Test this, Mr. Teacher!

by Andrew Osobka

Everyone would like to know a foreign language or perhaps a few languages. We can impress the company we’re in, but mostly for the sake of convenience - when we’re in a foreign country, indulging in the vanities and the curious nature of our being, we can shock the locals with a correctly pronounced sentence or understand a series of explicit-deleted’s addressing no one but us.  Of course, many of us would also like to play the piano or violin and  some would like to become Einsteins of the future. Unfortunately, not all of us are properly predisposed to learn all of these activities or master them to perfection. This goes directly to what we have been endowed with by nature or what we have received in our gene pool. Not all students can run fast or display a mathematical genius. Every person is equipped with certain aptitude, an ability to perform certain task, whether physical or mental, a predisposition that facilitates the learning of such a task, which may ensure a success with the right amount of motivation and positive attitude. Learning to walk or speak  lies in the human nature. Learning to impersonate personalities is not just a lot of practice but it takes a certain amount of talent, aptitude that the person should possess. Without this gift, success will remain only in the realm of a person’s dreams.

This short article is to describe the role of testing of foreign language students.

What does the word “test” mean? The Bartleby dictionary defines it in the following way:

1.        A procedure for critical evaluation; a means of determining the presence, quality, or truth of something; a trial.

2.         A series of questions, problems, or physical responses designed to determine knowledge, intelligence, or ability.

3.        A basis for evaluation or judgment

According to this definition, the purpose of testing a foreign language student is to identify all potential problems he/she may have, to evaluate his/her knowledge, and to make judgment about this knowledge. The remaining question is why to do all that? Such evaluation and judgment is not just to satisfy the curiosity of the teacher but has to have a more noble and useful objective which in the end will benefit the student. After all, learning a foreign language is to assume a different personality, is to think in a different way, or to use a prosthetic-like limb, which are completely unnatural to an individual. The teacher has to bear in mind that such evaluation and judgment are to promote the foreign language and not to discourage the student from, sometimes, taking up an impossible task.  Testing students should be conducted so as to eliminate problems and help the student with achieving success in acquisition of a foreign language. The testing for the sake of testing or marking a student is pointless and leads to nowhere. This type can surely demonstrate that the student is a foreign language “pinhead” and provide teachers with a dubious satisfaction of their own ignorance. FL teachers must be smart and understand that the success  in L2 acquisition will be bestowed only upon a few, owing not to their teaching abilities but to the aptitude of the students they happen to teach. Can you make my like Bach? Can you make me learn to play Bach? It’s the melody in me, the musical ear. If I possess those, Mr. Teacher, you can take care of the dexterity of my fingers and technicalities which will make me a virtuoso.