"When we are preparing students for an exam, we need to ignore the exam from time to time so that we have opportunities to work on general language issues, and so that students can take part in the kind of motivating activities that are appropriate for all English lessons" (Harmer, page 391).
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I really insist that the English department of Education in Korean stop the test for language and ignore t. This brave adjusting will let the koran EFL leaners out of the pressure of learning language, but having fun of it. Therefore, the students have chances to work on general language issues, and so that students can take part in the kind of motivating activities. As we all know language is a vehicle of communication, not for the test unlike korean education force Korean EFL learners to get high score from the multiple-choice answers which constitutes a lot of language forms. Most of english teachers haven't being been as Non-exam teachers , and are suffering from difficulty to use a range of activities. In this situation, Most korean English teacher , as exam-teacher's the washback effect stick rigid -format activities and are grounded far more in mainstream classroom activities. ****
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, it's time do practice and whole test and that students feel free for test for the experience. And the teachers give the test various points in a course and finally in testing.
Accordng to Harmer(p.391) if studying students are concentrating on exams, lessons are going to be tiresome and their English improvement may become compromised.
ReplyDeleteMy oppinion is that if students get a course of studying, they cannot keep away from exam. So teacher and students are preparing tests. Just "ignoring" is not producing any gains.
Rather than ignoring a test, teacher could give students a guideline on assessing at the first time of the class. For that teacher could build a appropriate course to improve students' English. If they know what the test
will want, they can prepare it and free their minds from anxiety over a test.
According to Harmer, His insist souds great for students.
ReplyDeleteLook at Korea's situation.
In korea, English learning situation was very poor for general students. They had rarely chance to meet or talk with English native speaker except School.
However, Students have to pass University Exam. Most of the Parents wanted to make his son to be a good English Speaker.
So, Harmer's opinion was very ideal insist in korea.
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ReplyDeleteIn Korea, we usually do the test in class kind of vocabulary, grammar, comprehension. In high level class it can be helpful because they are already advanced student so they might need this test. but in lower level class if we force them do the test they must get lost their interest. Studying language takes very long time even it takes their whole life. So we need to make the students enjoy the lesson with a lot of activities and no test!~ I mean the test ignore time to time. It doesn't need to do every lesson. In my opinion some tests are good for the students. Kind of diagnostic or achievement test. It can hold the test every 3 or 6 months. So students can get good tension then they review the textbooks which they've been studied. We can see which students couldn't follow the class and can help that students with another solution.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I agree with Harmer's idea, but how do we dare to ignore test in Korean society? We have ranked people by their test scores, and we need the score for entering university and getting job.
ReplyDeleteThis situation happens not only in English but also in all other sugjects and studies. We Korean don't have large territory or affluent natural resources, and what we have is just human resources. Higher education has meant better human resource and education has became the crucial key for success. All Korean have tried to educate their children as well as possible and it has caused excessive competition for enterance exam. Academic interest or desire have been supposed to be unrealistic ideas, and everybody has pursued each other not to be left behind.
What a tragic situation ? I really hope that we can teach and study, forgetting test.
If our educations are aiming their improvement of language skills, the ways we can evaluate their ability would be numerous than just multiple-choice method which is the most commonly used in Korea. However, the ultimate goal of education in Korea seems like identifying and classifying the students' level of skills for university admission but improving their real English literacy.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of CSAT, I cannot hand-in a better idea of how to assess and set the new criteria. Nevertheless, teachers have to try, I insist, various methods of indirect evaluation, sometimes they need to even forget about tests, so that students can enjoy their ventures of learning English. Not any other methods would be better for learning than enjoying.
There may be no way to escape test during learning. Testing can show the degree of the students’ achievement and help to make plan for the future work
ReplyDelete. However if we insist on written-form test, especially multiple choice questions for comprehension and speaking, we may deprive opportunities to enjoy producing English from our students and demotivate them to learn. If we intend to allow our students feel free for test and devoted themselves to general language issues, we must change evaluation methods. We can select
direct test item asking to perform communicative task than indirect test items And we can also observe students work over period of time from portfolio assessment.
Yes, I think ignoring the exam from time to time is important, because we first need to improve the student’s basic foundations before we could progress into other complicated things in detail at the higher level to prevent unnecessary confusion. It would also make the learning process of the examination much more effective and efficient as a result by increasing their problem solving abilities rather than just by regurgitation of lectures or factual texts. As the students find it easier and comfortable in what they are studying, they would be automatically motivated to learn with their best, releasing their true potential.
ReplyDeleteWhen I wanted to introduce a easy but beautiful English poem because I thought it was good way to have fun and read English with their heart not brain, my students asked me if I made test problems with that peom. Their only interest is if something is on the test or not. When teaching high school students, I saw most of the students feel bored at training for test types again and again, but they thought they need to do that because CSAT was so important to them. When because of my job, many people ask me how to study English, I asked them, "Why do you want to study English?" and I am often surprised at their no specific reason to study English. They just think English is important anyway, so it is good way to take a English test, for example, TOEIC, TOEFL, or TEPS just in case. So many people in Korea study English only for a test. I believe there are many attractions of English besides having good scores in English tests, but I myself hardly find any other ways to motivate students to study English, but preparing a test even though this situation, that the whole country goes mad at English, is abnormal and needs to change.
ReplyDeleteThe balance between test preparation and more general language issues is very difficult to achieve. Tests are important as a gauge of students skills and are used for many important purposes such as university entrance. Clearly, it would be inappropriate to ignore test requirements entirely. More motivating tasks are important to keep students interested in their learning and to prevent them from feeling overly stressed. The best approach would be not only to balance between test preparation and more entertaining langauge teaching, but also to attempt to find more interesting ways to teach and practice the skills to be tested instead to constantly drilling with practice tests.
ReplyDeleteTesting is usually done based on teaching methodology. On the contrary, the case that testing has an effect on the teaching methodology is washback. There are some beneficial washback but also some harmful washback. For example, the purpose of learning English is promoting communication. But if testing is done by multiple choice, learners can focus on the study of multiple choice. So to create beneficial washback, it will be helpful to do informal performance assessment. If a student does a good job, you give praise and if he or she doesn’t do well, you give an advice and critical opinion. Then the student will have motivation, self confidence and language ego. And if formal assessment is done, it would be better to give them detailed comment or more classified score than to give letter grade like A,B,C…
ReplyDeleteFormative assessment can have an instant washback effect, on the other hand, because summative assessment is done by the end semester, it could be considered less washback effect. But because finishing one semester means beginning another semester, it also can give enough washback effect. Besides content validity can raise another washback effect. To raise content validity, we have to design direct test, if so, the students can do more meaningful study to prepare for direct test of real performance.
It seems hard to ignore the exams from time to time in Korea. Most Korean English teachers test their students vocabulary and grammars often to make the students study hard on English and to let them ready to learn the next step well.
ReplyDeleteThe reasons why they do that are reasonable, but they should have known that giving students exams does not effective. The students would lost their interests in learning English instead as they would get stressed.
Students can learn more by doing some activities. We can not learn a language freely if we know we are going to have an exam about this we are learning now.
In conclusion, test preparations and general language issues need to be balanced even if it is hard to keep the balance.
Test is necessary to improve a student's ability. While students preparing their test, they study more and more. If there are not tests, nobody studies. (of course there are exceptions) Test is test. Nobody gains without pains. Teachers should give knowledges to students. Only diligent students enjoy test. Teacher can not give enjoyment to lazy, bad stuents.
ReplyDeleteEnglish education is one of the Lee Myung-bak administration's major projects to upgrade national competitiveness that I believe. Presidential aides unveiled the ``English immersion education'' plan with the aim of giving Americanized English education to public schools.
ReplyDeleteThe domestic private English education market is worth more than 15 trillion won, according to the Samsung Economic Research Institute, but Korea ranked 19th out of the 20 countries surveyed few years ago in the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) test, which is used for grading English proficiency among people planning to emigrate. Then how we going to do with this situation? I would like to tell you about the plan. The plan I believe that korean english classrooms will be established to encourage students to practice that they have learnt by 2011.
The plan is a major U-turn on the current focus on reading and grammar. I think the government believe that it will show that public education is enough to make students use English in life. Students will be placed into three or four groups according to their proficiency by 2011. Low-level students will get special education and mentoring from assistant teachers who are university students. They will also be sent to English camps for familiarization with the language. The government said No evaluation is planned for elementary school students, but for second and third graders at high schools, speaking, listening and writing will account for more than 50 percent of English test scores. Speaking will be weighed more heavily in evaluation. Teachers will also be classified and receive customized English training. I do not know how it works. Somehow, about 18,000 are expected to undergo more than 60 hours of training every three years by 2012. About 2,500 teachers will receive three to six months training either at home or abroad. Futhermore, at elementary schools, English-only teachers will be recruited to help 5th to 6th graders. These teachers will be given promotion incentives. Actually, I think this sounds not bad at all. However, my question is how many korean instructors are able to do this by 2012? I may expect the magic happen in three years.