Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Putting Students to the Test....................................................................

In This Chapter

▶ Finding out what your students need

▶ Discovering the best course for students

▶ Grading tests

▶ Considering alternatives to testing

T

he word ‘test’ tends to evoke fear in most students, but as a teacher,

tests help you gather loads of information that enable you to keep your

students happy and progressing.

Testing is useful before students get started so you know what kind of course

to enrol them on, but you can also use tests along the way to check progress

and find out if the course was successful in meeting objectives.

Testing Early to Discover Your Students’ Needs

When a student makes an inquiry about a course, schools and individual

teachers see pound signs flash before their eyes. In reality though, the

pounds only materialise if you can you deliver the course the student needs.

So you start off by checking what she knows and what she needs. I cover the

various ways of doing this in the next sections.

Having them test themselves

One kind of test that’s really useful for giving you a head start before you

even meet the student, is a self-assessment test in which you get the student to

analyse how good she is at various aspects of the language, usually by rating

herself from 1-5 or by completing sentences.