True beginners, false beginners, and fake beginners: Placement strategies for Korean heritage speakers

Abstract

Placing heritage speakers into Korean language classes is a challenging task because they display a wide range of proficiencies. Since standard placement tests often fail to place students effectively within a program, placement procedures that take into account heritage language use need to be developed. This article describes the steps that the University of California, Los Angeles' Korean program took to place heritage students into appropriate levels of instruction. Since total scores did not accurately reflect test takers' linguistic profiles, a noncompensatory scoring approach was adopted to ensure that they demonstrated a minimum level of ability in every component tested. The article also offers placement strategies that can be applied to a wide variety of instructional settings.