This is important news because it will surely give a more comprehensive and realistic assessment of a test that currently only judges people on listening, reading and writing.
However, the National Institute for International Education is certainly not moving quickly on this and instead preferring to move slowly through what are no doubt huge bureaucratic circles with lots of heavily invested pockets of influence.
There are even plans to move the TOPIK test to an internet-based assessment and finally embrace the 21st century. The domestic programmers of Internet Explorer, ActiveX and AhnLab are no doubt already rubbing their hands with glee at such news.
Nevertheless, it gives many of us here four years until the speaking test becomes available for the first time. That's 1460 days, 1/6th of Hwasa's life, or what feels like an eternity of a Trump presidency.
So, what say you? Can you speak Korean?
The Ministry of Justice announced last month that there are now nearly 2.5 million foreigners in Korea. That's roughly equivalent to the total population of Daegu. What linguistic abilities are there likely among such a group?
To begin with, a personal confession: I can, a bit. It's certainly very relative and seemingly differs from day to day or situation to situation though.
It is relative in that compared to some of my friends, I am a veritable linguistic colossus, towering over others with my ability to use conditional sentences, modifiers and appropriate levels of honorifics as and when the situation prescribes.
At other times it is possible to feel not only intimidated by the sheer prowess of others' verbals, but also like deleting my Papago app entirely, running away to Itaewon and simply being done with the whole thing.
And then there are the normal days. The days that produce the habits that really define who and what you are, if we are to believe Aristotle and Daniel Kahneman that is.
Despite all this, I still struggle. It's a constant battle not only to retain that which you are learning, but also to then recognize and see it when it appears. The feeling of success or elation when you do is palpable. However, for intermediate speakers the plateau is a long and lonely dusty road with little in the way of oases or saloons.
This is exacerbated by age ― and perhaps a drink or two. I say this because my young children who are now bilingual demonstrate levels of retention that both fascinate and amaze me.
The alphabet comes easy to all, of course. Most foreigners who live here master that in a day. Then come the moments of progress when you test yourself riding the bus or subway, looking at the signs and advertisements and practicing reading them.
You throw around a few phrases, learn the occasional slang word or neologism that will make people laugh, and then relax, safe in the knowledge that there will always be a part of the country that will praise your skills and bow to you in the store when collecting your four for 10,000 won.
If it were 2009 and you were an attractive female, you may have even earned a place on the KBS show "Talking with Beauties" (which was rather deceptively given the English title Global Talk Show).
But that's not enough these days. And neither should it be.
The level of English demonstrated by the Korean undergraduates at university has soared over the past decade. A diet of social media, gripping Western dramas, semesters studying abroad and foreign relatives has resulted in the general level of English here being far above what it once was. Kim Sung-su's 2003 movie "Please Teach Me English" is a thing of the past in more ways than one.
In return, many of the foreign community here have upped their game, too. You'll find professors and research students publishing multiple books on a variety of subjects. O
Opinion writers from this paper publish in both English and Korean throughout the weeks.
The talk shows that were once stale and bland affairs have evolved to feature serious in-depth discussions about a wider variety of things ― though, of course, with more than half an eye still firmly focused on one's appearance.
I have met many people here from Southeast Asia and beyond that speak Korean phenomenally well and yet there is still a feeling that their efforts in this regard are not as appreciated as those who are of a different complexion.
There are also the comments sections and other places online in which people are occasionally judged not on their opinions on domestic matters but rather their linguistic ability. There seems some validity to both sides of this argument.
But, leaving more problematic issues behind, there are four years until the TOPIK exam features a speaking section. Perhaps we might start encouraging each other to improve our own linguistic ability until then.
Credit to : koreatimes
