A professor of mine told us once that each teacher of a foreign language should learn a new language - just to stay in touch to the "inner elementary student". He was right. I’ll have my first Spanish exam on Monday and I feel a bit anxious about it, so I’ve decided to make a list of what teachers can do about exam anxiety.

1. Find balance: the students who need help need to feel they can ask for it, and the ones who are up to no good need to feel they better not do it.
2. Test what is taught. While it is true that the best tests teach as well, introducing too many unfamiliar activities/structures/procedures, may confuse and make exam results poorer than what students’ abilities/knowledge is.
3. When creating a test, think of your students’ learning styles (Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic - http://www.vark-learn.com/english/index.asp ) and try to make the testing activities as varied as possible.  
4. Use clear explanations and always use examples. If you don't know if you're being clear enough, show your test to someone who isn't an English teacher - sometimes they make the best reviewers.

…to be continued…