Should foreign language students be allowed to use cheat sheets during an exam?
Should teachers allow cheating on exams?
“What!“
“Are you kidding me?“
“Really?“
Yes, I can hear you now. Yes I’m serious. Should students be allowed to use cheat sheets?”cribs“, “chancucos” or whatever you want to call them, during tests or exams?
“For God’s sake, no.“
“Absolutely not“
“No way Joseph!“
“Re crazy?“
Hey, I’ll just be, there’ll even be a couple of “No way in H—-!“answers.
But wait there hoss. Just one minute. Listen to me before you gang up to come get me.
The foreign language assessment experience
Most foreign language schools, colleges, and programs schedule formal tests or assessments multiple times per semester, level, or whatever your term division is. For the most part, these are not pleasant or positive experiences for foreign language teachers or students. Teachers, especially, can have a better test day experience if they have eyes in the back of their heads and can be in three places at once. (Yes of course) Otherwise, you may want to consider some alternatives or adjustments to smooth the process of taking the exam. Often the teacher must receive and review a wheelbarrow loaded with assignments, texts, essays, or compositions or assignment books before an exam. Sometimes just before a scheduled exam on the same day. If the poor soul has more than one class group scheduled for an exam on the same day, break out the Bacardi, guys.
Foreign language students and exams
It is certainly not a bed of roses for foreign language students either. After a period of cramming verb conjugations, vocabulary lists, idioms and expressions, and pronunciation into their heads and throats, the stress that an exam brings doesn’t usually bode well for them. This, of course, is not to mention the myriad of grammatical rules and exceptions that they continually had to somehow swallow and internalize over the past few weeks.
“How do you think the night before the exam went for most of your foreign language students?“
Yes me too.
Foreign Language Learning Assessments
If we consider for a moment the true purposes of foreign language learning assessments in both formal and informal aspects, we find that assessments are used to:
– Validate the level of knowledge of the students.
– Provide feedback on the teaching methodology.
– Highlight areas of weakness in the student’s knowledge of the foreign language
– Establish the current level of communication skills in foreign languages.
– Show students what they really know or don’t know
How often and in what detail they are determined will depend on the school, college or program. Ultimately, to help this process, standards such as the Common European Framework have been established to provide internationally accepted services rubrics for both institutions and teachers in the preparation of evaluations.
Open Book Reviews
While not typical in many school districts, the “open book” style of student assessment is valid. Students can use their notes, their textbook, or even a specially prepared set of pages as reference material while taking a test. The responsibility of the teacher or test preparer, then, is to create an assessment that is challenging in the manner and type of responses required to elicit a “correct” answer to the assessment questions. If the goal is more critical thinking or a conceptual comparison of the main topics being taught, allowing students to access texts or notes will not provide the student with any distinct advantage.
There is no real “trick” to critical thinking or comparative analytical skills. These types of assessments help define the student’s ability to apply the knowledge she has received to practical (or theoretical) situations, providing a much more valuable view of the educational process for both the teacher and the student. So whether or not students can access reference materials during an assessment will likely depend on the type of assessment they are taking.
In subsequent articles in this series, we will explore the concept further.
Until then.