Today's plenary talk by Sophie Ioannou-Georgiou at the IATEFL Young Learner & Learning Technologies SIG conference was well attended and inspiring.
Sophie talked about, what is for many children, the 'dreaded ogre' that is assessment and gave the audience a number of very practical ideas for transforming this feared and fearsome issue of testing and assessment into a cuddly little dancing ogre (illustrated by a short video clip) that children would be more than happy about.
She reminded everyone of the necessity of assessment when it is closely linked to both teaching and learning, and when it is used to make improvements in both of these areas. And she pointed out that the problem with a lot of assessment is when it is used to drive the teaching (i.e. when teachers start teaching for the test). This can cause 'test anxiety' for a lot of children and can be not only a very negative experience, but can often do a lot of harm to the well-being of the child and interrupt the learning process.
So, what solutions did Sophie mention? She gave people lots of ideas of how best to involve the young learners in the assessment process, and showed us examples (based on flowers and trees, and other self-assessment sheets with smiley faces) of how children can be encouraged to take part in the assessment process in order to make it a stress-free and even fun and creative process. All this and still developing a range of critical skills for self-reflection and goal-setting.
All-in-all, a great start to the day!
Comments
Christina_Sargsyan
I hated tests myself, both as a learner and as a teacher:-) Until one day I was approached by one of my students and asked to return to the errors in her test in a week. 'Just to see if I remember things right'. Then I reflected on this a lot and understood how important it is for the teachers to weave testing into teaching so tightly that it becomes a part of teaching and learning process, rather than a hated, but inevitable component. And one of the ways you can create this bond is through regular comeback to the areas where our students feel challenged. Tests should not be a single action, but a prop for student support. Of course, it takes time, but with good planning it will take just 5-10 minutes to do an activity that focuses on students' errors from tests. This will change their perception of tests and make them feel at ease and regard tests as yet another tool for learning.
Mi
Hi, there
After reading your blog and the comment by Christina, I thought I'd write to illustrate what we do at the language institute where I teach after tests. Students are tested monthly, and receive their grades on the following class. We, as teachers, have to give them some feedback on their mistakes and how the correct form should be. The shape of this feedback is left for each of us to decide according to the needs and levels taught. So, as I usually work with children and teens, I normally make it a game, such as tic tac toe, a relay race or a bingo, where they have to try and get the answers right (for the questions they did wrong on the test)with the help of their classmates. At the end of 10 minutes max, I should add, we wrap up what was done and consolidate it on the board so that everybody has a change to see and acknowledge what represented a difficulty in the test.Next, we move on and what is left is the felling that the test was really what it is meant to be; just a formal assessment opportunity that can yield good results if it serves both the teacher and the student at their quest for learning.
Best,
Mirela Ramacciotti