2015 Notes from the Marking Centre – Heritage Korean
Introduction
This document has been produced for the teachers and candidates of the Stage 6 Heritage Korean course. It contains comments on candidate responses to the 2015 Higher School Certificate examination, indicating the quality of the responses and highlighting their relative strengths and weaknesses.
This document should be read along with:
- the Heritage Korean Stage 6 Syllabus
- the 2015 Higher School Certificate Heritage Korean examination
- the marking guidelines
- Advice for students attempting HSC languages examinations, and HSC Languages oral examinations – advice to students
- Advice for HSC students about examinations
- other support documents developed by the Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards NSW to assist in the teaching and learning of Heritage Korean in Stage 6.
Oral examination
Characteristics of better responses:
- a thorough analysis of information, ideas and experiences, using a variety of sources from a range of contexts was included
- detailed and perceptive references to the texts studied, including information on their reliability and usefulness, were made
- candidates connected their research findings to their ideas and experiences
- candidates justified their points of view which were supported with examples
- candidates actively participated in the interview and engaged effectively and consistently with the examiner without hesitation or pauses
- information and ideas were presented with a high level of grammatical accuracy, a range of vocabulary and sentence structures, and a high level of fluency and correct pronunciation.
Characteristics of weaker responses:
- basic information or common knowledge was presented without evidence of research and the chosen topic was treated superficially
- candidates used prepared responses which had little relevance to the question being asked
- candidates made few or limited references to the texts studied
- information was presented with a low level of grammatical accuracy and with many pauses
- incomplete sentences and/or a mixture of formal and informal forms with some use of English vocabulary were used.
Written examination
Section 1 – Responding to texts
Characteristics of better responses:
- candidates demonstrated a perceptive understanding of the texts, with appropriate examples provided to support answers
- language was manipulated competently to encourage participation in the competition (Q2)
- information from both texts was used and manipulated to produce a persuasive email to the mother (Q3)
- the ideas and issues presented in the diary entries were identified and used effectively to write the speech (Q4)
- candidates demonstrated a clear understanding of how applicable the lyrics were to today's Korea (Q5)
- candidates responded appropriately and effectively to the values, language and role of appearance as presented in the Blog entries
- a clear understanding of the purpose and audience was evident.
Characteristics of weaker responses:
- a translation of the text was provided rather than responding to the question
- candidates did not address all aspects of the question
- a limited understanding of purpose, context and audience was shown
- a limited reference to the texts was made
- candidates used general knowledge rather than information provided in the stimulus text.
Section 2 – Creating texts in Korean
Characteristics of better responses:
- candidates addressed the chosen question
- the selection of register was appropriate to the audience, purpose and context
- ideas and information were sequenced and the response was structured coherently and effectively
- candidates showed evidence of understanding the issues being presented in the question.
Characteristics of weaker responses:
- responses made limited use of information relevant to the question
- responses were poorly structured and contained many errors in both vocabulary and language structures
- some responses were unnecessarily long and included irrelevant pre-learnt texts and/or contained numerous errors and inaccuracies.
NSW Government