The Language Teacher
November 2000

Teaching the Test Takers

John Smith

GEOS, Fukuoka



We have all discovered or observed the near futility of listen-and-repeat teaching methods in the classroom yet, for some reason, this how we continually teach English test classes. If we cannot expect students to overcome language obstacles through constant drill work devoid of production or experiment, then how can we expect them to pass a test that is purposefully designed to exploit their weaknesses as overly mechanicalized students? Obviously, our teaching methods must change in order to exploit the test rather than the other way around. Thus, I will examine two aspects of the TOEFL test that are of particular difficulty for drill-happy students, and discuss classroom approaches that better prepare students for the test.

First and foremost, it is imperative that students understand that ETS, the company that writes TOEFL, seemingly does not want them to pass the exam, and they will employ a variety of underhanded methods to prevent them from doing so. They purposefully write confusing, ambiguous, and unnatural questions to trick students. They throw in a multitude of red herring answers and loaded questions to lead the average student astray. The passages and listening sections are culturally biased and abstract thus, students are unable to draw on previous knowledge to answer a question. They even utilize words that your average native speaker does not understand.

Why would they stoop to such low criteria of evaluation to challenge our students? They do so because ETS knows that English teachers are teaching the language of the TOEFL test and not the English language. In order to best prepare for the test, TOEFL students often resort to studying exam English as opposed to English as a means of communication. This TOEFL interlanguage in turn becomes a crutch in their ability to confront and interpret untaught phrases and grammar. It is important that the student realizes that this test is designed to kick that crutch out from underneath them. Both teacher and student must be aware that English is not merely a jigsaw puzzle of interlocking parts made up of grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary, but rather an integrated, holistic system of communication.

The most serious obstacle a drill hardened student faces on the TOEFL are red herring answers. Red herring answers are wrong choices that are similar to the correct answer or are wrong choices related phonetically or thematically to the passage. Here is an example from a Longman' s Practice Test.

Man: Is the lecture tonight worth attending.
Woman: Without a doubt.
Narrator: What does the woman mean? (Phillips 1996)

The difficulty here is a simple yes/no question being answered by the more complicated, affirmative reply, "Without a doubt." What if the student has not learned this particular phrase? In this case, they must be able to analyze and interpret the meaning as best they can. This seems obvious, but the over-drilled student will come to expect set replies to specific questions. How many times have you heard a student reply to the question, "What' s going on?" with "Fine, thank you, and you?"

So when presented with an unexpected response to an average question, these students tend to lack the tools to interpret and respond accurately. The student who cannot comprehend the language being used has to guess and will then naturally begin making associations between the conversation and the answers. The red herring choices in this example are (a) "She' s doubtful about the lecture." and (b) "The worth of the lecture is uncertain." Under time pressure, both of these choices are equally attractive -- and equally wrong.

Obviously, we cannot teach every possible reply to every possible question. Instead, we shortcut by choosing a few choice phases and proceed to drill the student until they internalize the phrase. These successful students are then able to plug in the correct response to a given situation. For example, with the expression "Fine, thank you, and you?" the classical conditioning effectively cuts off the creative process of language hence, leaving them vulnerable to errors such as the two above.

A second aspect of the exam that is of particular difficulty for students is the lengthy and cumbersome reading passages. How often have you heard students complain that they understood most of what they read, but only had time to read half of the article. How can a class that is more autonomously taught aid these students? To begin with, presenting the articles more communicatively enhances their comprehension. To have students merely read and fill-in the-bubble is nothing more than substituting the article for the teacher. Communicative reading involves discussion, paraphrasing, and formulation of opinions or ideas within the construct of the passage. Students should be given a pretask to solve as a group or in pairs to which the passage augments or provides an example of how native speakers respond in the same situation. With practice in a communicative environment, students' ability to understand and respond to written material improves more dramatically than in the stiffer confines of more traditional approaches. "Language develops in the response to mean and to understand what others mean." (Willis, 2000) Essentially, reading enhances our communication, and communication enhances our reading.

Rather than presenting students with the necessary language, they must be guided into discovering it for themselves. A simple explanation of grammar and then a fill-in-the-blanks exercise, although efficient and not very messy, will not be sufficient to effectively prepare a student for the wide-ranging grammar, vocabulary, and idioms on the test. Thus, we have to do more than follow the systematic grammar guides to the TOEFL; we must create interactive activities that allow students to actively engage the language rather than receiving it passively.

Activities of this type are natural in a conversation class, but seldom seem to be employed in the test class. The traditional approach to test classes has been through the direct method of handouts and repetition of the language. The teacher takes a central role in doling out the language as they see fit to deal with the test's variety of questions. In turn, the student then practices the necessary grammar points whereupon this grammar is supposedly internalized and becomes a part of the learner' s repertoire. Of course, as we have seen before, this is often not the case.

Students must learn to teach themselves. Once a student begins to learn independently of the teacher, they lose their crutch and can operate more effectively on their own. The teacher becomes a guide rather than the authority thus, facilitating student self-evaluation and learning. A.P. Lian (1993) writes, ". . . the development of autonomous learning skills should be a major goal as it ought to be fully recognized that no learning program, whatever it sets out to achieve, will be exhaustive enough in its coverage of communicative activity in the language being learned." Nor, should I add, in its coverage of the language on TOEFL.

A few months back, in TLT, Jane Willis (2000) of Aston University reiterated the earlier studies of Halliday by saying, "Language does not exist in a vacuum, and it does not develop in a vacuum." The classroom is a vacuum when communication is not a two-way street as in the teacher-centered traditional approach to the test class. The need to move the teacher to the periphery is just as essential in the test class as it was in the conversation class thus, allowing the learner to become the active focus of communication rather than the teacher.

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the shift to learner-centered classrooms, and recent research lends credence to the trend. The test class need not be immune to such a shift. English tests are as much about students' abilities to function within the language as they are about plugging in the correct grammar and vocabulary. The traditional tactics must not be totally abandoned, as familiarity and comfort with the test are necessary, but the most successful student will not come from classes where the answers were given to them. They will come from classes where they found the answers on their own.

References

Phillips, D. (Ed.). (1996). Longman' s preparation for the TOEFL test: Volume B. Addison-Wesley

Willis, J. (2000). A holistic approach to task-based learning. The Language Teacher. 24 (2), p.7.

Lian, A. (1993) Awareness, autonomy, and achievement: Audio-video computer enhanced learning and the development of listening. Australian Learning Language Project.1993, pp. 25-41.



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