Allow me to expand. When I was in school (weird - that's in past tense), I secretly liked exams. I've always been a good student. I can memorize pretty well. My parents read to me. I like to read. I like doing tedious math problems; in fact, I find them kind of therapeutic. Exams, unlike kickball, were affirming. I would study (which I didn't mind), memorize things that were usually pretty interesting, go into the exam, and dominate. I remember at the end of a theology exam, I wrote "I feel like I have just emptied my brain onto this piece of paper." That's basically my experience of exams. I memorize things, I write them on a paper, I get a good grade and feel happy when I see it on the fridge.
For lower level things, I think that's okay. There comes a point when you simply have to memorize things because you don't know them. I had to memorize the subjunctive in Spanish because I didn't know it. However, I think education has become too much of a memorization system. What about discovering? Did the most powerful educational experiences in your life take place in a lecture or a textbook? Those things have their place. But I teach conversational English. How in the world does one grade that? How are you supposed to give a grade to a person's ability to express their self in a different language? It's totally illogical. What if they get nervous and mess up a verb tense? I still understand them. If they catch the mistake, do I still dock points?
The system is flawed.
What about when the book exam asks for five synonyms for "frightening" and I, the native, find one: "scary"? (I don't think that "exciting" counts.)
My confession is this: I just gave exams. Last time I gave exams, I got chastised for giving too many high grades (which is also silly because if the exam reflects classwork, and people have learned in my class, they should do well on the exam). So this time, I structured the exam so that I would get the "right" dispersion of grades. That's terrible. Only the clever students, the ones who have had outside the classroom English grades, did really well. That's not fair at all. And I'm mad at myself and the system. I want to change things up, I want to make my classwork interesting and practical. That's why I'm here. Learning from other people is fascinating. Students have things that interest them. We can talk about those things in English. It's just more work for me.
I have private English lessons with two seven year-old girls. One of them is very good at picking up sounds. She imitates the noises I make and doesn't think about how the word looks written down, how the letters make different sounds than in Spanish. She remembers words and sounds.
The second girl has a markedly Spanish accent. She slurs sounds as if they were Spanish. She is confused by how English differs from what she knows. However, when I ask them to draw a word or a picture, she whips out these incredible drawings. Her mom has all this art stuff laying around and uses the art to decorate the house. Seriously, she painted some ceramic stuff and I thought it came from Ikea. That's how good she is. And she's seven.
So obviously, if I test them by showing a picture of two blue butterflies and asking "What's this?" the first girl will do better. If I say "draw me two blue butterflies", the second girl will do better. And this is a pretty trivial example.
All of my classes love having conversations, debates, and sharing their opinions. I love that. It's so... human. We have this innate desire to be listened to, to share, to learn and be valued. I love hearing what my students think. I notice in Spanish too that it's much easier for me to focus if the topic of conversation is something I'm passionate about. Now this is where I have to exert more energy because I could care less about two punk-rock bands, but I have many students who would get really excited by talking about when they started, who influenced the lead singer, etc. So diversity is key. I'll keep working on it.
I would love to hear some thoughts about this topic: exams, alternatives to exams, learning, etc. Let me know what you think!
3 comments:
Hi Ellen,
You may not remember, but we met at the JW pilgrimage a couple of years ago. I have been teaching English to Hispanics (Mexicans and Guatemalans) for almost 2 years now and have slowly been developing tips, tricks and ideas to help the process. One major thing about exams that I like is they can prove to the student that they are actually getting better at English. I don't think I can emphasize that enough. The students need a way to measure how far they have come, and exams are a way to do that.
Now, I understand your frustrations on the unfairness of exams. I have one student whose wife and kids speak fluent English so he gets tons of exposure at home, while other students have none. How can an exam be fair to the lower student?
An idea that I want to try on my next teaching cycle is a pre-test/post-test method. At the start of a semester, unit, whatever; do a pre-test on the subject just to see what the students know. Then at the end of the semester, their "final exam" is to correct their own test. No need for grading, and the student gets to see how they have improved.
Hope that gives you some ideas.
Adam
Ellen, you have put into words a lot of the things that have been going through my mind this year.
Luckily in my classes I am only required to grade on participation and attitude (one teacher was horrified when I asked if I could give my students a test). Most of the participation grade is based on their worksheets and presentations, but I also keep track of how often they use English in the classroom (which is tedious, but I know that a lot of them cheat on their work so I want to round things out). One person suggested having cards with all of the students’ names and randomly drawing them when calling on students to answer questions, and then keeping track of how often they answer and how well. I like presentations more than exams, though, because students have more power over their grades because they have time to prepare, get feedback, and practice. There are so many things you can do, like sketches, dialogs, current events, how-to, stories, reports, theater…
When I was in high school, though, our Spanish teacher had a good system for grading participation. She gave each student an envelope and when we participated in class (usually answering by answering questions or contributing to conversations or debates), she would give us “pesos”, which were just laminated copies of money. If we used English in class she would take away pesos. Then at the end of the grading period we would turn them in for our grade.
But grades in a conversation class are always difficult, because like you said some students have a definite advantage over the others. Those of my students who have private lessons are miles ahead of the rest. The best way is to track individual progress, but then how do you measure it? By vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, fluency, accuracy…?
I like what you said about learning from students and making classes interesting and practical. “Students have things that interest them. We can talk about those things in English.” For most of my classes I’m bogged down by the curriculum (basically units that the teachers didn’t have time for so they gave to me, but not necessarily good material for a conversation class!), but for my lower level I have more freedom. I try to do things that interest the students and get them excited, and I try to focus on things that I can offer that their teachers can’t, like teaching about American culture, idioms, and just getting them to speak more. Even though the system is definitely flawed, I think you have the right attitude. I feel like I am constantly failing as a teacher, but I figure if I keep trying and I come up with a couple of good activities and make a couple of improvements on the lesson plans, I will make things better for next year’s students and teaching assistant.
I totally resonate with the beginning of your post. I too loved exams in my early school years (and even into much of college), and I understand your frustrations with "the system." we should skype about this, it will take much less time than trying to type
Post a Comment