Keeping the reflection mode on, I would like to share some aspects of my
personal English learning experience concerning the assessment of speaking.
Going back to school time, I remember that my first English classes were based
on memorizing vocabulary and drilling. By that time, the only way of speaking assessment
I can think of consisted on repeating a set of vocabulary over and over again.
Because of this, I consider that the only kind of speaking assessment that took
place was imitative.
Moving to high school time, I would divide my learning experience in two: the first four years and the last two. In the first period of time, I remember my English classes being more based on grammatical structures than isolated vocabulary. During that time, it was common for us to see titles such as: The Verb TO BE, Present Simple, and Past Simple on the board. In fact, our teacher used to teach to us some formulas for getting the right structures. For example:
The Present Simple
Negative form: S + AUX (DO /
DOES) + NOT + V + C
Our speaking assessment by then was very rare. We were mostly asked to write a lot of sentences in whatever grammatical structure we were studying. The only speaking practice that I can think of is that every year we had to memorize an English song and sing it to the teacher.
Finally in the last two years, things changed and more importance was given to speaking practice. Our learning was still mostly grammar focused; however, activities such as: songs, acting out conversations and retelling stories were also included in our English class. As a project for English class, learning an English song was included in our curriculum. For this activity, I would say that the kind of assessment that took place was intensive. On the other hand, acting out conversations was interactive assessment. Finally, when retelling stories extensive assessment took place.
To sum up, I would like to say that the study of speaking assessment has been very useful not only to identify the types of assessment I was exposed to in my school years, but also to learn from what I was taught in the past and analyze how those assessment tools influenced my learning process. In that way, I feel more capable of analyzing and taking into account the wide variety of assessment practices that I can use in my professional life.
Based on this reflection, I would like to state some questions for you:
In what ways were you assessed in speaking?
How
effective do you think they were?
Do you
assess your students the same way you were? What kinds of speaking assessment
do you currently use in your teaching practice?
Which way
of speaking assessment do you find more comfortable to be assessed? Why?
I share with you many of the experiences you have mentioned. The only real speaking practice was when I was in the last grades of high school. I had to create dialogues based on gramatical and vocabulary seen in the class and then act them out. It was good but not enough of course.
ResponderEliminarI think we are on the way of correcting those practices but we need more time. I've heard of studetns who said that in their schools they work on all the skills and practise and evaluate speaking.
In my case as a teacher, I love oral presentations and games where students practise what they see. That is good, I have seen the results. Then, they are assessed in the same way at the end.
Thanks for your comment, Yury.
EliminarYour example about how you were assessed in high school reminds me of my pre-intermediate class in first semester. To assess speaking, our professor used to gave us four situations so that we could prepare four conversations at home before the test. The day of the test, she used to ask as for one of those conversations. Our performance then depended a lot on what we could remember from the conversation that we had prepared at home. Because of this, I doubt that such task could really reflect our speaking proficiency; instead, I consider that it was more a proof of our long-term memory.
As teachers, we should be very careful when choosing ways to assess our students, keeping in mind all the principles of language testing. In this case, although practicallity is very important, it does not mean that other important principles such as authenticity and reliability can be skipped.
I agree with you when you mention that we need more time to make changes in our ways to assess students. We still need to go through a lot of training too.
I would like to ask you which way of speaking assessment do you find more comfortable to be assessed with? Why?
Thanks again.
It is a great pity that we star critically analyzing our learning process of our school times, because I am sure that 90% of us will come up to the conclusion. That it was not good at all, and it is in some extent, I am pretty sure, because our teachers at that time had no idea of what "assessment in class" means.
ResponderEliminarIf we talk specifically about the speaking skill, the findings will be even more daunting. Maritza I strongly agree with you when you say that it was more focused on memorizing rather than production, big mistake.
Now the basic idea is, of course, not to make the same mistakes with our students, take advantage of everything we know, devote the proper time to the evaluation and assessment of the speaking skills for instance, and create awareness in other professors' minds.
Thanks for you comment, Leonardo.
EliminarI consider that analyzing and keeping in mind those kind of past experiences help us a lot. Specially in order to avoid making the same mistakes in our present and future practices. I could think that many of us could have experienced something similar, but I could not say it for sure.
On the other hand, I would like to ask you:
What kinds of speaking assessment do you currently use in your teaching practice?
Which way of speaking assessment do you find more comfortable to be assessed with? Why?
Thanks again
I, as many of us (if not all), was tested in the same ways. During almost all my high school years I was asked to memorize and repeat lists of words, to read aloud dialogues from the book; and in the last two years, there were songs and a little bit more of real English. Just a bit.
ResponderEliminarIt is sad to look at our past learning experiences and see that most of them were not pleasant at all, but I think that those experiences were which made us take the decision of becoming English teachers, to try to fix and improve our English education.
Now, with all these tools and strategies that we are learning, we can try to be better teachers and help our students succeed.
Thanks for your comment and for sharing your experience, Juliana.
EliminarI agree with you, by analyzing the mistakes of my previous English teachers and how those affected me and my classmates has made me become more responsible and committed with my students.