Job Discussion Forums

[km618]

I was told that the final grade was supposed to be made up of a final exam (70%) and a participation grade (30%). So...for the final, I just talked to each of them for a minute or so about whatever they wanted. But...I don't really think that it's "fair" to the students who come to every class to have a lower grade than students who have only come to about 1/3 of them. There is a girl who never really came to class, but she did a great job on the final. She almost sounded English and she was very articulate. She's going to end up getting better grades than most people in my class.
And...some of them have had a lot more time studying English than the others (she must be one of them), so how can I give a grade for something that wasn't even learned in my class?

Well, those are my thoughts on the whole thing. What should I do about it? My question is only about the girl I mentioned...just in general. I hope you understand what I'm saying because I'm really tired right now and I'm not sure if I'm making sense...

[Shan-Shan]

[tw]

Yes, I hope you take attendance every class and put the 30% towards attendance. Actually, my students can not miss three lessons or they can't even take the exam. Also, I consider them absent if they show up late.

[eslstudies]

[randyj]

Often it boils down to the choice between absolute achievement and relative performance that includes stuff like attendance and class participation. It's a dilemma. I choose absolute achievement, so someone who speaks well will receive a good mark whether they come to class or not. Fair or unfair, the grades I assign reflect ability to produce oral English. That's just me. I can see it both ways.

[latefordinner]

Absolute achievement vs relative performance? One way to work around this dilemma is to give assignments during the year that have to be performed in class. I gave 50% for the final exam, 25% each for 2 group projects that had to be performed in front of the class. Your team has to debate issue X on week Y, one grade for the whole team so the better students are advised to help the weaker ones. Your team has prepare a 10 minute skit on week 16, choose a topic from the list. One mark for the whole group, so again strong students help the weaker ones. Oh, you couldn't find anyone to work with? Well you can do a make-up assignment, 3 minutes after class. I'll give you the topic and 1 minute to prepare. Oh, you were sick last week and your group had to ask someone from another group to take your place? No matter, you can act out your part for me at lunch time. Works for me

[naturegirl321]

Make the final exam structured around what was done in class. We usually have questions dealing with X tense. Then discussion of a picture and then a role-play which has to do with the tenses and vocab.

[Leon Purvis]

In my school, we have the 70% final grade policy, but I don't adhere to it for every student. Those who attend class only for the final test but who meet all of the speaking criteria (ability to understand and answer the prompt, speak clearly with few or no grammatical errors) are assigned a grade of 100 for the test. Their semester average, however, is a 70.

Those who have three or fewer EXCUSED absences and participate in all of the graded exercises are treated a little differently. They are allowed to choose from an average of their grades as above OR they may opt for their final test to count for 100% of their grade. I offer this because I believe that what matters most is not how well they speak in the beginning of the term but how well they speak at the end of the term. (What hinders most of my nonEnglish majors is anxiety).

This second option is popular among the students who feel ill at ease at first and who allow their anxieties to interfere with their performance but who really care about their work and who enjoy class except for the formal performances. They manage to muster their courage for the end of the term. These are the students who nearly pass out from fear in the beginning of the term.

Students are also given the opportunity to choose the format of the final test: a prompt for which they may prepare a response without written notes or same as the previous but in a group. The students are also given the choice of taking a test for which there can be no preparation. This usually involves a conversation in the form of a telephone call in which I take the role of someone who works in their line of study (international trade, engineering, etc.).

Throughout the semester, students are encouraged to take risks in order to increase their comfort with the language. I am always surprised when students opt to make the final count for 100% of their grade. Some of them are consistent high scorers; others are consistent low scorers. They almost always opt for the phone call for some strange reason.

I encourage students to stop and speak with me when we see each other between classes. They are given extra grades for these chats. One semester, a few students' grades were based solely upon conversations which we had during lunch or dinner in the school cafeteria, though they were required to participate in class anyway.

One semester, I made the mistake of telling one class of English majors that they could improve their grades if they any of them would have lunch with me on Fridays or weekends. I believe that the class ganged up on me because I found myself taking the ENTIRE class (forty students) to lunch at a restaurant during a school holiday. It cost me 600Y but it was worth it!

All grading possibilities are explained at the beginning of the term, and my methods are transparent. The students appreciate this, I think.

[SnoopBot]

Check into the student more before you grade her low. I've had this happen before and it is not always the students fault. Here is one reason below:

1. Student A never attended my classes but exactly the same thing as you, she showed up during the oral test. She was awesome and I wished she would have been in my classes.

However, I was going to mark her low for non-attendance.

Later I found out during the initial testing phase, they found her ability was very high for the level of 3 classes that were being conducted. The school made the choice to pull her out of the oral classes because they felt she would dominate the conversations and others would lose face (especially forthe men) that her ability was good.

However, I found out she traveled abroad and went to high school as an exchange student in Canada. For 3 years she lived abroad.

Therefore, I graded her for her Oral test only, why punish her if the school was the one to advise her to not attend the FT classes because her ability was already high.

They made this determination because they thought her presence would distract the other students.

This IS a COMMON practice for the Chinese admin to pull. However, she still needed some grade marked on her paperwork for an Oral test.

They felt they would "lose their face" to test a student who had better oral ability than the Chinese teachers giving the test so they pawned her off to the FT's to do the testing.

I bet you this is the case in your situation.
Please don't punish her.

[Leon Purvis]

Snoopbot,

The FL dept. would know this about such a student and adjust the grade accordingly. I don't see how a FT can know about such things and I don't see how any teacher can grade a student for what he has NOT done.

I turn my grade books in at the end of the term. If a student wants to question his grade, he is encouraged to speak to the head of the department or with the FT liaison or his group leader. The truth is that despite the opinion--- and experiences--- of some FTs, there are Chinese FL departments who want to see their schools run professionally, so they respect the grades of the foreign teacher.

If word gets out that a student can make a high grade despite his failure to attend class, there would be very few in class, and there would probably be few who attended regularly.

[SnoopBot]

[caius celestius]

[km618]

Ok, thanks for the replies. This site has really helped me out a lot and I really appreciate it.

I've posted on here before and I admitted that, at first, I really didn't have any clue what I was doing. I was pretty much on my own and nobody really told me how to do anything. The guy who gave me the job gave us a little advice: "Talk to them about something...talk to them about...about CARS!" "Give them lectures and use powerpoint."...When we (my brother and I) told him that we didn't have any clue what we were doing, he just said "Don't worry. You're a native speaker. You're an expert.", and we knew that wasn't true....man, I really hate that guy.

So, at first, I started to bring in topics, but they would never talk. After a while, I started to look on the internet and I posted on this site to find ideas for the class. After I got my shit together, my class got a lot better and more people started to show up...they didn't even want to leave when I told them that they could go home a few minutes early, so they must have thought that it was at least a little bit interesting...I taught them idioms, slang, and phrasal verbs in alphabetical order (going over three or four letters each class), pronunciation drills, tongue twisters (they gave me Chinese tongue twisters and a good time was had by all), and put a few lines like "I think that China is a____country because..." or "If I could go anywhere in the world, I would go to____because..."

Since I wasn't really doing a decent job up until that point, I didn't think that I should punish students for not coming to class, since I was at fault, in a way. So, the lowest grade for participation I gave anyone was a 70. Other than a few students who I had never seen before the final. I'm just going to give them final grades of 70. I remember everyone who came to class from the beginning, so they'll get better participation grades, even if they never really talked (which was my "fault" again, because I should have pushed them harder)

That was my second class...my first class had 53 people in it, and I really didn't like to teach it. One of them stole the attendance sheet on the second to last class. I let them pass it around and check their names, and I would always count right before the break was over to make sure that nobody checked their friend's name off. Well, one of them stole it, so I'm just going to give everyone an 80 for participation, except for the students who have only showed up to a few classes, or never at all....and the few who talked all the time. I remember who they are. I'm pretty pissed about the whole thing. I guess I shouldn't have trusted a group of young adults to act like adults and be a little honest, not "tee hee hee. let's steal the attendance sheet. tee hee hee this is so cool." It's better to give a high grade to someone who doesn't deserve it than a low grade to someone who doesn't deserve it...at least that's what I think.

I've said a lot here...some of it was off topic, but I just threw that out there incase someone wants to comment on it.

[eslstudies]

[tw]