This study explores the variation within nativeEnglish-speaking teachers (NESTs) when evaluating Eng-lish learners’ essays in terms of their teaching experiences.It was assumed that those who had been teaching at thesame institute for more than five years (experiencedNESTs) would understand better what their students wan-ted to convey, with deeper understandings of Korean cul-ture and possibly the different writing styles based onKorean language, resulting in more lenient evaluatingpatterns, than those who just came to Korea to teachEnglish (new NESTs). Interestingly, in contrast to theprevious studies, the experienced NESTs evaluated moreseverely than the new NESTs. Additionally, based on theprevious studies comparing NESTs with non-native Eng-lish-speaking teachers (NNESTs), the experienced groupdemonstrated similarities to NNESTs after more than fiveyears of assimilation in contrast to the new NESTs. Thiswas a conclusion reached by the result that the new NESTsregarded content more substantially than the experiencedNESTs. Lastly, unlike the previous studies, the NESTs’perceived-difficulty played a more important role in grad-ing than their perceived-importance regarding the threecriteria (grammar, content, and vocabulary). The paperelaborates the details of the results and suggests a newapproach to reduce the rater-biases even before rater-training is discussed

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