Investigation on TOEIC score trends in Korea and its pedagogical implications

Abstract

Many universities in Korea have implemented teaching TOEIC based courses in their core curriculums as a result of the increased popularity of the TOEIC test. With the assumption that reading and listening scores are inter-related with each other, a focus of this study is to find the distribution patterns of the reading comprehension (RC) and the listening comprehension (LC) scores with respect to the different levels of the students. More specifically, the present study examines the relationships at the different levels between the RC and the LC scores, the LC scores and the total scores, and the RC scores and the total scores. In order to assist the students with improving their current levels and their TOEIC test scores, determining the particular areas that need to be focused on within each score band was the purpose of the comparison. In this study, 11328 TOEIC test scores were analyzed, and four results are presented. First, during their initial stages of language acquisition, students who are having more difficulty with the RC would benefit from having this area supplemented. The next finding revealed the necessity to implement tailored instruction for the higher levels. After that, it was determined that focusing on the RC would be a worthwhile measure in order to assist the lower level students to increase their overall TOEIC scores. The final result revealed that when the students were grouped in larger score bands, both the RC and the LC should be taught.