The Development of Sustainable Assessment during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case of the English Language Program in South Korea

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed challenges to educational systems around the world. In particular, language learning environments being impacted by the pandemic has resulted in a shift from traditional in-person to online language teaching. This paper examines the case of an English language program in South Korea to investigate how the sudden transition to online language teaching has influenced language instructors’ teaching and assessment practice. The current study also examines the level of satisfaction of instructors and students with the changing form of English language teaching and assessment practices. Results showed that a professional learning community was formed by instructors to engage in regular communication as an attempt to develop new forms of assessment practices that were process-oriented and formative. Instructors also assigned multimodal projects to promote sustainable assessments where students could actively utilize target language forms and structures. Students were highly satisfied with new forms of language assessment practices, whereas instructors’ level of satisfaction towards their language assessment practices were somewhat low. Findings provided educators with language assessment suggestions that can offer language instructors ideas to deliver more creative and sustainable language assessment strategies that can promote self-regulated learning and sustainable development. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.