SEOUL, KOREA - As the nationally administered English test, NEAT is to be offered starting from next month in a full-fledged manner, there are those who claim that it is necessary to strengthen English book reading education in order to increase English test score.
Class 1 National English Ability Test (NEAT) will be administered for the first time on March 9. The first test will be administered to select the teachers who applied for the overseas training program. The test for the general public will be offered starting from May of this year. This year, Class 1 NEAT test will be offered six times (March, May, July, September, October and November).
Class 2 and Class 3 NEAT tests developed to replace the English section of the university entrance exam appear as if they will be available only after 2018 whereas the initial plan was to offer them in 2015.
NEAT test is the official English test administered by the nation, and it is divided into Class 1 that is offered to the general public and into Class 2 and Class 3 that replace university entrance exam. To replace the famous foreign English test and to strengthen the speaking and writing English education, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology invested 39.3 Billion Won to develop this Internet based test that measures English language capability in four dimensions; listening, reading, speaking and writing.
Accordingly, well-renowned language institutes in the private English education sector are competing to open up the programs and lectures intended to help prepare for the NEAT test. Even the experts of the English language education are claiming that it is necessary to strengthen English book reading education in order to score high on the NEAT.
Dr. Malbert Smith III, the President and a Co-Founder of the MetaMetrics® in the US that developed the Lexile® Measure(www.lexile.com) to ensure effective English book reading, emphasized that greater focus should be on reading English books in order to develop the four domains of the English language (listening, reading, speaking and writing) in a balanced manner.
“To increase competency in the English language, continual exposure to English is crucial. In particular, when students are exposed to English continually through English book reading amidst the situation in which they learn English as a foreign language, they obtain the necessary information, get to understand the culture of the English speaking countries, improve their vocabularies while they benefit from significant improvements in the rest of the three domains as well (listening, speaking and writing).”
He who developed the Lexile Measure, index for English book reading and books’ complexity level, directly in person 20 years ago, emphasized the need to utilize Lexile Measure to ensure customized English book reading that suits a reader’s level. He explained that increasingly objective oriented, self-initiated and fun English book reading is enabled when the Lexile Measure is utilized effectively so that the books read are not too difficult or too easy and once English books that are interesting to one are read.
Lexile® Measure was selected officially by 23 out of 50 states in the US, and it is used for the English book reading education programs. Every year, over 50 million students are granted Lexile Measures through diverse evaluation and educational programs.
Students can obtain their Lexile Measure through many popular reading assessments inculding Natmal’s E-LQ test or Engaging English (www.engagingenglish.com). They can also purchase English books with Lexile Measure indicated on the Interpark (www.interpark.com) Internet bookstore or Barnes & Nobles (www.bn.com) book store or borrow English books classified according to the Lexile Measure at an English book library near their house.
Normally, Lexile Measure ranges from 200L to 1600L. Lower the number means that the concerned book is easy to read which is for beginners, while higher number are those books that are for advanced readers or difficult books. If one’s Lexile Measure is 800L, it is recommended to read English books between the ranges of 700L and 850L. Moreover, it is necessary to develop a plan to read English books continually, and measure the Lexile Measure two to three times in a year can help to identify the level which in turn helps to increase NEAT test score.
