Teacher in Development

I’m coming to the end of a two year long relationship with some of my students. Like in most other academic places, the end of the “official” teacher/student relationship is celebrated by giving an intimidating examination, a great vomiting out of crammed in knowledge which covers most everything presented during the course. My class will share a similar fate.

We’ve arrived at the end of our course book. I wonder to myself, and now to the rest of you, does this style of assessment really mean anything? Does it really give an accurate picture of what our students have learned and mastered? Do “fill in the blank” and listening for specific information (to fill in the blanks again) really help students demonstrate what they’ve learned and what competencies they have picked up? Does writing a report, having to stick to the format presented in the book, really show that our students have learned how to write well in English and across formats that they are encountering at work? And what about those artificial speeches where they describe something they did yesterday, will do tomorrow…or have done….demonstrating whatever grammar structure is being asked for in the test - “Describe your previous work experience.” Think: use the present perfect here! Follow the formula.

This isn’t how I want to part ways with my students. Our two years together summed up in a four page, open book final exam that they are just petrified over. To be a little fair to the exam, it does a mostly ok job of measuring the student’s ability to “use” the language we’ve been working on. While end of unit mini-tests for this book have been mostly very pathetic fill-in-the-blanks, matching and listening based, the final exam is open book - asking students to steer away from vomiting out crammed vocabulary words and grammar structures, but to actually demonstrate an understanding of how to use the stuff.

In the end though, it’s just a surface scratch. My students will not be able to show how their confidence has grown over our time together. They will not be able to show that when they first started, “umm-ing” and “ahh-ing” really made conversation a hard thing to have, while now we can ramble on about most anything.

There’s no way to show the little things. The slow growth, the not so sexy side of language learning that happens as you walk into intermediate level fluency, is left untouched and unexplored.

Students, teachers, schools, and HR folk are left wondering, “has anything happened at all?” and “What have you been doing for the past two years?” Sure doesn’t feel and look like much. “Well, we finished this book.” Great. Lovely. But what can you do?

That end of course final exam is looking mighty flimsy at the moment. How can a four page exam, open book or not, successfully and adequately measure the growth of a human being?

Answer: Doesn’t come close.

We need to shift, and shift radically. Testing has it’s place, but cacheing and strategically displaying development over time is where real progress can be assessed and evaluated. Language learning, especially after you break through the opening rounds, is about as fast and noticeable as tree growth. It’s really hard to notice because it’s usually quite slow and long-term. That’s right. Language acquisition for most people, is long-term. Tests, for the most part, are short term selective measuring devices.

Wouldn’t a portfolio give teachers, students, schools, the public in general, a more accurate picture of the person it represents? If developed in alignment with school wide benchmarks and proficiencies, ePortfolios become a giant life mural - spanning time and development and capturing a person, telling their story.

A grade is data. A number. Why are we so in love with the idea of attaching a number to a person? Why do we think that this number really gives us an accurate picture of growth?

Personalized learning, I think, pairs very nicely with ePortfolio evaluation. A well done portfolio shows a person. It demonstrates growth and the meeting of competencies.

A number looks pretty on a report card, but I suggest that it’s merely a freeze frame, a snap shot of something here today, but vanished tomorrow.

Just think about it. Do you remember your grades from school? I bet you can remember a few. But how about the content that that grade described? I hardly recall what I stuffed into my head to spew out on a final exam.

So a student scores well on their final exam. Their course book is finished, and supposedly a level of English completed, but has all this found its way into their day-to-day reality - which is what really matters anyway?