few errors related to discourse such as the use of topic marker and tense/aspect compared to non-heritage learners.

The findings suggest that an assessment tool based on a multiple choice is not reliable in measuring heritage speakers' proficiency in the language. The result further suggests that instructional strategies for heritage and non-heritage speakers should be differentiated.