At this unit students should be able to know different types of test and their relevance and

other aspects involving testing.

2.      Testing

Main aim: At this topic learners are supposed to be able to design their own tests, be familiar
with a number of test types, be aware of good and bad tests and be aware of factors that affect
tests.

2.1 Types of tests- According to Harrison (1983:72) and Heaton (1987:17-32) tests can be

subdivided into the following:

      Placement Test: It has to do with placing new students in the right class in a school. Here,
students can be tested on different aspects related to the syllabi of the specific level. The test can
cover grammar and vocabulary knowledge and assess students’ receptive and productive
skills. Placement tests are designed to show how good students’ English is in relation to a
previous agreed system of levels

      Diagnostic tests: are used to expose learners’ difficulties, gaps in their knowledge, and
skill deficiencies during a course. Thus, when English teachers know what the problems are,
they can do something about them.

      Progress or Achievement tests: are designed to measure learners’ language and skill
progress in relation to the syllabus they have been following.

Achievements tests only work if they contain item types which the students are familiar with.

They are administered at the end of a term to reflect students’ progress and not failure.
They can also help teachers decide on changes to future teaching programs where students do
significantly worse in parts of the test than teachers might have expected.

      Proficiency Tests: These tests give a general picture of a student’s knowledge and ability
rather than measure progress.

They are frequently used as stages people have to reach if they want to be admitted to a
foreign University, get a job, or obtain some kind of certificate.
3.      Evaluation

Main objectives: Trainees are intended to be able to :

-          Explain the Concept of reflective teaching and its importance;

-          Explain the approach to classroom investigation;

-          Change classroom practices in order to improve your teaching;

-          Develop critical analysis and teaching capacity, and;

-          Develop their observation capacity.

Basically when we talk about evaluation in the teaching process, it has to do with examining
seriously through the day-by-day teaching process in order to find out if you are indeed
helping your students’ learning.

Evaluation is done by questioning yourself on school physical conditions, teaching materials,

teaching and learning methods and methodologies, lesson designing and the on-going
circumstances during a lesson.

This evaluation process reaches its end after teaching a lesson. Here is where you sit down and
start doing some kind of play-back of what you did in your lesson.

Anything which did not go well, you need to find possible solution so that in the next
lessons you can solve it.

3.1 Approach to Classroom Investigation in Language

Activity one: (do it for yourself and discuss with a colleague when possible)

a)        Have you ever stopped to think about or discuss with your colleague a lesson you have
just taught?

b)        Was it because there was a problem that occurred during the lesson?

c)        Did you do anything after the reflection or discussion?

Congratulations if you have done it successful!!! 

Now read the following: You most probably have done this and most likely this may have
happened unconsciously. So, the main objective of these questions is to take you into the spirit of
the key issues of this lesson, and hopefully, bring about the idea of investigating your classroom
and reflecting about the lessons you teach. According to Richards (1996: 67) “much can be
learned about teaching through self-inquiry (…) rather than drawing (…) an external source of
knowledge as an impetus for change or development”. In the very case of Mozambican teachers
it is sometimes quite difficult to have an option about your teaching from an outsider because
most of you are you own in their schools with no other teachers your resource to in case of
uncertainty or difficulty and the other people within the school can be of very little help or no
help at all because they are not informed about English language teaching. Therefore, it is
essential for your professional development to gain self-observation capacity through critical
reflection of your teaching.

Many years of teaching on your own may not bring any tangible changes in the classroom.
Change in classroom practices and teacher development as well as the improvement of quality of
teaching is very likely to occur when teachers think about what happens in the language
classroom. This thinking exercise has to be done in a systematic and cyclical manner. In this
way, you will be starting to investigate the classroom and engaging in reflective teaching.

Task- two: Try to spend some minutes discussing and investigating what you think is meant
by  systematic, cyclical and reflective teaching.

______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________ .

Congratulations!!! You probably have said that “systematic” means methodological or

organized. For “cyclical” you may have said it means reoccurring or repeated and finally, for
“reflective teaching” you may have said that it means thinking about or analyzing your teaching
including everything that happens in the lesson. As you can see, the thinking that is being talked
about here is not supposed to be done randomly. Instead, it is supposed to be done in an
organized, consistent and continuous way with the only objective of changing classroom
practices and, therefore, improving the quality of teaching and assistance that is provided to
students. This improvement of the standards will enable the students to achieve their learning
goals. In addition, this thinking can be regarded as an essential tool for professional development
that begins in the classroom.

As has been said in previous paragraphs this investigation process needs to be done in an
organized manner so that significant results can be achieved. For this to happen, you may need to
start the process by asking yourself specific questions regarding issues that arise in your
classroom during the teaching and learning process. These questions will give your inquiry some
kind of consistency and a direction.

Task-3: (do it for yourself) Try to write down some specific questions that you can ask yourself
about your teaching, as the starting point of your reflection or investigation process.

______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________ .

Good!! You may have come up with an extensive set of questions, which perhaps include the
following key questions: What am I teaching? What was the main goal of the lesson? What
teaching procedures did I use? Was my teaching effective, why? What problems did I encounter
and how did I deal with them? How can I do it better?...

The attempts to find answers to these questions will be the starting point of the investigation
process and it is very likely that it will trigger a deeper understanding of your teaching.
Therefore, teachers who engage in this kind of reflection about their own teaching will be in
better position to evaluate the degree of their professional development accurately and they will
be definitely be able to find out what aspects of their teaching need improvement.

If this inquiry process is seen as an ongoing process and a routine part of teaching, it will
empower teachers and make them feel more confident in trying out different teaching
alternatives as well as enable them to make precise evaluation of the impact on teaching. In other
words, this critical reflection will help the teachers to make a clear and accurate picture of what
really happens in the classroom and be able to measure the gap between what has been taught
and what learners have actually learned. As Cross in Richards (1996) asserts the process of
reflection can be regarded as “…the study by class teachers of the impact of their teaching on
students in their classrooms. The basic premise of classroom research is that teachers should
use their classroom as laboratories to study the learning process as it applies to particular
disciplines: teachers should become skilful, systematic observers of how the students in their
classroom learn”.

3.2 Classroom Investigation Tools

According to Richards (1996) in his book “Reflective Teaching in Second Language

Classroom” investigative tools are to improve teachers’ strategies so that they can become more
systematic and effective. These are: teaching journals, lesson reports, observations and action
research.

3.2.1Teaching Journals – These are written or recorded accounts of teaching experiences,

which serve two main purposes: record ideas or events for later reflection and trigger insights
about teaching since writing can also be seen as a discovery process. What would normally
happen in a “teaching journal” is that the teacher would provide a detailed description of the
teaching activity or event, including the concerns that were noticed during the lesson. In
addition, the teacher would also outline alternative procedures for future reference.

3.2.2 Lesson Reports – These are written accounts of the relevant features of the lesson, which
would allow the teacher to monitor what happened during a lesson in terms of time spent on
different parts of the lesson as well as the effectiveness of the lesson as whole. What
distinguishes a “lesson report” from a “lesson plan” is that while a lesson plan gives a
description of what the teacher intends to do in a given lesson, a lesson report gives a description
of what actually happened during the lesson from the teacher’s perspective. Another possible
way of lesson reporting is through responding to questions that would draw teacher’s attention to
the main features of the lesson. Here are some question examples on lesson reporting: What were
the main goals of the lesson? What did learners actually learn in the lesson? What teaching
methodology or techniques did I use? Were they effective? Why? What problems was I
confronted with and how did I deal with them? What were the most effective parts of my lesson?
Why? What were the least effective parts? Why? What would I have to do differently if I taught
this lesson again? As can be seen, the questions above can yield relevant information about the
main features of the lesson that can help you to monitor your teaching. Let’s now turn to another
classroom investigation tool: Survey or Questionnaires – These are generally based on
questionnaires or surveys administered to students or any other relevant people in order to gather
as much information as possible regarding particular aspects of teaching or learning. Surveys and
questionnaires seem to be effective ways of gathering information about effective dimensions of
teaching and learning, which includes beliefs, attitudes, motivation and preferences.

3.2.3        Observation – This is about observing a cooperating teacher’s class or peer

observation: this can be done by a teacher visiting a colleague’s class in order to observe
different aspects of teaching and share experiences. Unfortunately, there is a generalized bias
about observation with the result that not many teachers do seem to be very comfortable with it
because they usually associate it with evaluation rather than an occasion for sharing experiences.
Therefore, in order to minimize this kind of bias, observation should be limited to being an
information gathering tool, a single moment for sharing classroom experiences, rather than being
used as an evaluation instrument for teachers. In order for the observation to yield desirable
results it should not be done for its own sake or randomly. Instead, it should be organized with a
specific focus so that the observer knows exactly what to look for. In fact, when we observe a
lesson we are interested in all teaching and learning events that occur during the lesson such
as classroom management, time management, and delivery, the suitability of the activities,
student’s engagement and performance, teacher/student rapport and so on. Generally, the
observer should have an observation instrument/sheet containing specific aspects of the lesson or
teaching to focus his/her attention on. After the observation has taken place there should be a
post-observation session, where both teachers meet and the observer reports on the information
he collected during the lesson and discusses it with the class teacher. One important aspect here
is that both teachers should think of possible alternatives to improve the weakness.

3.2.4        Action Research – Action research can be defined as teacher-initiated classroom

investigation with the main purpose of deepening teacher’s perception of many aspects inherent
to teaching and learning process. In this deep understanding that may help the teacher to bring
about innovation regarding classroom practices. It is made of an “action plan” which comprises
four main steps: planning, action, observation and reflection. The first thing that needs to be
done in “action research” is the selection of an issue or concern noticed in the classroom so that
it can be examined in detail. The next step is the selection of suitable data collecting tool, which
is followed by the actually collection of information, analysis of the information, and then
decision on where and what kind of changes need to be operated. After changes have been
operated, it is necessary to device an action plan so that the problem can be solved. Once the
action plan has been implemented, the last step is the evaluation of the effects that result from the
introduced changes. Since this is a cyclical activity the teacher may start from the first step again,
if necessary. The other thing to consider here is that each group of students or class is different,
such that what may seem to be effective in one class may prove to be ineffective with a different
group. Therefore, you as a teacher need to keep an eye to all classroom occurrences.

As it seems, if the teacher is equipped with all that has been said in this topic, he/she will be in a
better position to do self-observation and grow professionally. As Richards and Nunan
(1990)  argue that experience needs to be blended with critical reflection to give more impetus
for professional growth, because experience on its own is not enough for teacher to develop
professionally.

3.2 The Institution and Planning (Curriculum, syllabus and lesson plan)

2.1 Planning, Textbooks and syllabus

According to Harmer (1991:256-258) & Nunan (1988:28-37) the overall decisions about

planning in education is taken by higher authorities. Of course it will be necessary for a large
institution to know that the same kind of teaching is taking in all its classes at the same level,
previous decisions about the exact syllabus and the textbook to be used can often tie teachers to a
style of teaching and to the content of the classes if language teachers are not careful because of
the sequence which is observed in these instruments. Many institutions present the syllabus in
terms of the main textbook to be used; by a certain date teachers are expected to have covered a
certain number of contents in the book. At the same time teachers are often provided with a list
of supplementary material and activities that are available. So, here there is a need of having
discerning teachers who can move around the available materials selecting what they want to use
and discarding parts of units that seem to them to be appropriate. It is true that most teachers are
under considerable pressure both because they are obliged to complete the syllabus and because
they teach a number of classes. They are also influenced by the attitude of the institution where
they teach, their colleagues and the students who sometimes see the textbook not just as the
provider of the syllabus but also as a program of study and activities that has to be closely
followed. However, there are two major reasons why such an attitude may not be in the best
interests of either students or teachers: first, teachers who over-use a textbook and thus
repeatedly follow the sequence in each unit may become boring over a period of time for they
will find themselves teaching the same type of activities in the same order again and again. In a
such situation, even with good textbooks, students may find the study of English becoming
routine and thus less and less motivating and monotonous. It means good planning involves a
variety of teaching methods, techniques and activities. One of the reasons of worrying about
textbooks is that they are not written for your class. Each group of students is potentially
different from any other. Another worry is that whether the textbook has a balance of skills and
activities appropriate to your class.

From the above ideas it is worth to say that in planning there is a need of applying two main
principles which are variety and flexibility. “Variety” means involving students in a number of
different types of activities and where possible introducing them to a wide selection of materials
(interesting planning, teaching and learning). While “flexibility” comes into play when dealing
with the plan in the classroom, for any number of reasons what the teacher has planned may not
be appropriate for that class on that particular day. The flexible teacher will be able to change the
plan in such a situation.

3.2.1   What teachers should know in the job of teaching?

Before teachers can start to consider planning their classes they need to know a considerable
amount about three main areas: the job of teaching, the institution and the students.

3.2.2 The Job of teaching

Here there are six areas of necessary knowledge namely the language for the level; the skills for
the level; the learning aids available for the level; stages and techniques in teaching; the
repertoire of activities; classroom management skills; (ibid:260-261- read further for details).
3.2.3 The Institution

Teachers need to know a lot about the institution in so far as it is involved with their teaching.
The following five areas of knowledge are crucial: time, length and frequency; Physical
conditions of the institution (school); syllabus; exams and restrictions (ibid:261-262- read
further for details).

3.2.4 The students

- who the students are (age, sex, social background, occupation, what the students bring to the
class- motivation, educational background, knowledge, interest, what the students need
(ibid:263-265-read further for details).

3.2.5 Lesson Planning (pre-plan and the plan)

3.2.5.1 The pre-plan

Before teachers writing down the exact contents of such a plan, they need to think about what
they are going to do in a general way so that their decisions are taken on the basis of sound
reasoning. The decisions are based on teachers’ knowledge regarding “students” and the
“syllabus”. Thus, these decisions cover four main areas namely activities, language skill,
language type, and subject and content.

3.2.5.2 The plan

Lesson plan is the teachers guide used along the lesson. And according to Harmer (1991:268)  it
has five major components namely description of the class, recent work, objectives, contents and
additional possibilities (read further on these five components and models of lesson plans
pp.268-274).

 
3.3 Teacher’s roles

According to Harmer (1991:235-249) & Mutiru, Mwangi and Schlette (1995:25-37) teachers

play different roles in their classes: a teacher can act as “an authority in his/her discipline;
planner and manager of time; an academic guide to students; an adviser and counselor; a
researcher and consultant”.

3.3.1 Teacher as an authority in his or her discipline

Teachers put themselves on the “firing line” whenever they go for their lessons. Students will
either shoot them down or acclaim them. Students continually assess their teachers informally,
and the amount of confidence they have in them depends on a large extent on the perceived level
of their competence in the subject they teach. Broadly speaking, students rate very high lecturers
who know their ‘stuff’. When a particular course/subject is assigned to a teacher, there is no
excuse whatsoever for a teacher to give students but the best. Not only do the students expect
that from a teacher but in a way they also demand it. Studies show that in some cases, lecturers
fail to perform efficiently because of one or all of the following: lack of adequate preparation,
poor delivery techniques, pitching the lecture above or below the level of students and
insensitivity to the expectations of students.

3.3.2 The teacher as planner and manager of time

Teachers must plan their days, weeks, and the entire academic year so that they can accomplish
all their work: Teachers need time to: prepare their lectures, give their lectures, supervising
students carrying out research, carry out their own research, grade the assignments they have
given to their students, set and mark their examination/test papers, attend departmental meetings
and conferences, attend and serve on committees to which they are elected or appointed. All
these tasks have to be undertaken along with teachers other commitments at home and in the
community. In planning teachers’ time, they have to take into consideration the relative
importance of the tasks, the sequence in which they should be done and teachers own capacity to
cope up with them.
3.3.4 Teacher as an academic guide to students

Many students will register to take the courses teachers offer because they need them as
requirements for earning a degree and also because they think that they can cope with the work
involved. As a teacher you also assume that your students can follow the courses you give.
However, you may find that when you give your pre-planned mid-course test, some students
perform below your expectations. What do you do in such situation? One easy way out is just to
record the marks and conclude that the below average performers are not capable or did not pay
attention to your lectures. In either case, you should hold a conference with the class a s whole
and later, individually with those students who have performed below expectations. This will
take some time but if, as was suggested, you plan to accommodate such conferences, and then
there will be no problem. So, having identified the main problem, the teacher can go on advising,
giving further tasks/ tests and guiding those students having some problems on the task (s).

3.3.5 Teacher as an adviser and counselor

In most institutions of higher learning, there is usually a Department of clinical Psychology and/
or a Department of Guidance and counseling. The staff in such Departments is usually
professionals. They normally organize clinics for students who need some counseling. Despite
this, many students will also come to the teacher for adviser on personal matters (teacher as
parents).

 3.3.6 Teacher as a Researcher

In many instances, the ultimate goal of carrying out a research is to publish in learned journals.
Being published constitutes a vital criterion for promotion. There three indicators of the
efficiency of a University teacher (Research, publication and promotion). So, University
teachers need to carry out researches which involve local students in order to find out solutions
to some teaching or learning problems.
3.3.7 Teacher as Consultant

The establishment of a University in a community is looked upon as a blessing in many respects.

Not only does a local University provide immediate employment for middle-level manpower, but
it also acts as a reservoir from which experts can be drawn for local and national activities. The
experts are expected to render high skill service to the community. Thus university lecturers are
being invited to: give public lectures on academic topics; chair functions organized in the
community; carry out researches on relevant issues in the community; participate in local
politics; act as role models and assist with extension work.

3. Task: Read further on Curriculum, Syllabus- (design, procedures, activities), Teaching

methods, theories, approaches and principles.