Thursday, November 12, 2015
Discussion #6: Foreign Language Assessment
How accurately do you feel that classroom-based tests reflect student abilities? What are your experiences as a test-taker? Do you think there are students that do not test well? What method of testing do you think is most effective to measure students' language skills? Use examples to justify your point of view.
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I would argue that classroom-based tests reflect students abilities with 85% accuracy. I personally believe that students typically are able to show most of their ability in the language. but there are many things that do not necessarily get well represented through the medium of an in class test. As a test taker myself, I know that I put a ton of pressure on myself to achieve well and in most scenarios I ended up scoring lower than I know that I could have.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely there are students who do not test well! I know students that put way too much pressure on themselves to succeed and when it comes time to show what they know, they freeze up and can't think straight. Students certainly have different strengths and weaknesses, yet that has never seemed more apparent when students who are capable in class, participate in conversation and even produce great homework and then they underachieve on a test. Tests in most classes take the bulk of the weight because it is believed that a test is a combination of what many quizzes have previously checked and so they will be the sum of the knowledge acquired during the unit. Unfortunately for these students their entire grade could take a huge hit when they do not have as much time to formulate the correct response.
Languages are hard enough to learn in a stress free environment, learning facts and functions in a time based format without having the extra pressure of not performing well on tests and then having that format of knowledge assessment make or break your grade. I firmly believe that students need to have the opportunity to offset a poor test grade in some manner; be that manner projects, or many quizzes, or take home tests, there needs to be some chance for all students to succeed, otherwise the system is failing students, the students are not failing the class.
In order most effectively measure students' language skills needs to first and foremost be a multiple forms of assessment standard. Students cannot be limited to simply one form of language assessment. Students need to be tested in listening, reading, writing and speaking in class and as a take home assignment. There are many ways in order to achieve the speaking portion without having to take up too much time because of recent advances in technology. Students could record themselves speaking on their phones, online or via an alternative method at school and can email the clip to the teacher answering a list of questions. Now there is a question as to to what extent can students use notes, books or other sources to aid in their assessment.
In response to the second paragraph: It is so true that some of the most participatory and engaged students will freeze up on tests and I think you are right. There is a direct correlation between that and the fact that tests have so much of an influence on their grade because of course the kids who care about their grades a lot will be the ones that are engaged and also completely freak themselves out come test time. Is there anything you do in class to try and switch the environment or the "feel" of the class to make it more conducive to peaceful test taking?
Delete"The system is failing students, the students are not failing the class" !!!! Nice, so true.
Tim,
DeleteYou mention students freezing up on tests. How can we as teachers lessen the stress students feel on these tests? Are there things that can be done to make students more comfortable. Maybe teachers could reduce the impact a test can have on someones overall grade.
The idea of using technology and take home assignments to more effectively assess a students knowledge on certain topics is great. These would allow them to expand on the topics and use a medium (technology) that the students are already comfortable with. Home assignments would be taken in a less stressful environment which could mean they would do better.
Tim,
DeleteI agree with what you’ve said in your post about how the pressures and stress involved with testing negatively affect student performance on tests. Additionally, like you’ve mentioned, tests often carry a lot of weight as far as overall student grades go and students who are not suited to language testing and have language skills that aren’t necessarily represented by traditional language grammar or achievement tests will likely be unsuccessful in language classes. In my opinion, language students (and all students) should be given the opportunity to prove their knowledge through many assessment methods including, like you brought up, projects or take-home test formats. I’m interested to know, do you allow your French students to take advantage of several forms of assessment? Are they able to, for example, record themselves on their phones for you to evaluate their oral proficiency?
Kelly,
DeleteI'm not sure exactly what can be done to help students feel stress free while taking the tests.
How do we combat the stress of the environment but maybe if the tests are more frequent and weighted less?
Perhaps that could help, students feel more at ease.
Tim ,
DeleteI agree with you that tests accurately reflect students' abilities, however, I think it is important that the exams hit on multiple skill sets, rather than focusing solely on grammar, or vocabulary, or listening, etc. It's interesting that you mentioned that in your experience, exams have accounted for the majority of your grade in classes you've taken. Last year when I was teaching, we only elected to count exams for 35% of our grades (semester exams and final exam included). We placed a lot of emphasis on homework, attendance and participation because we wanted to encourage our students to show up to class, participate and complete their homework. We felt that if students did well with those things, it would directly impact their exam scores.
Candance,
DeleteI have not bridged that gap yet to do the multiple forms of assessment yet, but I certainly intend to handle that issue soon. I am attempting to make the work throughout the semester as diverse as possible in order to hit each of the types of learners so that they may each get something out of their work. And that they may each have a chance to learn in the way that best helps them!
Overall, I agree with the textbook’s point of view that tests used to evaluate language learners, despite efforts to change classroom testing practices, still largely revolve around achievement or grammar tests. In this sense, I don’t feel that classroom-based tests are necessarily reflective of student abilities in language courses because they focus too heavily on quantitative information (along with most of today’s tests since they are products of the high-stakes testing culture in the U.S.). In reality, much of what language teachers strive to incorporate into the classroom, including the National Foreign Language Standards and the Five C’s, may be difficult to translate into communicative or proficiency tests. For example, Magnan (1991) cites a preference for “discrete-point” testing, the belief that communicative tests are time-consuming to design and grade, and the lack of a widely-accepted communicative testing model as the reasons that explain the challenge of shifting language testing towards a communicative-oriented approach.
ReplyDeleteIn my experiences as a test-taker, I’ve never been as strong as I’d like to be at high-stakes tests (including the GRE and the SAT). I second what Tim mentioned in his post about some students feeling debilitating stress and pressure that might prevent them from accurately portraying their language abilities on tests. I think back to, for example, grading the quizzes of students in a 7th grade Spanish class following the teacher’s preferred grading system. Several student quizzes I saw received failing grades. Though I understand that it’s not realistic for all students to pass every assessment, I question the purpose of assessing students based off of language grammar knowledge after seeing that they’ve failed. What exactly are they learning (if anything)?
Even more concerning to me is the “cheating culture” that seems to result from, or accompany, the high-stakes testing culture in the U.S. Unfortunately, I’ve witnessed students who felt desperate enough to receive a higher numerical score that they resorted to cheating and, at the very least, weren’t learning. I would attribute the cheating culture in part to the stress that achievement and grammar testing prompts in students.
Based off of this week’s reading, I believe that an effective method to measure students’ language skills is to combine “pure” test items to form “hybrid” test items that aim to assess many skills. Like Waltz (1989) states, test items should elicit student understanding of the meaning in order for them to accomplish a given task. In other words, language teachers must balance components of grammar tests with components that take language learning in context into account. Finally, in one of my high school Spanish courses the teacher asked our class to practice oral skills by recording responses to culture-related questions. We would focus on one or two grammar points and we would also have to understand the questions asked to respond. On top of that, the recordings allowed us to reflect on the development of our oral language skills and use that information to improve.
I did not even think about the cheating culture that you mentioned, but that is so true, a direct product of this current notion of "a test" that this country's education system emits.
DeleteI think that tests should not be this fearful thing but rather an exciting thing for the students to be given the opportunity to show what knowledge they have learned, in an ideal world right?
I didn't even think of the 'cheating culture!' That is a great point!!! So in the environment that students absolutely feel like they need to get a high grade at all costs is completely pushing these students to act in such a manner to a point where cheating is their last hope.
DeleteDo you believe that the students are a product of their environment? Do you believe that we are driving the students to act in this way?
Testing in the class room has always been a hard topic for me to say exactly how I feel about it as a whole, as I have so many varied and specific opinions on testing procedures, types of tests, as well as the definition of testing in itself. Testing to me covers such a wide range of forms of evaluations for use by educators, and so to say how accurately it reflects student ability levels is truly a mystery. Tests used in standard classroom education settings rarely demonstrate a diverse array of skills to be evaluated but rather, stick to material and content that can be shown exclusively through written work or speaking tasks. Therefore, they leave gaps where the individual learner can fall through and not display their full potential within the target language, but rather simply show their weakness in the focus area of the test.
ReplyDeleteFrom my perspective I would say that the only sure way to get a rounded and all-encompassing look at student proficiency through testing would require a combination of written, spoken and listening components for the students to show full and comprehensive knowledge. Everybody has their specialties, their strengths, and their shortfalls and weaknesses when it comes to demonstrating what they know, and so by including all of the features of language that they have been exposed to (aural, lexical, grammar, presentation, and etc skills), they are provided ample opportunity to prove their overall ability.
The text book also comes to this conclusion, but even with that, the actual application of a hybridized testing style that brings in more than just grammar would and will pose a challenge to standard classroom practice. Some of the issue comes from the shear amount of time required by students to take such a broadly spanning test, whereas the basic written grammar or vocabulary test takes mere minutes or parts of a class in most cases. These specific types of tests also tend to reflect the style of the class and educator, and more strictly grammar/lexical exams and quizzes tend to come along with more traditional teachers who focus on Translation of Grammar-esque methods.
Oral/Aural examinations are challenging to include but are too necessary not to do with regularity. Additionally, test anxiety and the ability to do well in a timed testing situation differs greatly from person to person, and so to expect that everyone will show their maximum potential and actual application of absorbed information is hardly possible. For these reasons I have never put much merit in generic classroom examination in foreign language classrooms, but rather I look towards an evaluation of more practical language usage in real-life situations and pure actual use of acquired skills.
First sentence*: Thank you, I agree that there is so many different avenues or aspects of test culture that could be explored through conversation.
Delete"I would say that the only sure way to get a rounded and all-encompassing look at student proficiency through testing would require a combination of written, spoken and listening components for the students to show full and comprehensive knowledge"--I think this is well thought out and worded. Makes me think of the concept of balance. Generally tests are usually not broad enough to show a balance of different skills, like you say.
"These specific types of tests also tend to reflect the style of the class and educator, and more strictly grammar/lexical exams and quizzes tend to come along with more traditional teachers who focus on Translation of Grammar-esque methods".
This concept makes me think about material being memorized and thus going in one ear and out the other as soon as the test is finished.
Morgan,
DeleteI understand how you feel about tests. There are so many types and each has positives and negatives. As students planning to be teachers we see both sides of the story which can make things confusing at times. I agree that a combination of things that look at reading, writing, speaking and listening skills would be the best way to accurately assess a students knowledge. My question for you would be what form would these be in? Would reading and writing be a traditional classroom test, or is there other ways you would prefer to test these? How about listening and speaking? Which ways would you test these?
Morgan,
DeleteI find myself agreeing with the last part of your post where you’re talking about valuing the application of acquired language skills (especially as they pertain to “real-life,” authentic situations) over traditional grammar or achievement language testing. I’m curious, do you think that it’s possible to abandon traditional testing altogether and transition to an entirely different classroom setup? I also struggle to come to a consensus about my feelings in regards to testing as well as grading. I would prefer to give students the opportunity to explore language learning through a more project-oriented or interdisciplinary approach so that they are most focused on mastery goals and self-reflection on their progress. I don’t believe it’s possible to evaluate some of the components I value with language teaching through grammar or achievement testing. Relatedly, should students be tested on culture in language classrooms? What would that type of testing look like?
Kelly,
DeleteThere's no way to tell you exactly what form they would be in, from project based assignments to completely verbal pop quizzes that I may decide are necessary to test the waters of a new or difficult unit. I love the idea of using recording devices on phones, computers, and tablets to get the output that I want to see, but in turn also removes some of the stress and tension of on the spot testing. That being said, in person, individualized, and strictly conversational forms of evaluation hold much more sway for me than any written test. Essays and brief creative writing assignments also offer an alternative to say a grammar quiz, forcing students to use their knowledge as a whole to create the answer, even if I am only interested in the grammatical construction. Reading and writing are somewhat more limited in a sense, but to say that you have to use standard written tests as an accurate representation of student knowledge is just unreal to me.
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Candace,
DeleteI do believe that standard classroom style tests can be all-together abandoned in favor of more comprehensive and practical forms of examination. Examining the point the Max made above about how grammar translation and vocabulary quizzes use memory alone to focus on a narrow piece of the overall language, and so it goes in one ear and out the other, I agree that your average word memory type evaluations both push students towards the wrong end and goal of learning a language, and also don't show true retention. In the long run, like you say using projects and more content oriented means of evaluation, these alternatives have a much greater impact on students' abilities to use, recognize, and work with words and concepts over any sort of X=X not Y type of quiz, test, or exam.
As for the cultural aspect, I strongly believe that contextual learning and demonstrating student knowledge through exercises in cultural exchange, projects, and the like will maintain a strong presence in the students' memories. Being able to answer and translate a paragraph about Dia de los Muertos using a few pieces of translated terminology doesn't mean you understand what the festival is and what it is about really. Being able to actively explain and discuss what the holiday is, celebrating and following the customs set from that culture; that is real knowledge, and from that you can truly judge the level of an L2 learner.
Morgan,
DeleteI agree whole heartedly with your view that an exam that hits on and tests multiple different skill sets is most effective. I used this approach in my class last year and got terrific results. Also, I think it is important, as you stated, that we evaluate students on practical language usage- something that is common in language and something they are able to use. What good is it if we put tremendous amounts of emphasis on the future simple when it is not widely used when interacting with other people?
I think that exams fairly accurately reflect students' abilities, however, only when exams are created efficiently. This is an important thing to point out, because too many times in my own test taking experience I have been presented with poorly created exams that haven't hit on the most important grammar topics that teachers put a lot of emphasis on in class. I think that with the combination of efficiently created exams, as well as good student preparedness, students are quite capable of showing their abilities well. In addition to efficiently created exams, I believe another important aspect is how well students prepare for exams. In order to have students test well on in class exams, I strongly believe that they have to be motivated in order to even begin preparing for an exam. With that said, I think that students' test-taking ability goes beyond in-class exams to how well a teacher motivates their students. If a teacher does not motivate their students well enough, students will not have the will to study in order to prepare themselves for in-class exams.
ReplyDeleteGoing off of student preparedness and how important it is in order for students to accurately show their abilities, I think it is essential to point out that there are some students that just don't test well. I believe that some students, by nature, don't test well for several reasons. Whether it is a natural phenomenon associated with the student's academic skills, test anxiety, or a learning disability, I think that some students are affected by certain factors that impede their ability to perform well on in-class exams. During my three years working in high schools, I saw and worked with several students that had these sorts of problems.
When testing a student's language skills, I think that an examination must multisided, in the sense that it addresses several different aspects associated with second language use and comprehension. For example, last year in my Spanish class, we created every exam with a listening comprehension section, vocabulary and grammar sections, a reading comprehension section and a writing section. I found this type of exam model pretty useful in testing our students because it hit on several different language skill sets. Students that prepared for the exams appropriately always did well, and students that did not review often had problems. If a similar method to this is followed, I think success can be found in testing students' skills. I do not believe in an approach that differs from this, where a teacher is constantly focusing on only one skill set in their exams. I think for most effective results, teachers must incorporate all of these into their exam models.
"For example, last year in my Spanish class, we created every exam with a listening comprehension section, vocabulary and grammar sections, a reading comprehension section and a writing section"---Nice, Morgan touched on this in his entry and I think we all can agree that balancing the different sections is very important to give students a balanced change to show their knowledge.
DeleteChance*
DeleteRobert,
DeleteIt’s interesting that you bring up student motivation in relation to testing. What do you consider to be the best ways in which teachers can motivate their students to adequately prepare for language tests? Do you think part of student motivation to prepare for tests might be affected by the types of tests that language teachers design? Student motivation is influenced by several factors, but, at the very least, I believe that, generally, students who are interested in the material being assessed will most likely perform better on exams. Going off of what you’ve said, I would argue that it is our job as language educators to guide students to discover applications of language learning that are relevant to their everyday lives. If, for example, a student perceives course material as being pertinent, they’ll be motivated to not only engage in the course but to learn the course content.
Candace,
DeleteIn my experience, peaking a student's interest by connecting the material of the foreign language class with their major or field of interest is only half of it. Classes need to be simplistic in how the material is presented and straightforward, but most of all, a class needs to be fun. Even if a student makes a connection to their everyday life or what they aspire to do in their career, their motivation levels can be lowered if the class is not fun. I strongly believe that last year we were implementing a sound method for testing our students. 90% of my class was achieving favorable scores on their exams. I did have a couple of outliers that didn't take time to study, and didn't care about the class.
Robert, did you find that there was a specific problem that forced students to be unable to test well?
DeleteI totally agree that the tests must be multisided because otherwise it won't be an effective test.
Bueno, I think a lot depends on the teacher who is providing the test of course but I believe that more often than not in this country (especially in the levels pre-“higher education”) the test is not made by the teacher, or at least not made entirely authentically by the teacher and this seems to be problematic in many ways. I speak from experience when I say the tests that were made by the teacher entirely and authentically were the tests that I did the best on because they directly and completely corresponded with the material (notes) that I had taken during class and therefore being the main points that teacher wanted us to retain.
ReplyDeleteBueno, I think a lot depends on the teacher who is providing the test of course but I believe that more often than not in this country (especially in the levels pre-“higher education”) the test is not made by the teacher, or at least not made entirely authentically by the teacher and this seems to be problematic in many ways. I speak from experience when I say the tests that were made by the teacher entirely and authentically were the tests that I did the best on because they directly and completely corresponded with the material (notes) that I had taken during class and therefore being the main points that the teacher wanted us to retain.
Every student is different and will learn in a different way and there will be many different levels in the abilities and capabilities of the student due to a monton de factors, including within the classroom and external factors of each individual’s environment. I believe one of the best ways to effectively measure and also provide evident measurements of the students’ language skills is to utilize assessments that include certain benchmarks to show how much each student has progressed throughout the year and in which areas they exceled in most and which areas they still need some work with. For example when I took Mr. Chaston’s phonetics class, he had us record a videos of ourselves reading passages from some prominent Spanish literature in the beginning and then in the end of the semester to have as an archive to show our progress with accent and pronunciation (which of course was the main focus of the class). Of course this is not the only way that you can use periodical assessments to convey progress and also feedback for yourself (the teacher), however this idea of periodical evaluations is the main idea and one that I think is most effective to measure language skills.
Max,
DeleteIn response to the beginning of your post, I would like to comment on the point that you brought up about how tests created by language teachers are more effective than tests that language teachers borrow from textbooks or web resources. I also believe that language teachers should be designing language tests with the abilities and knowledge of classroom dynamics as they relate to specific language classes in mind. For example, if a teacher decides to use a generic language test that they do not modify to fit the overall abilities of their language students, then they are not setting their students up to be successful on the test.
Another part of your post that I’d like to highlight is in your last paragraph where you’re talking about progress. Similar to Professor Chaston’s recording assignments, I think that language students should be monitoring their progress while learning a foreign language. Undoubtedly, self-reflection is critical to language classes so that, with the help of the teacher, students are able to identify a few areas to focus on improving to strengthen their target language skills.
Max and Candace,
DeleteI agree completely with you guys in that tests for foreign language students should be made on an individual class basis because of the unreliability of web or book sourced exams. On all levels, not just high school, there is reliance on units designed by others or designed for one purpose: to have more words and say more things. In reality there is no student with just one purpose to learn the language, so why use a narrow scope of evaluation for such a broad perspective and range of language topics for all learners.
Well said Max! I think too often teachers attempt to employ cookie-cutter testing methods where they hack exams from other sources, and don't take the time to create a comprehensive exam that appropriately reflects what has been done in the class. I have encountered this so many times in my experience, and often times, I have not done as well as I hoped, and I did not find that the evaluation method accurately reflected my true abilities. I think that sometimes teachers suffer from time constraints, poorly organize their schedules or are just flat out too lazy to create an adequate exam.
DeleteI feel that classroom-based tests can reflect a student’s ability, but only to an extent. There is more than one fundamental way to measure students’ language skills…
ReplyDeleteBasic grammar formations and vocabulary are aspects that can be measured, such as how much a student is able to retain and able to recall utilize its correct manner of being used in the language. This is only temporary learning though. The only reason they may be able to remember the material is because they know that they will be using it on the exam, what is yet to be determined is how much of the material that was reviewed will be long term knowledge or short term memorization.
That is what I felt in classroom testing in high school and the university level. I was able to recall the material that I had reviewed for hours prior to the examination only to then forget most of the material after the exam; I seldom used many of the terms or the target language from the exam. I probably would not have been to reproduce a lot of the material if it was asked of me the following week, perhaps even the day after.
Another experience that I had was due to a lack of target language use in classes and lack of authentic listening material being used in the classroom setting or for homework the most difficult portions of the examination for me was always the listening portion if it given to us. The authentic material used in the exams was almost always incomprehensible for me. Which caused me to become anxious and not be able to think clearly and would cause me to shut down mentally momentarily.
I have seen some cases where there are students that are able to always follow along in the classroom, they are good students that always do their homework and participate in classroom discussions, and yet, I found that sometimes these students would perform poorly on exams. It never translated from the work that they did into their examinations. At the time, and even now, it seemed that the problem comes from stress and anxiety. But I also think that it stems from the teacher's ability to prepare the students and how students study before their exams.
Of the methods that still currently being used to measure proficiency I cannot agree that there is one method that will be better than all, I will agree that some methods are stronger than others. Although depending on what is the target idea or material that will be tested on, and how it is structured will demonstrate the level of proficiency necessary.
From the text the example that I liked the most was based on “Responding to a Target-Language Text”, a way to combine reading and writing skills in the language. The students are to read a copy of a letter in their exams then use the target language to write open-ended responses. I think this way of testing measures the student's’ proficiency in how they can interpret the authentic material and how they are able to use creativity to give well developed and detailed answers. Students that will use the target language in real life settings must acquire the ability to freely think in the language and be able to produce the language when talking about virtually anything.
"The only reason they may be able to remember the material is because they know that they will be using it on the exam, what is yet to be determined is how much of the material that was reviewed will be long term knowledge or short term memorization". ----This is a really important point. I can completely identify with your next paragraph in that I actually have had the thought: "I may completely lose all this info the day after the test but at least I will do well on it". For me, part of it seems that because of the way we stress ourselves out about the grade, after we have taken the test and feel that we have done well, we almost lose the information off of satisfaction of completing the test, we just let it go. Of course if we never even gain the information in the first place we definitely will not retain. Would you agree with that?
DeleteI feel that classroom testing is not an accurate way to test a students knowledge on a subject. Classroom tests are often given shortly after information has been taught to the students. Many students require more time to process and truly know the information they have been taught. Classroom tests require memorization and not a deeper understanding of the topics. If vocabulary is being tested chances are the students went home the night before or a few nights before and read that vocabulary list 10 times in hopes that they could memorize it and bring it back on the exam. They think they need to pass the test not learn the material. It often happens that students memorize things in short term memory for the test and them immediately following the exam they forget it so they can memorize the next lesson for the next test. Learning become memorization and not deeper understanding and knowledge of topics.
ReplyDeletePersonally I am not a good test taker. I learn better when given time to process the information I was taught. Simply memorizing for the exam is not something I am good at. Often I would do badly on exams but then meeting with the teacher I can answer all the detailed topic questions they ask correctly in the language and use correct grammar. Teachers often didn't understand why I couldn't answer the questions on the test but I know the information.
Like my self I do believe that there are many students who simply do not test well in the classroom. For these students the project based assessments or more open ended questions would be better suited to test their knowledge.
Projects would allow students to display their knowledge of the language and the topics they were taught in class. A presentation part of the project would allow the student to demonstrate orally the language and pronunciation skills they have been taught. Open ended discussion questions allow the student to go into as much detail as the feel is necessary in order to demonstrate their knowledge about the questions asked.
Kelly,
DeleteI agree wholeheartedly that testing has a very limited and traditional approach, especially when it comes to timing. However, do you see any use in apply exams early in the learning curve in order to see who gets what faster and get to know the learning types. Tests do have a function as teaching evaluations as well, and so in that sense I look at tests as a reflection of the breadth to which I have given a theme or topic and how well-rounded the approach was. The more types of students and learners that fail or suffer will determine the role of any given lesson or unit within my classroom then on. Would you agree on this assertion?
Kelly,
DeleteI agree with you that tests, especially in the way you described, do not serve as an appropriate way to evaluate students and gauge their abilities. If students solely cram vocabulary and grammar, then show up at a test, what good does it do? Chances are they will probably forget most of what they crammed as soon as they walk out of the exam. I think that if an exam instead tests multiple different skill sets, such as: oral/listening comprehension, vocabulary and grammar, reading comprehension and writing, this serves as a better way to determine how well our students really know the material.