A Study of Performance Assessment for Korean Secondary EFL Learners' Speaking Skills

This paper aims to investigate more effective ways of performance assessment of English speaking that can be available in Korean secondary schools. Questionnaire data and written comments collected from thirty-six English teachers were analyzed. The results indicate that most of the participants think that performance assessment of speaking has validity and reliability, but that it is time-consuming and difficult to score students' speaking performance objectively. Participants were found to think of the usefulness and importance of assessing speaking in the order of pictured-cued description, oral interview, question-and-answer, role play, oral presentation, discussion, story-telling, and dialog completion task. This study suggested more useful ways of performance assessment of speaking skills of Korean secondary EFL learners such as oral interview, role play, question-and-answer technique, which are time-efficient and more practical, presenting a combination of analytic and holistic scoring systems.