Response to Discussion #7: Foreign Language Assessment

I think that classroom-based tests accurately reflect students’ abilities, but only in certain areas.  Tests usually only evaluate one way of thinking – if it’s a well-made test, maybe it requires you to think a handful of different ways – and that’s a fairly narrow way to measure the various ways different people’s brains work.  I think testing does have its place in the foreign language classroom because it does evaluate basic understanding of vocabulary and grammar, and frankly, if you can’t reproduce those things on an exam, then there is probably a breakdown of your understanding of them.  I also think it’s important for students to occasionally be expected to produce language on their own without any notes or book to help them.  However, tests should not make up a huge part of the grade, especially in beginning levels – maybe 30% at the most. 

I think proficiency-oriented tests do the best job of measuring arguably the most important ability in language, which is the ability to understand and communicate.  Instead of testing only your understanding of direct object pronouns, for instance, they test how well you can apply the language as a whole, and that’s really the area foreign language education aims to develop.  However, proficiency testing does not measure how well someone is absorbing specific course content.  Of course, gaining and evaluating specific content is also of value because individual skills are what ultimately improve proficiency.  As a compromise, such achievement-oriented tests to measure content absorbed in the classroom should utilize different types of questions to allow for different ways of thinking about the concept.  As many questions as possible should require meaningful processing, meaning that student needs to be able to understand the context in order to answer the question.  This requires them to apply more skills on each question and represents a somewhat closer, but in no way exact, approximation of their proficiency level.

I am fortunate as a test taker.  I get just enough anxiety to get me to study but not so much that it negatively affects my performance.  As a seasoned student (as we are all in this class) I am used to the way exams are formatted and usually have some idea ahead of time about how best to study.  Of course, just a little guidance from the instructor about how to study goes a long way, and in turn I make an effort to help my students structure their studying for Spanish exams, especially with the use of study guides. 

This has been touched on in previous posts, but I will explicitly ask here, do you accept the idea that there are people that “don’t test well”?  I especially remember this being discussed when I took the SATs in high school and some of my friends who did well in school struggled to raise their scores to where they wanted them to be.  If you can’t reproduce information on an exam, what does that say about your understanding?  I do not mean to imply that it means you don’t understand – it could just be that you understand it when you think about the same material in a different way than the test frames the question.  I understand that many people’s anxiety gets in the way of their performance, and later they see the exam and wonder why they did what they did, when they know they know better.  I guess I have mixed feelings - in some ways I understand that some people “don’t test well,” but in other ways I think that the ability to reproduce certain information does represent the level of understanding.  What do you think?