272 Part V: What Kind of Class Will I Have?
Marking Tests
One reason teachers are sometimes reluctant to administer a test to their
class is because of their dread of marking and collating results. It can be a
tedious and time-consuming task. Now the way you mark has much to do
with the kind of test you set but the following are some general points that
you can keep in mind.
If your time is severely limited, set a test that has just one or two possible
answers for each question and write, or obtain, the answer key. In this way,
anyone can help you mark, even a student.
The way you mark a student’s sheet itself is something to consider too. These
days the red pen is considered a little bit threatening, so teachers often go
for friendly green and purple pens instead. In any case, make your marking
absolutely clear. Of course, this presupposes that the students are actually
going to get their test papers back, or at least see them. Some schools keep
test papers so that students can’t sell them on and help others to cheat, but
they should at least have a chance to see their errors. For the sake of time
you can just tick or cross questions.
Ticks and crosses aren’t common to every culture so let students know what
each symbol means.
Use a marking code for longer answers, if your students are used to one.
Highlight a grammar error by writing ‘gr’ or ‘sp’ for spelling. This helps them
to see what kind of errors they typically make and gives them an opportunity
to try correcting the problem themselves. Chapter 7 has more on marking
corrections.
For straightforward questions you can allow students to mark each other’s
work. You need to be careful about cheating though, so you should insist that
everyone puts their own pens away and then give everyone a pen in a special
colour.
Having their work reviewed by another student can be embarrassing for some
students so you need to be quite careful about sharing out this task. Get to
know your students’ work and their personalities before trying this method.
It’s good to have a class feedback session about the test if possible. When
you do that, you tackle the tricky questions that everyone got wrong. After
all, it may be your fault because you didn’t teach that topic thoroughly, or
because the test question wasn’t clear. You now have the chance to make up
for it by re-teaching the point. For students’ individual errors you can employ
peer correction, which means the students correct each other.
