This study explores the variation within native
English-speaking teachers (NESTs) when evaluating English
learners’ essays in terms of their teaching experiences.
It was assumed that those who had been teaching at the
same institute for more than five years (experienced
NESTs) would understand better what their students wanted
to convey, with deeper understandings of Korean culture
and possibly the different writing styles based on
Korean language, resulting in more lenient evaluating
patterns, than those who just came to Korea to teach
English (new NESTs). Interestingly, in contrast to the
previous studies, the experienced NESTs evaluated more
severely than the new NESTs. Additionally, based on the
previous studies comparing NESTs with non-native English-
speaking teachers (NNESTs), the experienced group
demonstrated similarities to NNESTs after more than five
years of assimilation in contrast to the new NESTs. This
was a conclusion reached by the result that the new NESTs
regarded content more substantially than the experienced
NESTs. Lastly, unlike the previous studies, the NESTs’
perceived-difficulty played a more important role in grading
than their perceived-importance regarding the three
criteria (grammar, content, and vocabulary). The paper
elaborates the details of the results and suggests a new
approach to reduce the rater-biases even before ratertraining
is discussed.

EB00000002417K

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• Diversity Among NEST Raters: How do New and Experienced NESTs Evaluate Korean English Learners’ Essays?