Constructing a Sustainable Evaluation Model for Diverse Tertiary Language Classrooms in East Asia

Abstract This paper examines the curricular distortions in East Asian higher education driven by top-down globalization mandates. Conflating Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT), and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) within identical course syllabi, tertiary institutions create a destructive phenomenon of amorphous curricular hybridity. This structural mutation triggers an acute assessment paradox: instructors employ interactive, scaffolded tasks during the semester but default to static, product-oriented examinations to satisfy rigid relative-grading curves and mitigate student grading appeals. This construct irrelevance degrades test practicality, induces cognitive overload, and forces the manufacturing of artificial grade variance rather than maintaining fairness and validity. To resolve this operational gridlock, this paper introduces a framework of Methodological Pluralism versus Assessment Monism. Supported by a systematic syllabus review across Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean universities, we argue that while instructors must retain the pedagogical sovereignty to utilize eclectic instructional methodologies during the process (pluralism), the high-stakes final evaluation must be anchored strictly and monistically to the parameters explicitly defined in the syllabus contract (monism). This systemic decoupling preserves construct validity, meets institutional transparency requirements, and establishes a legally defensible bureaucratic shield that protects instructors from administrative liability while safeguarding complex learner cognitive processing.