KEEPING A BALANCE.
Nina MK, Ph.D.
Preparing students for examinations is one kind of work we have to do every year. We have to be aware of the changes and variants; we have to be conversant with all kinds of tasks; we need to be able to perform all the exercises ourselves and to explain them when needed. One of the more difficult challenges we face is perhaps the necessity to control the discipline and the nervous or rebellious outbursts caused by the approaching very tense time and by adolescent hormones. Here is the one and only way of dealing with all the issues at hand that I find useful after twenty five years of EL teaching. Before the start of the final school year, I get acquainted with all the final exams requirements and formats. I introduce the concept during the first week of studies and tell the students that we are going to train throughout the year – and I do it only once. Many teachers would begin every lesson with the strict reminders and dire predictions which often make teenagers explode with emotions and protest. They do realize that their exams are coming; we don’t need to remind them about it on a daily basis. Here is my Golden Rule, the only phrase, the one reply to all the remonstrance, nervous crises, outcries and even tears:
THIS IS AN EXAMINATION REQUIREMENT. IT IS A MUST.
True, some exercises may become boring for some students while other exercises may seem like insurmountable obstacles to other students. If we manage to assure each one of them that we can and shall overcome, life will be much easier for all of us. If some or all of them fail the same test not once but twice or many times, all we need to do is calmly tell them that we can do it again. And again. A child or children who manage to do everything right during the first trial run should have the chance to check their skills again when the time draws nearer. We should bring in some extra tasks for them while we train the rest of the class.
In order not to turn preparation for the exams into a boring time and energy consuming ordeal, we may look at our own plans and schedules and shuffle them around a bit. Half a lesson for exam training, another half for an exciting project work, or for communication with their peers around the globe, for a film or song, or whatever it is your classes are currently interested in. How do we know what seems attractive to teenagers? I simply ask them. Children love to communicate. A good incentive for various kinds of work at an EL lesson is an exchange of messages with students internationally. A comparison of examination variants and requirements often works wonders. “See, they don’t include all those stupid conditionals into the final tests!” may be countered with a very mild response of, “They do include all those stupid passives”.
When we have a good relationship with our classes, students often share their hopes and aspirations, their needs and their concerns. If they have some idea of where they wish to go after school and what they may need regarding EL, they may make us aware of that. Ideally, while preparing yet another pre-examination drill, we can also set aside a few exercises, find some useful links, recommend a reference book. Modern children rely on ICT more than on anything else. “This expression is not on the web!” is a panicky reaction to a difficulty in understanding. When I find the said expression or word in my huge International Webster’s Dictionary, it causes amazement and incomprehension. How can it be that something, anything is NOT on the web?! So books are still useful! Indeed they are. I believe we should recognize the different perception modern children have of books, reading and finding information from what we used to have at their age. After all, if they could not read, they would not be able to find and read the relevant information in Wikipedia or type any request into Google correctly. True, many children do not read books, but they do read.
Many EL teachers in my country supplement their meager income by private tutoring; often parents pay directly to the teacher to have extra classes for their child. In my first year at school as a teacher, an elderly colleague approached me and said briskly: “Here’s the system. I tutor our colleague’s pupils who get bad marks from her, she’ll tutor yours and you’ll tutor mine”. It was considered somewhat unethical to tutor one’s own students at the time. I inquired mildly what would happen if none of my students got very bad marks, if I in fact managed to teach them all the required skills at regular lessons. She laughed into my face. Soon I learned that I was the only EL teacher at school whose pupils’ parents did not hire a private tutor. It was not easy to withstand the system. I found unexpected support in the person of one mathematics teacher. She took humanities classes which were traditionally considered to be devoid of any talents in her sphere, and trained them for the examinations during the whole academic year, same as I did at my EL lessons. All our school-leavers passed their finals with flying colors. The number of sudden visits by the administration, the amount of reports and reviews we both had to submit defies imagination, yet nothing untoward was found in our methods. The conclusion was rather amazing: it was decreed that this can be done but “not every teacher is capable of working like this”.
What do we do, then, to find a balance between exam requirements and testing on the one hand, and students’ individual needs on the other hand? I would say be yourself, do what you can, have hope and patience.