정책도구로 사용되는 언어시험: 국내 영어시험 중심으로

Abstract

According to Shohamy (2007), the tests of certain languages deliver messages and ideologies about the prestige, priorities and hierarchies of the languages, leading to policies of suppression of diversity. The test-driven language policies also lead to a narrow view of language as standardized and homogenous. The purpose of this paper is to contextualize English language tests in relation to language policy tools in Korea. The discussion of inappropriately used test-driven policies was supported by several test development cases in Korea, which appeared in newspaper articles, testing companies’ newsletters, or government documents. Different English language tests intended as language policy tools were categorized into three major situations:government-led, school-contextualized, and industry-based. It was argued that the English test-driven policy movement must have influenced teaching, learning, and the curriculum, to the extent that policy-making and testing essentially became synonymous.