Student and Teacher Perceptions of a Performance Assessment for College English Conversation Courses

• Published in: 영어어문교육, 24(2) pp. 21 - 40
• Main Authors: Daniel James Cuffey, 강미혜, 성명희
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 한국영어어문교육학회 01.06.2018
• Subjects: 영어와문학
• ISSN: 1226-2889

The purpose of this study was to explore college students’ and teachers’ perceptions of a performance assessment to see how students and teachers understand it. To do this, a quantitative and qualitative survey was given to 969 sophomore students who enrolled for an English conversation course at a university in Gyeonggi province near Seoul. The survey was also completed by eight native English instructors who taught the English conversation program at the same university. The results show that both teachers and students agreed on the necessity of a performance assessment. Both teachers and students believed that the performance assessment was helpful to improve students’ general English ability. Teachers preferred multiple types of tests throughout the semester, but students do not show clear preferences. Students prefer a one-on-one interview to a group presentation, even though they believe the group presentation improves their linguistic ability. Teachers believe the performance assessment helps, but do not strongly agree with maintaining the current project-based performance test. The results imply that maintaining a small class for conversation teachers and providing a comfortable setting for the students are the ways for performance assessments to be successful. KCI Citation Count: 0