Meeting Future Challenges in Language Teaching and Testing: Building Teams, Setting Goals

英语语言教学（ELT）是英国的一个主要行业，在英国支持近36，000个工作岗位。直到最近，这一行业在很大程度上被排除在韩国（以下简称韩国）市场之外。该市场由美国供应商主导。然而，最近这种情况发生了变化，韩国人越来越多地转向英国提供英语教学（参见该项目的经济案例，以获得更多细节的支持）。然而，韩国的英语教学正处于一种潜在的破坏性变化状态，因为政策变化对教学实践，材料供应和测试实践产生了不利影响。由于大量学习英语的学生报告心理健康问题和学生自杀率上升，该系统开始进行改革。这些问题被认为与韩国教英语和学英语的高压状态有关（更多详情见Choi，2020）。作为回应，韩国教育部于2013年撤销了国家英语能力测试项目。2018年被韩国大学学术能力考试取代。通过这项新的测试，教育部希望将正念和幸福置于基于能力的课程的中心，旨在保持对英语教学和学习的批判性而全面的关注。然而，这一实施增加了韩国环境对英语教学的挑战，因为市场并没有很好地适应这一新考试或更广泛的课程的目标。因此，韩国正在努力保持其作为世界领先的英语学习典范的地位。英国和美国的主要教材和考试提供者提供的考试和教材不一定很好地适应新课程的需要，这使情况更加复杂。因此，本项目将汇集英国和韩国在英语教学领域工作的研究人员，制定一个研究议程，以解决这些紧迫的问题。在此过程中，该项目将为韩国和英国英语教学行业提供支持，帮助英国英语教学行业适应更好地服务韩国市场，并帮助增强英国在韩国的“软实力”（更多详细信息请参见案例中的介绍）。同时，该项目将使英国和韩国的研究人员团队能够解决韩国英语教学市场带来的新的研究挑战（参见案例中的研究机会以获得支持）。为此，我们将把学者和行业专家聚集在一起，以更好地了解韩国的英语教学环境，了解该环境的挑战，并制定议程来解决这些挑战。在这样做的过程中，我们将把韩国的专业知识和英国在材料和测试开发等领域的世界领先的专业知识带到这些问题上。这将有利于韩国教师和学习者（见英国的背景下的情况下支持进一步的细节）。这种专业知识通常借鉴了英国的传统，即在大量经证明的语言使用（所谓的“语料库”）的基础上发展英语教学实践。总体而言，这种实践的协同作用将最大限度地提高和进一步发展目前韩国英语教学实践的有益方面，最大限度地减少目前制度的潜在缺陷，并从英国的角度更深入地了解韩国英语教学市场。

English Language Teaching (ELT) is a major UK industry, supporting nearly 36,000 jobs in the UK. Until recently, this industry was largely excluded from the market in South Korea (henceforth, Korea). That market was dominated by US providers. Yet this has changed recently, with Koreans turning increasingly to the UK for ELT provision (see Economic Case for the Project in the case for support for further details).However, ELT in Korea is in a state of potentially damaging flux, as policy changes have adversely impacted teaching practices, materials provision and testing practices. Change was initiated in the system in response to high numbers of students learning English reporting mental health issues and an increase in rates of student suicide. These issues were thought to be linked to the highly pressurised state in which English was taught and learned in Korea (see Choi, 2020, for more details). In response, the National English Ability Test program was withdrawn by the Korean Ministry of Education in 2013. It was replaced with the Korean College Scholastic Ability Test in 2018. Through this new test, the Ministry of Education hoped to place mindfulness and wellbeing at the centre of a competency-based curriculum, designed to maintain a critical yet holistic focus on ELT and learning. Yet this implementation has increased the challenge presented to ELT by the context in Korea, as the market is not well adapted to the goals of either this new test or the wider curriculum. As a result Korea is struggling to maintain its position as a world-leading example of excellence in English language learning. The complexity of the situation is compounded by the major materials and test providers in the UK and the US providing tests and materials that are not necessarily well adapted to the needs of the new curriculum. See The Context in Korea in the case for support for further details of this situation.Consequently, this project will bring together UK and Korean researchers who work in ELT to develop a research agenda to address these pressing issues. In doing so, the project will provide support to the Korean and British ELT industries, help the UK ELT industry adapt to better service the Korean market and help to enhance UK 'soft power' in Korea (see Introduction in the case for support for further details). At the same time, the project will allow teams of UK and Korean researchers to address the new research challenges that the Korean ELT market presents (see The Research Opportunity in the case for support).To do this we will bring academics and industry experts together to better understand the ELT context in Korea, appreciate the challenges of that context, and develop an agenda to address those challenges. In doing so, we will be bringing expert, localised knowledge in Korea and the UK's world-leading expertise in areas such as materials and test development to bear on these issues. This will be to the advantage of Korean teachers and learners (see The Context in the UK in the case for support for further details). Such expertise typically draws on the UK's tradition of developing ELT practices on the basis of large bodies of attested language use (so-called 'corpora'). Overall, this synergy of practice will maximise and further develop the beneficial aspects of current Korean ELT practices, minimise the potential drawbacks of the current system, and develop a deeper understanding of the Korean ELT market from a UK perspective.