Korean Job Discussion Forums

[grainger]

Can anyone tell me what they do at their school for level tests? I teach at a Kindergarten (ages 5-8 Korean) and need to either find or develop level tests in order to separate the beginners from the intermediate kids. It's a new school (about two years old) and up until now the director has been separating the kids by age, but that leads to the problem of having a variety of different levels in one room and makes it a nightmare to teach. Plus, kids start dropping out because they are either learning beneath their level or above it.

Level testing may lead to more work but the kids will learn more and I'll be able to teach more effectivily. Besides, if too many kids drop out where's my job security

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[ChopChaeJoe]

Are you talking about with new students?


I try asking them questions at first -- what is this, what are these, with simple pictures. From there i ask, Can you (swim)? Can you (drive)?, et cetera.

Do you like pizza? Do you like chop chae?

I listen for any attempt at sentence construction.

After that I might ask some phonics questions -- what letter is this, what does (s) sound like (while touching my ear.) I might bring out something to read, with short vowels only, then on to sentences.

For he ages that I teach 4-11, it works pretty well. Sometimes you get a kid who can read but has no English comprehension at all, taught to read by korean-only speaking parents I assume.
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For students you already have, give them a test after two or three months coverin what you taught, if they've gotten the gist of it, they need to be moved up. If they get less than 50% they're on the right level. If they turn in a blank paper, or one with childlike anime drawings on it, move them down.


I try to make my level tests with reading, listening, writing, and speaking components. Even the most basic students can be tested for reading. if you have some very simple pictures of a category, say fruits, with all different first letter sounds, have them match the word to the picture. if they have any phonics skills at all they will get some correct. You can also add plurals to see if they look for the s at the end -- have a picture for apple and another for apples.

[grainger]

Thanks for the ideas.

She will want me to test the existing kids and all new arrivals. She's completely scared that the parents will object if we move the kids down a level but there are kids in the 8 year old class who can't read and at least one kid in the six year old class who can read quite well. The new kids in the 8 year old class are only put there because they're 8 years old, so they don't understand what's going on, and they're frustrated, so they drop out and the mother of the brilliant six year old is going to realize that her son isn't learning any new material and he's going to be pulled.

I was trying to find something that sounded fairly official so that the mothers couldn't or maybe wouldn't complain It would help to calm my directors nerves. However, I'm content with writing them myself. She has a fairly well laid out curriculum so it shouldn't be that difficult.

keep the ideas comming if you have them. Thanks

[ChopChaeJoe]

I find that parents are pretty confiden in us foreign teacher's deciding where to put the kids. the problem comes when the staff pressures us to sign off on a kid going to a class he/she shouldn't be in. Pretty much, we make the call.

I interviewed an adorable 4 year-old(born 2/2002) girl yesterday. She's been studying English since she was 2, dig on that! The director assured the mother she could go into the 6 year old (Korean 7 year old) class. I tested her, found she had excellent listening skills and good comprehension, phonics knowledge, tried to sound out the words I presented to her to read, but she couldn't read. The 7 year old class not only reads, but answers questions in s-v-o form. She went into the 5 year old (Korean 6 year old) class and nobody objected. Her first class was today and she did fine.


In another case I gave into pressure to move an 8 year old (Korean 9) student up into a class of kids ages 7-10. I had to make a level-level test that would sufficiently demonstrate her ability to do so. She made a 91 on the test, the next highest in her class was an 83 (by an extremely intelligent 7 year old who has been studying English for less than 3 months.) The other students in her new class can read at various levels, but this girl can only sight-read and sound out some simple words. I caved because I've been teaching the girl for about a year and although she is a below-average learner, she has excellent behaviour and listening skills. It will be rough, but maybe the challenge will awaken her. I did have to dumb the class down a bit to bring her on though and that hurts.

[grainger]

bump: Not willing to let it die just yet. I'm now looking for critera. Like a 1-5 rating scale for reading and conversation.