Week 15

This weeks’ reading discuss a topic that is dreaded by students, teachers, parents, and administrators, but that is also part of the education life; tests. I would be flabbergasted if anymore made it through their education years without being presented one them. Brown says, “tests have become a way of life in the educational world” (466). I believe we just have come to accept them without any more questions. I have always been one of those who felt indifferent about standardized test. When it was time to take them, I do without being over stressed or depriving myself of sleep. I do not know if this is a result of my confident to take tests or just the fact that after so many years of being tested, I have become numb to it. The latter one is more probable.  But that still does not remove the amount of stress and pressure that it put on teachers and students. The idea of knowing that entrance to the University of your Dream depends on a single score or knowing that you will be judged based on the scores of your students does not make it difficult for negative backwash to occur. Now a day, we have been hearing of the effect standardized tests have on the curriculum, specifically how teachers are teaching to the test. With the passing of the NCLB, the negative backwash has only worsened. In his chapters, Brown discusses the topic of test and assessment and clarifies for the readers that each terms holds a separate definition. Tests are part of a teacher’s requirements so even though we may be against tests; we must give them to our students. We cannot escape that idea, but as teachers what we can do is changes the format of the tests. Instead of leaning towards the tradition multiple choice pen and paper test, we can evaluate our students on various occasions and on exams that our authentic and performance based. There needs to be several evaluating instruments that allow students to show their skills. I believe the author Assessment Shohamy would also agree with this.

In her article, Shohamy, looks at the extent to which different features of discourse affect test takers language scores depending on what is expected of them. The first examination explored the effect of subject matter on reading test takers’ scores. The results showed that familiarity with the content affect the nature and fluency of the communication. When looking at the different question types and test type, research revealed that the strategies used by test takers for processing the discourse differed. One can only agree with such findings. Essay questions and multiple choice questions are separate types of questions therefore students must use different strategies to answer each question. Multiple choices most likely call for short term memory while essay not so much. The research that convinced me even more on the concept of using different type of test was the study done by Shohamy and Inbar in 1991. The researchers investigated the effect of different genres along the oral-literate continuum on test takers' scores on a listening comprehension test. The topic was kept the same for the three types of discourse, interview, lecturette, and a news broadcast. The results from this research opened my eyes to how much different tests had different results. The results revealed substantial difference among the test takers’ scores for each discourse type. The interview had the highest listening comprehension, followed by the lecturette and then the news broadcast.  This made me realize the importance of including a variety of discourse types on tests since it is not possible to draw the same conclusions about language proficiency across discourse types. Students respond different to different situations, therefore it is important for teacher to gives ample opportunity to the students to show when they know. In another research, the researchers looked at how students tests scores differed, especially with oral tests, when speaking to a human versus a machine or when they were part of a discussion, role-play, or giving a report. All the different styles revealed something new, and sometimes contradicting. The most important information we as teachers can take from this week’s reading is that we should evaluate our students knowledge in various ways, with various instrument, and at various time. As teachers we must be creative and devise evaluating tools that are authentic for the students.