So after the exciting discussion with the VP last week, I started doing the speaking exams yesterday. Of course, they only told me about it last week, so I couldn’t prepare for it properly, but I managed to squeeze one out.
Out of the 2~3 chapters that I’ve done with them, I’m going to semi-randomly choose 2 students (pair up higher skilled student with lower skilled) to read a random dialogue (to make the test a bit easier and to take some of the pressure off the students), and I’ll assign who will read each part (some of the dialogues are one sided). Grading will be divided into several parts: 3pts for speed (not too slow/fast), 3pts for clarity (no mumbling), 6pts for pronunciation, and 3 pts for attitude for a total of 15 points. If they make any mistakes, it will be -1pt, but if they fix it by themselves, they can get back +0.5pt.
Yesterday, about an hour before the exam begins, the CT came up to me and told me that she and the other CTs looked at my test and they’ve changed the format. The students have already been notified of the new test format, so that’s the way it’s gonna go. So not only did they change the test format without any sort of discussion with me, they decided to change it without informing me about it, AND the students get to know about it before I have to give them the test, which they’re not even present for.
New test format: Students choose their own partner and they all memorize the same dialogue. They also changed my grading system because they said it was too complex for them (even though I’ll be the only one doing all the grading for it), so now I can only take off -0.5pt for anything and I should try to be lenient with the grades, since they’re also studying for the final exams. I also can’t give a grade lower than a 7 (out of 15) because some of the students might fail the class.
So my test went from evaluating their reading/speaking English skills at any random moment (which is a slightly realistic situation) to testing their memorization skills (which has nothing to do with their English speaking ability). Needless to say, many of the students’ grades were higher than they deserved, and some of the higher level students’ grades were a bit lower than expected.
Only 3 more days of this BS and I’m off for a week, so lets see if my sanity holds until Friday. And if they make any more changes, I’m just gonna flip!
-Max
