Dear editor,
In her May 13 article ``Speaking English or Studying it?'' Leonie Overbeek misrepresents my April 15 article ``Abuse of Language Tests in Korea.''
She says, ``[David Leaper] makes the point that the lowly rank of Korea … is somehow due to the errors inherent in such tests, and to the fact that more people in Korea, at all levels of proficiency, take the test.''
If she had read my article carefully she would see that the reason I give for the ``lowly rank of Korea'' is entirely due to ``the fact that more people in Korea, at all levels of proficiency, take the test'' than in other countries.
When I talk about ``error'' in the article, I am referring to the ``Standard Error of Measurement,'' which is a routine way of describing the variability that is inherent in all tests.
If anyone wants to know the difference between ``errors inherent in such tests'' and the ``Standard Error of Measurement'' of a test, they are welcome to e-mail me for an explanation.
Furthermore, when I stated in my article ``Please do not worry about these facts,'' I was not saying that Koreans do not need to worry about their level of English.
Rather, I was referring to the fallacious argument in the original article that the level of English in Korea was lower than other countries because the average TOEFL score here is lower.
I make absolutely no claim about whether Korea has a higher or lower level of English than any other country, and have no wish to do so. However, I object to facts being used inappropriately, as was done in the April 2 original article, ``Korea Ranked Bottom in English Proficiency Test.''
Although I agree with the remainder of Overbeek's article, and indeed support her methodology, I would hope that in future she takes a little more care to understand another person's article before choosing to criticize it in a public forum. If she had been more careful she would have realized that we don't disagree at all.
David Leaper
Assistant professor
Hankuk University of Foreign
Studies in Seoul