I think that Chapter 9 does an excellent job of demonstrating the different ways that foreign language teachers need to test students' knowledge. It is important to remember that students are not taking tests based on their ability to guess what a teacher is going to put on the test or their memory skills. Tests should assess students' ability to comprehend a specific grammatical (or another skill) in which they are learning, that helps them achieve becoming one step closer to proficiency.
Specifically, in one of my former classes, I have thought a lot about the testing process. In this class, we often had weekly grammar exams that covered different topics that we were specifically learning about. In these exams, I always felt that random knowledge was being tested opposed to actual understanding of the material and the student's ability to demonstrate their understanding in a larger context. In one specific exam that I can recall, we were going to be tested on our ability to memorize a list of over 35 phrases using Por and Para. These were important to learn, but the way we were tested did not help us demonstrate our knowledge. In this exam, there were about 10 phrases that were chosen that were written in English by the teacher. Then, the students had to translate the phrases into Spanish using the memorized list of phrases. I remember being able to identify a few, but not a significant amount of phrases and I earned a low grade on the test. I was shocked that the teacher really felt that our ability to memorize phrases represented our actual knowledge. This made me think about how I want to test my students' understanding in the future. I want to be sure that the tests directly relate and correspond with actual information and understanding from studying, reading or paying attention in class.
This whole experience was interesting to think about from a teacher's perspective. I can see how the teacher felt that this could be a good test, but the teacher did not fully think through how the students could study for it. As the chapter indicates, students should not be sitting, memorizing random facts or words that have nothing more than an arbitrary meaning in their larger understanding of the subject or topic. Our testing needs to accurately represent the material that we actually have taught our students what we actually want them to understand. We need to recognize what a student will actually gain if arbitrary concepts are memorized.
I like the fact that you mentioned memorization. I do not think learning a language is all about memorization, but to certain extent it must be done. There are some vocabulary words or even irregular grammar points that MUST actually be memorized. I think the important thing is testing even this type of memorized knowledge in context. That is, it should be tested within a context that shows the importance behind the vocabulary or grammar. As long as it can be seen in a bigger picture and related to the language as a whole, then I think some types of memorization are acceptable.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny. I also remember having to learn verbs that were followed by certain prepositions or verbs that used the subjunctive or indicative based off of memorization. That's what the teacher always said "just learn it". Subjunctive did not even really begin to make sense to me until I was taught in 798 Spanish Mood and Grammar how to properly use it without having to memorize which go with what tense but rather but what they signified. Teachers need to get out of this "just know it" and teach the reasons behind why they work like that in order for students really, truly, learn.
ReplyDeleteMaking students "memorize" things bothers me. I understand that, yeah, you do need to learn things that can't be figured out logically, like verb conjugations so I guess it has to be "memorized". Using the example that you used of the por/para phrases you memorized, I think a better approach to this task would have been your teacher maybe explaining in what situations you use por/para rather than telling you to memorize a list of phrases. I think it's important that students learn so they can make decisions later without the help of their teacher. Maybe that would help for the internalization of information so that the students won't forget it later.
ReplyDeleteI think "forgetting it later" is a big problem with language students and achievement tests. I can't tell you how many times I made up weird little mind games the night before a big test to help me remember random vocabulary words, and then forgot them all as soon as I passed in my test. When students try to cram non-contextualized words and phrases into their memories, they usually only remember these things for a short while after the test and then they're gone. Instead of handing the students lists of words and phrases to memorize, I think teachers should focus more on providing the students with comprehensible input so that information is more likely to be internalized in the students' minds. For the por and para example, what if your teacher had spent the week before the test reading stories and calling your attention to the uses of por and para? Or what if your teacher had played different audio recordings and stopped them at every use of por or para to discuss? What if your teacher had made the students role play different scenarios like "este regalo es para usted" and "voy a Granada por cuatro meses"? Comprehensible input is a lot more meaningful then lists of memorized words and phrases.
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