fear | CLT – EFFECTIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING

Every lesson means rehearsing for the real-life ‘test’ far in the future. Eliminate FEAR in talking!

How to get started in testing

It is wise to practice speaking a lot in pairs and groups before you even think about testing.
Practise pronunciation and reading aloud in every lesson so that the students feel confident about their pronunciation.
Never correct the pupils/students when they are speaking in pairs or groups unless they ask you to. If you do, they will stop talking due to fear of making mistakes and, even worse, may feel humiliated.
Give general feedback and comments to the whole class after the practice sessions. Use assessment for learning to find the strengths and weaknesses of the class.
Make progress with students with small, enjoyable, even humorous and relaxing steps. Rely on results emerging after a few months.
Make the students come in front of the class: in pairs or groups – each one saying something for 5 seconds at least, later on 10 – 30 seconds, a minute, five minutes – just to use English and allow them to have a note with key words or ideas. Make it always a positive experience!
Remember that coming in front of the whole class may be scary and it needs to be a positive experience from the very beginning.
Practice listening skills too since the pupils are supposed to respond to what the others say. Teach appropriate phrases of response, too.

VITAL: Eliminate fear from practice and test situations – first evaluate the pupils/students in lessons and in other situations. Then give them individual feedback to encourage them to improve in speaking. Speaking skills should be part of the evaluation and noted in giving grades.

Agree on the criteria to be used in assessment. In elementary classes it has to be very simple but in senior high/sixth form you can you the official final exam criteria. Each country has its own criteria but the European Framework is widely accepted. It has skill levels from A1, A2 B1, B2, C1 to the highest native level C2. Many employers use this scaling.

Start with self and peer evaluation in class and encourage the students to use their phones for recording at home too. Allow them to listen to themselves while evaluating themselves. The same if they are assessing other students. Evaluating oneself and others is highly motivating.

Personal teacher–pupil feedback sessions before or after a test are most valuable: ask for the student’s self-evaluation first and then give positive feedback. Encourage, look at the criteria and have gentle reference to challenges. Learning to speak a foreign language is a long process and everybody wants to improve their skills in speaking.

The time for official oral tests/evaluation comes later on. When that time comes, use good and bad examples to give the students an idea of what is required of them. The evaluation criteria has to be explained and opened up at the same time.

The real test in speaking takes place abroad. In Venice, Italy, for example.

Testing individuals

Depending on the age of the pupils (6 – 15), they

can send me a 30-second or a minute-long phone-recorded speech or
I can have a two-to-five minute face to face discussion with them (I ask them one of the 5 – 10 questions given in advance and they can practise their answers at home and finally I ask them a ‘surprise’ question on a topic we had earlier in class)
for senior high students I use modified final exams

Testing groups

Groups can easily be evaluated while they are discussing in class. It makes sense to tell the groups in advance that they will be evaluated in order to encourage them to practise at home to get the best possible result. However, the students need to be given some advice.

Do not try to dominate the discussion. Show your excellence in drawing the quiet ones into the discussion by asking them questions or comments.
Use phrases that indicate you agree, disagree with the speaker. Or maybe you did not get the point or want to have justifications for an argument. So: ‘I disagree with you because …’. I fully agree with you but …’ ‘I’m sorry I missed your point.’ ‘Sorry, I did not get that’ ‘I’m not sure what you mean. Can you give us an example.’ etc.
Fight for your space and indicate you want to say your opinion.
Be ready to take the group feedback constructively and the feedback your teacher gives to you personally.

Modelling a group oral for an advanced class

In this activity we model the assessment of different types of speaking activities.

The class is divided into groups of four. Preparation time (10 min).
Each group is given a task of their own.
Each group member will receive a number (1-4).
One group at a time will discuss fro 10 min (total time 40 min all groups)
The others will observe and assess the performance of the given number using the given criteria. Write the number of the student you observe on the handout.
Feedback is given in groups (1s, 2s, 3s, 4s).

In brief, each group carries out a different speaking activity.The other groups observe and assess the activities.

Choose your topic. The order of presentations is random.

Group 1 Problem solving: You work for the Ministry of Tourism planning a holiday resort. You need to decide which facilities to have there. You can choose the place for the resort yourselves.

Group 2 Debate on the effect of tourism in your country. The argument: Tourism is good for our economy. Two of you are for the idea and two against (no matter what you really think about the matter).

Group 3 One of you is the tourist guide with his/her tourist group in a place of your choice. The guide describes the place and the tourists are making questions and comments. They also compare the place and habits to their own country/region.

Group 4 A magazine reporter is interviewing participants of the ‘Tour of Central Europe’ and their experiences in different countries. Each one of you has to say their opinion about the countries in question.

Group 5 A group of teachers are deciding where to go on a class trip with a class that all of them teach. They are also discussing what things need to be taken account of in the planning.

The criteria for group discussions are similar to the criteria we had for writing but now we have also interaction and pronunciation to be assessed.

The quality of the student-centred learning process (AfL) is actually more important than the final results of the exams (AoL).

If you test and use the results to give grades, it is AoL. If you test and use the result to help the students, it is AfL. But AfL is much more …

Assessment for learning (AfL) consists of all the measures that the teacher and the students take while learning in order to make learning more pleasant, relaxing and effective. The best teachers have always done it automatically using formative tests, continuous assessment and personal feedback as a tool.

What the CLT researchers have done is that they have laid the scientific foundation for AfL to balance the over-rated importance of constant grading and exams (AoL).

Assessment of learning (AoL) refers to the traditional ways of evaluating students using summative exams, mostly at the end of the learning period.

In brief, the concept of AfL

was developed from formative and continuous assessment
but is more focused on the process of learning, learning styles and strategies
emphasizes the students’ role in assessing themselves and others
favours student-centered methods and feedback that enhances learning.

In short, using assessment of AoL

means checking towards the end of the course to what extent the goals of the course have been reached
This type of testing is discussed at the end of each skill area under the left-hand side menu topics ‘Vocabulary’, ‘Speaking’, ‘Pronunciation’, ‘Listening’, Reading comprehension’ and ‘Grammar’.

AoL and AfL compared

Assessment of Learning	Assessment for Learning
AoL 10% of teaching time	AfL 90 % of teaching time

N.B. The percentages above simply indicate which kind of assessment I personally consider vital.

The focus is on final results, summative exams and giving grades.
The student is classified: excellent – good – satisfactory – bad.
AoL takes mostly place at the end of the learning period in an examination marked by the teacher. Little analysis of what may have gone wrong.
AoL means strict teacher-centred control, individual (not pair / group) accomplishments are valued.
Little attention is paid to ways of learning and development of skills, mainly the content of the course is tested.

The focus is on the learning process and ways to enhance learning.
The student is compared with his/her previous performance.
AfL takes place all the time, done by the teachers or other students, not to give a grade but to guide the learning process, individual needs are taken into account
AfL is more like giving guidance and positive feedback to others continuously, the teacher in the background
A lot of time is spent on learning strategies and how to improve language skills, knowledge of the content is tested but the ‘side products’ of AfL are recognized.

You may wonder if you should be worried about not always knowing if you are applying AfL or AoL. No, definitely not.

The borderline between AoL and AfL can, in fact, be a line drawn on water. Wise teachers have always, at least subconsciously, done both for the benefit of their students.

How come? For example, if you have a practice lesson before the examination and the exam is analysed afterwards when the papers are returned to enhance learning, AoL and AfL are intertwined, in my opinion, in an ideal manner. Any AoL exams that make the teacher realize that the goals were not reached and some remedial actions are required, turn the original AoL exams into AfL exams simultaneously.

Over the last fifteen years more and more attention has been paid to the process of learning which we teachers are trying to make as smooth and effective and enjoyable as possible. These measures are what we call ‘Assessment for Learning’ and they are utilized from the beginning of the course till the end until it is the time for the summative exam.

In the past learners of foreign languages were terrified of making mistakes and the fear of embarrassing yourself in front of others prevented learners from being fully engaged in learning. Thanks to the ideas of communicative learning teachers realized the message getting through to the listeners/readers was more important than the accuracy of the language. Application of CLT and AfL principles is a highly recommended combination in any language class.

No-one makes mistakes on purpose (unless they are joking). If the message is understood, the mistakes do not usually matter at all. We make mistakes even in our mother tongue. Why should we worry about them when learning a new language?

In the end, the success of our language lessons is measured in how well our students cope with the language in real life, not which grades they were granted.

The next two articles deal with the tools you can use in class to apply the principles of AfL.

CLT – EFFECTIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING

Tag Archives: fear

TESTING SPEAKING SKILLS