Impacts and Responses to a University High-Stakes Writing Test

This chapter examines the effects of high-stakes testing policies in mandatory English language writing courses at a South Korean university. We use interviews with instructors and students to see how testing policies impact their approaches to teaching writing and ways in which some instructors act as a mediator between their students and educational authorities. We also look at instructors working with students in the special test-preparation classes to discuss how instructors work with students who may have a negative view of L2 writing as a result of failing high-stakes tests to see what impacts those conditions have on their practice.