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.

As an intern at Exeter High School, I have handed out, corrected, and handed back close to 12 in total throughout the semester. As I correct the exams, I often find myself thinking about these discussion questions. Did this test accurately reflect my students' abilities? I often find that students who do not do well in class are the students that do not perform well on the exam, and students who participate and make connections in class do well. As high schoolers, I think this has a lot more to do with their study habits, attention span, and interest in the material than it does with the test. I had a couple of students come into class one day and say that they didn't like my class because "they had to try". I do agree, and have first-hand experience that foreign language comes more easily to some than it does to others, but even those that understand it need to put in effort. When students do not perform well on an exam, I go back over the parts that they got wrong and I constantly ask myself if I covered that section enough? Was I clear enough in my presentation? Was the question confusing? Every time I found the question to be clear and the material to be covered well. Therefore, when students do not do well on an exam, I think it has more to do with their study habits than the quality of the question.

With that being said, I do not think that written tests are always a great indication of the knowledge that our students have. I do believe that there are some students who are genuinely poor test-takers, and let anxiety and stress interfere with their ability to portray their knowledge of the subject. I find that this is more likely when the subject doesn't come easily to students. When I was a student, I would study for a French test, go into the exam with little stress and do well. However, the story was completely different when it came to calculus or chemistry. I could study for hours on end and I would go into the test shaking with nerves, and get a mediocre grade. The grade didn't always reflect that I didn't know an aspect of the subject; when I was anxious or stressed I would have a much harder time recalling the information, which I think happens to some students. 

With foreign language, I think that there are a variety of tools and methods to test students' ability. I remember when I was in high school, my teacher had a test with four separate parts on it: a listening, a speaking, a reading, and a writing component. I think that if a written test is the preferred method then these are the four areas that need to be tested. However, technology has added more ways of testing students. Exeter high school has a wonderful language lab where students have headphones with attached microphones, and students can record a conversation, or answers to a question. This is a great tool because the teacher can assess pronunciation, without having to take time out of class to do so. Presentations can also be a form of summative assessment. My ED500 experience was at Noble high school and the teacher was wrapping up a unit on restaurants and food, and the exam was a café experience in class that the students had to act out. They had table cloths, plastic silverware and menus, and they had to display their knowledge of the roles of waiter and customer through acting it out. I think that when it comes to assessing students, variety is a good thing because if the same teacher uses tests out of the book all of the time, the students come to expect it.