Job Discussion Forums

[Roger]

Exams should reflect the ability of a student to perform in a given subject, no more, and no less. Society should decide the objectives and goals; professionals should design the exams. Teachers should teach, and at the end of the student's school days another techer should test them. Final exams anyway. During the semester, tests given by the class teacher mnay be acceptable.

What's so difficult to accept? Nothing. We should raise the student's level, not lower their proficiency!

I don't pander to truants and lazy bums! If someone fails, he or she fails by his or her own doing. That there are students that cannot do what I expect of them is not a tragedy, and I am not punishing them; but they too must accept that they get an 'F', so that their future employer is in the know about their English skills!
Society at large, and employers in particular have the right to know!

[merlin]

I'll just play the devil's advacate, Roger - to let you see another perspective.

Oftentimes exams test the ability of a person to take that particular exam. This is why exam prep courses for all the major exams are very profitable. A decent teacher can improve students' test scores on most internationally recognized tests by 10-20% on average just by teaching exam techniques and practicing the way that exam is given. Teaching the test is very good way to appear to be a damn excellent teacher or school.

Usually tests and exams made in-house are even worse. They are either more predictable because of the nature of the exam maker or the results cannot be trusted. For example, too vague in describing subjective assesment criteria (especially in speaking and writing). How many mistakes are "a lot" what is a "big mistake" how long is a piece of string?

Then we sometimes have the situation where the examiners make items that test knowledge of things besides English. For example, british / US culture, items in a household that students might not even be able to comprehend (do they use toilet brushes in Saudi?), idioms that don't translate, Chinglish or whateverish that is perfectly suitable for communication in the real world but which gets on examiners' nerves, and so on.

Well, that was therapeudic for me. I feel much better now.

My point is that exams, lilke humans, have inherent faults.

[valley_girl]

Teaching to the test...oh, don't get me started! What a terrible disservice English instructors do to students when they do this.

Exams in a high school or a university are generally designed by the teacher or professor of the course. There is no prescribed format (at least there wasn't where I attended and I am teaching at my alma mater) for mid-terms and final exams. Therefore, if another teacher or professor is delivering the exam, it is still the exam designed by the teacher or professor of the course, not a randomly-designed test.

There used to be testing done in Canada known as "provincial exams" where students from all schools took the same exam in order to pass high school. It was up to the teachers to teach the subjects that were necessary for students to pass these exams. Therefore, if a teacher strayed too far from the curriculum, students didn't fare well on the tests. Not a fair assessment at all, from what I can see, and probably the main reason this type of examination was discontinued.

I don't like testing my students on their general ability on an exam. That is the purpose of the placement test prior to a student taking his/her course. I test students on the skills they have learned in my classes. This is how I make tests fair and how I assess whether or not what I am doing is working well. If a student wants to know his/her general proficiency at the end of the course, he/she can go take a TOEFL or other standardized exam. I am not testing general proficiency. At the end of the course, they should have gained enough skills in English (in all areas) to be considered to have moved up a level. If they don't learn the skills, their score should reflect that.

I understand what you are saying, Merlin, about in-house testing. However, what is the better way to assess students' performance in a language class?

[merlin]

[Roger]

I understand fully your various observations, but perhaps my approach to testing and examinations has always been different from yours. I DON'T TEACH TO THE TESTS.

Since the Chinese are so examination-fixated I am teaching and helping my students to actually use rthe language that will be tested.

In my classes, we use English in real life-time situations. And, I don't model and pattern their ways of speaking English too much; that smacks too much of the Chinese-style spoon-feeding.
I actually encourage my learners to bring notes and dictionaries to exams and tests - yes, I do! But, I do not want them to memorise things and only use what they have learnt by heart. I want them to learn on their own. That means, my learners must be able to handle a phrase or sentence that may contain a totally new lexical or phrasal item, and arrive at some well-reasoned guess or opinion as to its meaning within its context.
I certainly don't review all the words we may have stumbled across during the whole semester or year; I use some of them in the exams in an impromptu kind of dialogue or instruction in writing.
And, i take extra care to ensure that students canNOT COPY FROM ONE ANOTHER - neither in writing nor in speaking. I separate them physically, and I give them different tasks.

Ideally, a school system has standardised exams and even standardised syllables, so that both teachers and students know their deal. This is, unfortunately, not the case in China. Every teacher has to lower his or her own expectations according to the willingness of their students to do their bidding. You have to be "friends" with your learners; I call this a unholy, unprofessional relationship. I don't give my students such clout over me!

i taught at a British-run international school for two years. I knew what was being expected from my students, but they were less than keen on studying their subject. When time came for them to sit their GCSE exam for this subject (not English), they had to sit it in a different school (not familiar with its lay-out) and under totally unknown teachers.
This ensured maximum objectivity, and had both the students and myself worry to no end.
interestingly, the student I was worried about the most scored so much better than during all those tests in which he showed mediocre familiarity with the subject, while my best student who I thought would pass with an 'A', actually fell to a level the first guy would normally have been satisfied with.
Needless to say, all passed this exam, which was monitored from London with tapes being made of spoken production of the target language being listened to by yet another teacher and essays being checked by yet another teacher.

What is the poiknt of being too sympathetic to underachievers? Especially in China where the majority only are motivated to study English so that they can move abroad/ Everyone of them gets a hard knock-back when they find out that their English proficiency is nowhere near where it ought to be in order to obtain a study visa!
Somewhere around 80% of study applications are turned down every year! this is a reality check that must shake their confidence to its foundations!
I don't want to be guilty of having misled them!

[merlin]