Thursday, November 15, 2007

High Stake Exams

The UPSR results are out! Joey passed with 7A's. Her mother, Li Qi was overjoyed. So am I! I had taught her and her siblings English.
"How will you reward her?" I asked the mother.
"We'll see," she responded.
I wonder if this high stake exam will still be on next year. There was talk that it might be scrapped because it can be a source of great stress for candidates. It's true that written exams may not be the best assessment of a student's abilities. After all, one's performance in a big exam is dependent on several factors apart from head knowledge. An otherwise brilliant student may not perform well because some circumstance has upset his/ her equilibrium. A cold, poor sleep, bad news can take its toil on one's thinking skills at a time such as this.
Despite such factors, I personally feel that exams are valid instruments for assessment.

2 comments:

Fuzz said...

Congratulations on your students' successes. High stakes tests are now a reality for our EFL/ESL students in California, too. There are many obstacles they must face to achieve proficient scores.

I like your idiom entries, too. It is hard to teach these any other way than just teaching the expression with their meaning. Do you know another way?

azrienazin said...

hi Lina...

Still remember me? sorry for not reply ur email and leave comment in ur blog. very very busy these days..

i like to read your blog. i'll linked ur blog to mine too, ok.

i really not good in English, idioms lagi lar.. :-) but now, i probably can learn from ur blog.. keep writing, ok.

i've invited u to view my blog. i sent it to ur email. nothing much actually.

nice knowing u.

take care

-anum-

 
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