This is the time of the semester, in-between midterm and end of term exams, when students are assigned their English speaking tests and writing tests. It's a very intense period for me because the native English teacher is responsible for the bulk of the evaluations. In fact, I'm doing 100% of the evaluations at both of my schools. At the boys' school, the grade 3 boys had a speaking test, and at my main school, the grade 2 and 3 students had both writing and speaking tasks spread out over two weeks.
Generally, I appreciate having one on one speaking time with the students, but it is a lot of pressure to be responsible for the grades, and it's exhausting to read their papers. This week alone (W, Th, Fri), I graded 150 one-page assignments.
I'll take you through what the students were asked to do:
So far with my grade 3 students at the boys' school, we've read Jack and the Beanstalk and three of Aesop's Fables - The Hare and the Tortoise, The Bear and the Travelers, and The Lion and the Mouse. I was asked to create about 10 questions, ranging from easy to mildly difficult, to test the speaking abilities of the students. I also included one question to cover our most basic grammar lesson this year - How are you feeling? I'm feeling fine, happy, excited, etc.
With this test, the students were given the questions in advance. The week before the test, I prepared a review lesson to help the students form their answers and better understand how to score high marks on the test.
On test day, all of the questions were typed out on strips of paper, and hidden in an envelope. the students randomly drew their three questions. It was funny to watch the students stress over their picks. They'd reach for a question, then back off, switch, and then finally pull their question, only to realize that they picked one of the harder questions.
The better students had their responses memorized for each question, so it didn't matter which ones they randomly picked. The weaker students didn't know the answers to most questions. I let them pick a new question until they found one they could handle. For some students, it was pointless as they hadn't studied at all.
Since I had to assign each student a grade, I asked about the expectations of the Korean teachers beforehand. Did they expect me to strictly stick to the grading rubric? How many As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and Fs did they anticipate in their classes? One teacher said just to grade them however I wanted. The other teacher told me to be lenient, and most of the class should get As and Bs.
So, I gave most of the students As and Bs, and for the students who couldn't do much of anything, I gave them Cs. I didn't give any Ds or Fs. Later, the teacher mentioned that I should give Ds or Fs if the students didn't answer any questions, but of course, that directive was given, not when I asked for guidance, but after the test was already finished.
The next week, I had to administer the test with any students who were absent the week before. As it turned out, there was a big taekwondo tournament, so quite a few students needed to take the test on the secondary date. They gathered in the teachers' room at the end of the day for their test, and the Korean teacher tried to find an available room. She brought me to the female teachers' lounge. She peaked her head into the room, didn't see anyone, and told me I could use the room for the test. I entered and flipped on the light then heard a "huuuh???" sound. I looked beyond the little barrier that was set up, there were two full beds on the floor, and a female teacher was in there having a snooze. She was completely wrapped up in blankets and looked like I woke her up from a deep sleep. Her hair was dishevelled. She put herself together and vacated the room. It was awkward but I did the English speaking tests in the female teachers' lounge. The taekwondo boys mostly scored poorly on the test, so it was kind of a waste of time.
There was one boy who was pressuring me for a good grade a few days before the test. He straight-up asked me to give him a high score. With the help of his friend who was actually really good at English, he explained that the test was important in determining which high school he could attend next year, and he needed to do well on the test so he could go to his high school of choice. Even during the test, he would stop after every question and ask me, "Was that right? Did I make any mistakes?" It was hilarious to see. Most of the kids were quiet or nervous, while he was working the judge from the start. He randomly pulled the three most difficult questions in the test and did well considering the difficulty of the questions. I gave him an A.
Over at my main school, I was working with the grade 2s this week. Earlier in the week, they each wrote about a place in the world they would recommend visiting. They had to write about the tourist attractions, available food, transportation options to the location, fun things to do, etc. If they wrote 12 lines or more, they would be eligible for an A provided that they made fewer than 6 spelling or grammatical errors. Interestingly, the lowest possible score for those students who didn't write a single thing was 30/50 or 60%. Fairly generous I would say.
Students wrote about various locations in Korea such as Jeju Island, Seoul, and tourist spots in Busan. Internationally, several students recommended France. One student each recommended China, Japan, and Canada. I'll share a few of the best and you'll see that some of the second graders are really impressive. They recommended Bolivia, Antarctica, and Korea respectively.
For their speaking tests, essentially the students needed to memorize what they wrote for their writing test and regurgitate it to me. I evaluated them on the number of sentences they could speak and the fluency in which they spoke. Of course, I didn't get the grading criteria for the speaking test until 5 seconds before the test, but that's not unusual here at my school.
The speaking test was simply an exercise in memorization. The students struggled when they couldn't remember what they were supposed to say. Students with the best memory got the best scores. There were only two students who approached me without a script and simply spoke about their recommended travel destination. Their speech wasn't as polished but it was more natural and took more courage. They were rewarded with high scores. I gave the weakest students some marks if they could simply say one sentence. With this approach, almost all students avoided the lowest score.
As I said, having one on one time with the students is fun but very exhausting trying to focus on what they are saying through their mask. Across the two schools, I will complete about 400 speaking tests and grade about 275 writing tests. I'm tired.
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