A great way to assess students is through performance based assessment. This will allow the students to decide how to express their knowledge. Also, by implementing a rubric, the students can determine what they'll need to know specifically.
Observation and informal assessment are another great way to determine how your students are learning and what you as their teacher will need to focus more on.
HOW OFTEN SHOULD I TEST MY STUDENTS? AND WHY?
Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2
-
danielwelsch
- Posts: 26
- Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2010 4:15 pm
- Location: Madrid, Spain
- Contact:
There was an article on the NYTimes a while ago that basically said that tests are the best teaching tool. Being tested improves retention, apparently.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/healt ... 7mind.html
Enjoy!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/healt ... 7mind.html
Enjoy!
Test for students
You can keep daily test for few minutes to cover daily lessons. And weekly test and monthly exams are enough for students to excel in studies. 
-
Sally Olsen
- Posts: 1322
- Joined: Thu Apr 08, 2004 2:24 pm
- Location: Canada,France, Brazil, Japan, Mongolia, Greenland, Canada, Mongolia, Ethiopia next
It depends on where you are teaching as well. Do the students take official tests at some time in your course? Then it might be a good thing to prepare them for the official test. You can ask the students to make up questions they think might be on the test for each day that you teach. If it is a multiple choice question, they have to make up three answers or four if the format is usually like that.
I often give students a version of the formal test at the beginning of the class. They can often answer one or two and that gives them confidence. Then as we cover material they can answer the questions they didn't understand.
Knowing the format of the test takes away some of the anxiety of test taking.
I encourage students to form study groups as well so they pass on tricks or handy sayings to remember something difficult or tricky. I let the study groups meet for the last 10 minutes of the class to go over the material of the day.
Portfolio's are great. I give them a class binder to put all their material in - a summary of the lesson, any handouts we had, and I keyboard all written contributions with corrections. In the front is the plan for the course with all requirements and materials. But I also ask them to take at least half of the units and develop their own materials - a plan for a poster, an essay if they are going to write an essay for their test, a game to help them remember specific points, a breakdown of the grammar learned, new words used in an imaginative way, a tape if they are going to have to speak for the test which could be a discussion on the topic, a play they write and perform with friends, and so on. We share these among the groups.
My students also wrote a journal of their learning and they varied from step by step recording of the lessons to expressing their emotions on how they feel about learning and what difficulties they have due to cultural differences of learning English. They put a paper tab on anything they really wanted me to read and handed it in every week. I commented but didn't evaluate or correct. But I did note the kinds of errors I was seeing in the journals and tried to review those points in class without mentioning any names.
I keyboard my journal every night and read it every week to see where I am going, what I think worked and what didn't work. Great therapy and very useful to look back on.
I often give students a version of the formal test at the beginning of the class. They can often answer one or two and that gives them confidence. Then as we cover material they can answer the questions they didn't understand.
Knowing the format of the test takes away some of the anxiety of test taking.
I encourage students to form study groups as well so they pass on tricks or handy sayings to remember something difficult or tricky. I let the study groups meet for the last 10 minutes of the class to go over the material of the day.
Portfolio's are great. I give them a class binder to put all their material in - a summary of the lesson, any handouts we had, and I keyboard all written contributions with corrections. In the front is the plan for the course with all requirements and materials. But I also ask them to take at least half of the units and develop their own materials - a plan for a poster, an essay if they are going to write an essay for their test, a game to help them remember specific points, a breakdown of the grammar learned, new words used in an imaginative way, a tape if they are going to have to speak for the test which could be a discussion on the topic, a play they write and perform with friends, and so on. We share these among the groups.
My students also wrote a journal of their learning and they varied from step by step recording of the lessons to expressing their emotions on how they feel about learning and what difficulties they have due to cultural differences of learning English. They put a paper tab on anything they really wanted me to read and handed it in every week. I commented but didn't evaluate or correct. But I did note the kinds of errors I was seeing in the journals and tried to review those points in class without mentioning any names.
I keyboard my journal every night and read it every week to see where I am going, what I think worked and what didn't work. Great therapy and very useful to look back on.
-
longshikong
- Posts: 88
- Joined: Mon Oct 26, 2009 1:49 am
I currently teach 90 minute beginner adult classes. Since I teach oral English, it's me that does the writing during formal tests but actually, I get most of my relevant feedback from informal tests. I spend up to 30 min's recycling any previous language covered by having students translate from L1 vocabulary, sentences, or dialogues that I come up with. It provides students with sufficient review; a clear understanding of what skills they're expected to have acquired; how well they're doing (in relationship to their classmates); and what they need to personally review. And it informs me who retains what and for how long and whether I'm going too fast or too slow.mamadepeter wrote:Hello,
I think something very important is recycling what you did the previous lesson....here,we don't necessarily call it testing but in a way that's what you are doing...
In addition, translation's far more effective than me simply asking questions in English because, when you think about it, questions alone offer too much of a prompt. My students have told me they want to be able to converse in English which demands far more than just responding to questions. As a language learner myself, if I only answered questions in L2 I'd be speaking it less than 5% of the time.
Those of you who vehemently condemn the use of L1 in class, come on, bring it on, I'm a waitin' for ya!!!
