Why is evaluation important?

Nicoleta-Marilena Militaru — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 11:10:22 +0300

Some people find evaluation as being a useful tool in order to improve a project or an educational situation while others sees it as an intimidating aspect of the educational system in general. I have heard a lot of students complaining about the tests they get in different subjects and when I asked them about their objections they said that these tests are old fashioned and that their teachers see tests as punishments for either not doing their homework or for the fact that a piece of chalk is missing in their class and they have nothing to write on the blackboard with. So, this is why evaluations and tests are regarded as a way of tormenting pupils in primary, secondary and high school. If teachers started changing their ways of seeing the aspect of evaluating what their pupils know, can improve the effectiveness of their ways of teaching. This is why we should not be talking only about traditional tests assessing use of English or the skills of writing a composition on a certain topic.
First and foremost, an initial evaluation in English should include various types of exercises to give the teacher a more complex and clear image of their students’ level in the language assessed. This is why I always begin the school year with a mix of exercises which are aimed at evaluating my pupils’ skills, especially in the classes which are new for me. I start by asking simple questions which they answer orally, in turns: What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your favourite food? Where would you like to go on your next holiday? What did you do last weekend? By choosing these questions, a teacher can test different aspects of vocabulary and language learning: activities, food, places, clothes, present simple tense, past tense simple or future simple, depending on the level of study which is aimed at. I tell them from the very beginning that they should not be worried about making any mistakes that I am interested in the way they construct and argument their choices and I am also interested in the way they continue to answer to the follow-up questions I address them in order to find more about the subject. By doing so, they do not feel the stress of a classic evaluation and they relax and feel they are part of a normal daily conversation.
In addition, when I want to evaluate their vocabulary and their level of use of English, I use pair work either on commenting on pictures or spider gram debates. They talk about pictures by describing them saying what they have in common and what is different about them and how the characters in them feel in the given situations. In the spider gram exercises they take turns at expressing opinions, at agreeing and disagreeing with each other by giving arguments to sustain their points of view. I usually observe their performance and then I ask their partner for their feedback for their partner and I also ask for the classroom feedback based on what they had listened to. Peer learning and evaluation is also a very useful way of approaching evaluation and they learn the necessary skills to evaluate a person’s performance in a given task.
Moreover, when I use written tests I include various exercises which are arranged from simple to complex, from easy to difficult levels so that all pupils can solve the basic ones and evolve according to their level of English. This is why I use vocabulary exercises (fill in with three more belonging to the same group, give the antonyms of the following words, match words to their definition), writing exercises (write paragraphs on a certain subject, write a letter to a friend, express opinions on a certain topic), grammar exercises (they vary according to grade and level of study but they are usually centered around tense review, error correction, rephrasing, multiple choice exercises or fill in the missing words).
What I need to see is where my pupils are in their learning and this guides me in my future lesson planning. Based on their performance, I choose the methods I need in order to make them understand different aspects, I decide how many hours per month or per term I need in order to teach and explain a unit and I determine future ways of evaluating the class. This is why I firmly believe that a pupil’s level of training should not be solely analyzed based on how they perform on a test as some of them might freeze and not be able to solve the tasks. The teacher needs to find different methods through which they can have a clear picture of the level at which their pupils are after having finished a unit or a term or a school year.

iTeach: Blog Nicoleta-Marilena Militaru

Why is evaluation important?