observe | CLT – EFFECTIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING

Let’s be honest. Nobody likes exams. Teachers do not like to write or mark them and students don’t like to study for them. The whole exam situation is full of stress and you feel miserable if you get a bad grade. But …

OK, I admit it. I am being a bit provocative. Evaluation and assessment of students has always been there and will never disappear. So we had better accept it and see how communicative language teaching has drastically changed our views in this area of teaching.

Six things about assessment are vital for CLT teachers:

To understand the difference between Assessment of Learning (AoL) = official exams and test and Assessment for Learning (AfL) = all measures that enhance learning (See the next article ‘Assessment of and for learning’)
To know how to use the tools for Assessment for Learning in class. (See AfL Tools 1 – 4 and AfL Tools 5 – 6 in the next two articles for more information)
Due to practical reasons summative testing (AoL) will never disappear but we can make these situations less stressful.
We need to find and use easy and quick ways to test all language skills reliably. In many countries some language skills are not tested at all. ‘Not tested’ often means ‘not taught’ either.
In CLT we spend some time in analysing and applying the official national criteria for each language skill area. The students need to understand what is required from them and it is best learnt if they assess themselves and the work of others and get feedback on how when they succeed in doing it.
Studying for exams is a skill of its own and how it is done depends on the students’ style of learning. In the 1990s CLT teachers started using practice exams to reduce exam stress among their students. Over the last 15 years we have also paid attention to exam strategies: what the students ought to do in exam situations if they face a problem and how the teachers can make the returning of the exams a learning situation.

N.B. Exam strategies are dealt with in separate articles under the skill headings. Direct links are provided here for you.

The other articles in this unit, under heading ‘Assessment’ are:

Assessment	Assessment of and for learning
	How to apply AfL in class, Tools 1-4
	AfL, observation with criteria, self-assessment, Tools 5-6
	AfL, giving constructive feedback, traps and samples
	Development discussions, feedback forms
	Positive feedback – comments and phrases

The main point in AfL is that the student realize they can and should affect their own learning and results. And that the teachers are there to assist them.

An example of an AfL style discussion at school

Me: “Which grade do you want in scale 4 – 10?”

” Student: “Which grade? What do you mean? 10, of course.”

Me: “But your grade is 7 at present. Is 10 a realistic goal?”

St: “Well, maybe not. But I’d like to have 9 out of ten. I have not tried very hard but I think I can do it.”

Me: “Ok, if that is what you want, I can help you. What are your strongest skill areas? Listening, writing or what?”

St: “Listening, definitely, and vocabulary. But I always get lousy points for my essays and grammar tests.”

Me: “Ok, let’s think about them first. What do you think you should do to improve in them?”

St: “I have no idea. Last week you talked about learning styles and strategies but I had a headache and I did not get it really. Do you have the handout with you? Maybe I should try out something in it.”

It is important the answers come from the students themselves. This way they become committed to solving the issues themselves.

If the purpose of school is to develop the students’ personalities as a whole, not just fill them with knowledge, traditional assessment (AoL) is not very effective. That is why AfL and CLT methods are needed even if they may never show in school reports.

It may be interesting and vital to note at this point that … we teachers need to change the way we think about student evaluation and assessment: CLT principles recommend reducing drastically the time we talk to the whole class and use most of the lesson in observing and guiding indivuduals, pairs or groups.

The ideas above should remind us that our job is mainly to facilitate learning, not to focus on exam results.

Even if I think we teachers are assisting our students more than assessing them in lessons, I decided to stick to the term ‘Assessment for Learning’ because it is so established. The original term could have beeen ‘Assistance for Learning’ …

The point in the articles under ‘Assessment’ is to show

that applying AfL principles does not mean extra work for the teacher but are a natural part of any CLT lesson
that traditional exams cannot be totally avoided but the focus should be turned to the learning process in an encouraging atmosphere
that it is not really the grades achieved that matter in life but what is truly learnt: we are looking for the ability to apply language skills and knowledge
that continuous follow-up of learning with appropriate feedback is often more important than final grades in learning; not by stalking and harrassing the students but by boosting their self-esteem genuinely
that the most important tool for Assessment for Learning is getting to know each individual by observing them and talking to them: knowing which string to pull with each person
that observations lead to teachers having individual discussions with their students and thus the relationships become much more emphatic
that it is not only the teacher who can assess the students since it can be done by their peers and by themselves as long as they know the criteria and what to observe in each other’s activities
that we need to take off the pressure from testing; a thing that can be done by offering individual help, teaching how to learn more effectively, practising for the exams and getting feedback from them as well as doing evaluation by other means than summative exams
that the students have to realize all our AfL efforts aim at them learning more and that we are on their side and truly try to help them
that many of the important things we learn at school are not actually tested at all but are skills needed in life later on: e.g. social skills such as group/pair work and emotional intelligence, skill to learn new things independently, critical thinking and presentation skills (= 21st century skills)
that using AfL and continuous assessment does not mean one exam after another but it means letting the student know where he/she stands at the moment and supporting their growth and self-esteem

So why do we have to assess or evaluate pupils and students?

For four reasons + the latest CLT one, number 5: to enhance learning

1 Firstly, we are human and we often do not try our best if we are not forced to do something useful. In an ideal situation the motivation to learn is internal, not set by an outsider psychological reason
2 Secondly, parents are accustomed to exam results and grades being good indicators on how well their kids are doing at school. parents’ role
3 Thirdly, school administrators and authorities are tied by law to follow up the progress of the students. requirements set by law
4 Fourthly, the admission of students to other schools and higher education is often based partially or totally on the grades given at school and/or the final examination. admissions to further education
5 Fifthly, the CLT reason: The students, teachers and all people involved need to know how the students are making progress from the very beginning of a course and how the students’ learning process can be improved.

A photo of Finnish students taking a senior high ‘matriculation’ exam, which corresponds to the English A-level exams taken at the at of 18 or 19. More and more exams are done on a computer with no access to the internet or any other sources. The questions often force the students to apply their knowledge rather than test merely knowledge as such.

CLT – EFFECTIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING

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ASSESSMENT

An example of an AfL style discussion at school