{"id":43330,"date":"2018-06-24T22:25:59","date_gmt":"2018-06-25T02:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=43330"},"modified":"2018-06-25T00:57:25","modified_gmt":"2018-06-25T04:57:25","slug":"just-teaching-tests-are-standard-learning-is-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2018\/06\/24\/just-teaching-tests-are-standard-learning-is-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Teaching: Tests are standard, Learning is not"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kevin Stein<\/a> (Ishikawa-ken, 2000-03)<\/strong> has been an English teacher in Japan for 18 years.\u00a0 He has taught at the university, high school, junior high school, and elementary school levels. He has trained public junior high school teachers, served as a mentor through International Teacher Development Institute, and occasionally blogs at The Other Things Matter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kevin is currently seeking new work opportunities at the university level as well as outside of education. Please feel free to contact him directly at kevindsteinELT@gmail.com.\u00a0His\u00a0CV<\/a>\u00a0is available online at: https:\/\/theotherthingsmatter.wordpress.com\/curriculum-vitae\/.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

This year, I am training the teachers in my school system on how to use the standardized test prep curriculum developed for the International Course at my high school in Osaka, Japan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>While I am not a huge fan of standardized tests as the primary<\/i> measure of students language ability or for evaluating the effectiveness of a language program, I do think that they have a role to play within English language learning. Perhaps most importantly, students are often highly motivated to take and pass (or attain a high score) on standardized tests. So these tests can be an excellent vehicle for helping develop students\u2019 autonomous study skills or for rapid vocabulary acquisition. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the program at my school, standardized test prep classes focus on: how to make effective vocabulary lists and word\/phrase cards with Quizlet; micro-listening activities to develop decoding abilities around connected speech; and metacognitive skills to help students develop a higher awareness of how they read and correct any habits which inhibit comprehension. A thoughtful test prep program\u2014in conjunction with an extensive reading program and a fluency focused speaking class\u2014has led to an average 3rd year students\u2019 final TOEIC score average of 640 points and has helped over 40% of our 3rd year students to pass the EIKEN pre-1 test. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While I do believe there are real benefits to including a formal system\u2014whether in the form of specific classes or mandatory language lab time\u2014for helping students prepare for standardized tests, I also think that it is important to remember that just because you have a system, doesn\u2019t mean that students will be able to make use of it effectively.\u00a0 Pressure around standardized testing goals can also result in high levels of student anxiety, anxiety which can inhibit students ability to concentrate on test materials\u2026or occasionally even process basic instructions.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nThe other day in class, all of the students were taking the listening portion of as EIKEN test individually on their own tablets in the computer lab.\u00a0I had written on the board that students needed to take the test from beginning to end.\u00a0They were not to stop the audio or rewind it.\u00a0I walked around and made sure that students had found the correct files on the server and were moving along with their tests.\u00a0One student, lets call him Mr. M, seemed to be progressing slightly slower than the other students.\u00a0After about 20 minutes, when all of the other students had finished the second section, Mr. M had just finished answering the last question on the first section.\u00a0I sat down next to him and tilted my head in that way that signifies I\u2019m curious about something (and which lately so infuriates my daughter\u2026and perhaps has always infuriated my students as well without me ever noticing).\u00a0 Mr. M raised his eyebrows and his mouth formed this small circle of surprise.\u00a0Perhaps you know the look, the one that usually follows an accusation like, \u201cGod!\u00a0 How, in one afternoon, could you have possibly eaten that whole chocolate cake which I was planning to serve for desert on Saturday night?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. M\u2019s look of guilt mixed with surprise led to this conversation:<\/span><\/p>\n

Me: Mr. M, did you pause the recording while you were taking the test?<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. M: (looking like he just jingled a prison cell door and found it unlocked) No, I didn\u2019t pause it.\u00a0 I never paused it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Me: Did you rewind the questions and listen to them more than once?<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. M.: I couldn\u2019t understand what they were saying.<\/span><\/p>\n

Me: Hmmmm\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n

So here I was looking at Mr. M and thinking, \u201cHow could he have simply ignored everything I had instructed him to do at the beginning of class?\u00a0 What is wrong with him?\u00a0 What is wrong with all these students that they justcan\u2019tfollowdirectionsanddotheonelittlethingIaskthemtodosoIcangetabaselineand\u2026\u201d\u00a0 And in the middle of my crazy-James-Joyce-has-infected-my-though-process mental ramble, I stopped thinking and just looked at Mr. M.\u00a0 He was now kind of slumped over and looking at his shoes.\u00a0That guilty \u2018o\u2019 shape of his mouth had been replaced by a ready-to-be-reprimanded frown.\u00a0 And then I felt this kind of sudden weightlessness.\u00a0 As if I was floating just a few centimetres above my chair.<\/span><\/p>\n

Me: So the test was pretty hard?<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. M: I didn\u2019t know almost any of the answers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Me: Yeah, I know how that feels.\u00a0 I hate it when I can\u2019t understand things in Japanese.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. M: I didn\u2019t feel like I was learning anything, so I rewound the questions until I could understand them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Me: That\u2019s great.\u00a0I\u2019m so glad you\u2019re keen to learn.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. M: \u2026(Looking up at me)<\/span><\/p>\n

Me: You know, if we can get your score on a listening test without you rewinding your answers, we can find out which answers are the most difficult and then we can make a really good study plan.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. M: (nods)<\/span><\/p>\n

Me: How about this, this afternoon you can take another test.\u00a0 This time do you think, even when you can\u2019t understand a question, you can keep moving along with the test until the end?<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. M: (smiling) Yes.\u00a0 I can do that.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>There is nothing especially surprising to be found in my interaction with Mr. M. He experienced high levels of anxiety, something we often see in students when it comes to high stake tests like TOEIC or TOEFL or even EIKEN. He dealt with that anxiety not through avoidance techniques like falling asleep or claiming he had to go to the bathroom five minutes into the lesson, but by trying hard to understand what was being said in the listening text. <\/span><\/p>\n

Later in the afternoon, he was able to take a complete listening test without repeating each question multiple times. Still, I think that Mr. M., and students like him have something important to teach us.\u00a0 Program goals and test scores are never more important than helping students with whatever they are struggling with right now, right in front of us, at this very moment. Because, in the end, standardized test prep curriculums, like standardized tests themselves, can never be the primary<\/i> focus of language teaching and learning. The focus of any classroom has to be the students themselves and how they are, or are not, learning at any particular moment. <\/span><\/p>\n

And perhaps this is the only thing that we can say is truly standard about ELT.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

For the past 10 years Kevin has focused on developing an International Course for a private high school which serves students with large gaps in their junior high school education. While his students often enter high school having completed less than two years of junior high school studies, they routinely graduate with a high level of English competency, attain high standardized test score, and often attend top Japanese universities or study abroad. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kevin Stein (Ishikawa-ken, 2000-03) has been an English teacher in Japan for 18 years.\u00a0 He has taught at the university, high school, junior high school, and elementary school levels. He has trained public junior high school teachers, served as a mentor through International Teacher Development Institute, and occasionally blogs at The Other Things Matter. Kevin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-bgS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43330"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43348,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43330\/revisions\/43348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}