Page 30 - ELG1706 Jun Issue 448

RESOURCES .

JOHN PERRY

Screeching

to

the test Many students were positive

about frequent testing

Teacher Rhian Webb describes how she finally grew to see the benefits of
regular unannounced ‘pop up’ tests in her ELT classroom

hen I was first told that paper and also I had no way of preparing my English proficiency exam, held in June.
my students would have to learners for it. I found the experience of pop quizzes
sit frequent ‘pop quizzes’, Also, rather disconcertingly, I had no idea really unsettling, My colleagues suggested
WI thought the university beforehand when the quiz would arrive. The it was a way for the university to check
where I had just started working was being whole process from start to finish was bizarre. if teachers were closely following the
innovative and fun. After all, why wouldn’t I later learnt that all pop quizzes are preparatory programme or not.
students want to learn English through their administered at exactly the same time as the My own reaction was that of general
knowledge of pop music? In reality, nothing concern for my learners. Sometimes the
could have been further from the truth. class at the beginning of the corridor would
When I asked my colleagues about what The look of receive the pop quiz papers first, and the
a pop quiz involved, I was told that students learners in my class could hear their peers’
‘would know what to do’. anticipation and even chairs screeching. The look of anticipation
Finally, the day arrived when the ‘pop up panic would flit across and even panic would flit across my learners’
quiz’ arrived completely unannounced during eyes, as they prepared themselves for the
my lesson, preceded by an authoritative my learners’ eyes, inevitable knock on the door.
knock at the door. I was also troubled by the way tests could
Pausing from my presentation on the as they prepared randomly interrupt well-planned lessons, as
past perfect tense, I opened the door to be they could come at any moment and devour
silently given the quiz test papers by the themselves for the between 10 and 30 minutes of a 50-minute
programme coordinator. lesson.
Suddenly, my students – and those in inevitable knock on the There were about two quizzes per week
all the classrooms around us – started to door over a 16-week semester.
drag their chairs around from facing the Over my first semester, I grew progressively
whiteboard so that they faced the window. more concerned about the use of pop
The loud screeching of the chairs on the quizzes. My learners’ grades varied wildly
tiled floors was shocking. preparatory programme at the university’s from one quiz to another and the looks of
After the test, I returned to my office, main campus in Ankara, hundreds of disappointment and even shame on my
and tried to take in what I had experienced: kilometres away across the sea. students’ faces when they saw bad grades was
Why on earth do the students have to Pop quizzes make up around 2 per cent very demotivating for everyone.
reposition their chairs in this horribly noisy of the students’ grade point average for an It was at the start of my second semester
way? academic year. They are therefore a very that I met a fellow colleague who was equally
And what was being tested on the quiz? I important way for students to ‘earn’ points to as perplexed by pop quizzes as I was. We were
had no idea what was actually on the quiz help them to qualify to take the university’s aware of the literature which suggests that
30 June 2017

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