Assessing, Listening

     Listening is a commonly avoided skill in English classes. It is frequent to see vocabulary and grammar classes where students in lower grades have to find out the meaning of a list of words, and those of higher grades transcribe some grammar rules written on the board. Then, listening does not have any chance in some classes.

     As it is viewed -as the other skills- in a separated way, it is thought that it requires a lot of work due to the artifacts and the appropriate material to work on it. However, as could be seen in this chapter, there are four types of listening activities that we can gradually implement to improve this skill in our students and at the end, have multiple measures in their performances where we could assess their English competence.

     This is another important aspect we must take into account. “Multiple measures will always give you a more reliable and valid assessment than a single measure”; if we want to be objective and fair, it is necessary that learning takes place as a process.  I would like to share this case: A couple of months ago a biology and ethics’ teacher of my school, was absent for about one month because she had a motorbike accident. She evaluated the third period of a seventh grade group with only one exam. Just one girl passed their subjects; the rest of the group had grades between 1.0 and 2.0. As you could imagine, parents, students and the other teachers were very upset with her “decisions”.  At the end of the academic year, 23 students failed biology and 21 ethics; 21 failed seventh grade due in greater extent to her. How could be learning successful if we, as teachers, do not explore knowledge taking into account different factors? How can a student want to go to school if teachers do not show that students’ learning and students’ needs are important?   

     Returning to our subject, the tasks and activities we can use to improve this skill, if they are implemented in a creative way and using interesting topics and materials, could attract the students’ attention, since English classes offer the possibility to learn with innovative materials, through inspiring and subjective themes.

At school, we must create our own material, flashcards, worksheets, exams, and why not, records. Today there are a lot of programs and resources to make it possible. This is our challenge as well as to try to integrate all the skills, and to generate enough sceneries and moments where students can learn and we can triangulate their performances to asses them.

     To finish my intervention here, some teachers would say: “A mí no me pagan por hacer amigos y menos por pasar a todo el mundo”, that’s true, but our work in our country is a social commitment; we decide if we want to be conformist hated people, or change the reality offering true environments of learning.

Evaluation

Teaching a second language requires many creativity, passion, patience and objectivity to make decisions, since there are a lot of aspects we have to face in the classrooms of our public schools. As oppose to the sciences and other areas, our field has to do with communication, and it implies more than rules and vocabulary. We learn the topics we have to teach, how to organize them, what materials can be used, teaching management, etc.; however, there is an aspect that requires a lot of conscious and objectivity, and this is the evaluation.

We can consider that it is the ultimate step in teaching; nevertheless, it is, and should be, present all the time during our practice. We used to think that only students are evaluated, but I want to point out the need on teacher’s self-evaluation. I mean that, as well as we evaluate the students’ processes, it is important for teachers to consider the evaluation of their process too.

When we enter to a public school, we spend a whole year with the students; several individual worlds with their own abilities, needs, values, problems, etc. We need to take time in analyzing them, knowing them, thinking about what they need to learn, and how to do it every time we consider necessary. Then, the results cannot be measured only with elaborated tests and grades, but with the analysis of all the aspects that surround each student.

Think about a good student that at the end of a school year has a lower performance. She does not want to be in the classroom, she does not participate anymore, and she used to disturb your classes. You think that she is annoying and you complain about her behavior with her head teacher. She “failed” your class. One day, someone tells you that she was having nightmares. She was having again memories about the time when she was raped. What do you think now?

 
This is a cruel example but shows us what we could find in our context; so, we have to stop thinking as accountants, and start to be human beings that try to teach, guide and form human beings too. The evaluation has many forms. It requires a lot of work. It involves all the subjects in the educational context; and the way in which we work on it, determines the results that we want to achieve. Then, it is a continuous process that is carried out mainly by us.