Recently, in Arlington Reads, they gave the students a post-learning test which was similar to the one they took as the placement assessment three months ago. However, what we have been teaching them during the past several months really had very little to do with the English proficiency test. Guess what? Only two of the test takers got improved. Two of them even stepped backwards. My supervisor felt very frustrated and disappointed about that. She showed us the results and asked for our opinions. None of the co-workers said anything. I asked my supervisor, "Was the test relevant to what we have been teaching them?" She pondered and she replied, "No." Then, I said, "Then, this test is not valid to measure the efficiency and result of our teaching." She thought about it for a while and then she agreed with me.
The other possible reason for students not making obvious progress might be: my supervisor and co-workers seldom correct students' errors. Although I raised that issue for several times in our teaching meetings, they did not see eye to eye with me on that issue. They believe we should just let things (language learning) happen naturally and automatically. However, the students are adults; some of them are over 50!! I guess we do not agree with each other on the differences between language acquisition vs. language learning.
As ESL/EFL teachers, if we want to measure our students' progress as well as our own teaching efficiency, maybe we should consider more about validity beforehand. I think if we keep on giving students not-so-valid tests, students will consider us not reliable gradually, which is not what we expect or want. In addition, language-focused learning, recast and error treatment are also very important. Communicative approach is very good, but communicative approach without error correction at all can be very risky.
I agree with this; the tests given at Arlington Reads are not really valid. My student read her way through the textbook and wanted to take the test after that. I asked for the test in advance so I could look through it (because I wanted my student to pass). I found that half of the material was something that we hadn't even talked about (like counting paragraphs) and others were just not really reading-based but writing-based (punctuation). So I ended up spending a few weeks teaching to the test so she could pass. As teachers, the tests should cover what we've taught. When we have to teach to a test there is something wrong in the system.
ReplyDeleteRuby, I vote with you and Sean. And while the conversation class I teach provides a different set of challenges, the 'validity test' here is: do the students notice an increase in the ease with which they interact in certain situations, like the supermarket, drugstore, parent-teacher conferences, confidence in pronunciation (the harshest critics appear to be the students' children who learn English w/American accents in what seems to be a flash, and are only to happy to 'correct' their parents speech!), etc.
ReplyDeleteAnd though it feels great to hear stories of accomplishments using English in the real world, since I am not teaching from a structured program, syllabus, or set of books, I often feel the lack of a yardstick by which to measure progress. Well, maybe you have eased that concern of mine a bit ..
I hear your frustration with the measuring instruments, and I also hear your frustration with what also appears to me to be the non-responsiveness of the program staff. I do not think it unreasonable to look to them for general structure and guidance for the program's mission, goals, and means of getting from one to the other. There seems to be a pervasive "oh, well ... " attitude that is upsetting to me, as it clearly is to you.
Thoughts? Anyone? As I said in my post on managing a volunteer program, do they have to be so very loose?
To quote Charlie Brown: "Aaaarrrrrrgh!"