Testing

OK for those of you teachers out there that are reading this, forget everything you know about standardized testing in the States.  This is nothing like what I'm used to in NC.  Well, other than the fact that the test is ridiculously hard and not appropriate for students who are just learning English.

The science portion was Thursday.  I don't know much about this because as soon as the test was delivered I was kicked out of the room.  No problem, I went to the LT room and got my planning done!  Yeah!  What I did hear, was that it was extremely hard. The girls had to write about would happen in certain experiments.  Now, that shouldn't be a problem, but keep in mind that this is only their 2nd year learning English.  They just don't have the vocabulary.  Now some people would say that the exam doesn't match the curriculum, but it does.  It's just that the curriculum is wayyyyyy off base.  They are testing exactly what I am supposed to teach; it's just that I can't teach what I'm supposed to due to language issues.  That's really all I know about the science part.

Arabic was on Sunday and because I don't know Arabic I was allowed to stay in the room and administer the test.  The first issue arose when I had to pass out the test books.  Yes, I could read the names on the books, but it was taking forever.  So I got help.  Good!  That was not the time for me to be practicing my Arabic reading skills.  Once the girls got their book there was a lot of talking and a lot of questions.  The girls kept talking to each other, even during the test.  Many teachers walked in during the test and began talking to them and asking them how they were doing.  The girls would turn around and look at the student's paper behind them.  The girls were even walking around the classroom.  Now, I tried to stop all of this of course but you know the issues I'm having with them listening to me.  There was absolutely nothing I could do about the other teachers coming in and talking to them either.  One of the biggest problems occured when they were given pens.  Yes, pens!  There was a writing portion to the Arabic test and they had to write in pen.  Pencil is changeable and the administration was afraid that someone (the person grading the exam) would change the answer.  So pens it was.  Well, give a girl a pen and what do you expect.  You expect her to use it.  The only thing is you don't want her to use pen on a standardized test because it ruins the answer sheet.  Well, they were told to only use the pen on the writing part (someone translated for me), but many girls used it to fill in the bubbles!!  I know!  Horrifying!  What could I do?!  I told the principal, but I don't think she can do anything.  I don't think they have extra answer sheets laying around.  Who knows what the Arabic scores for 3/1 will look like now.  Then there's the fact that because I was adminstering an Arabic test I miraculously transformed into an Arabic teacher!  I can not count how many times I heard "abla" followed by something in Arabic, or pointing to the Arabic page and asking "shoo" (what).  OK I will say that I tried to read it, but there were no vowel marks so my reading was not accurate at all, and even if I could read it I couldn't understand what I read.  I would repsond with اقراي (iqraee - read) and اكتبي (iktabee - write).  There wasn't much help that I could offer them.

English was today.  Again I was ushered out of the room as soon as the test arrived.  I did get more information from my girls though.  A lot of girls in 3/2 were in tears.  My high girls were the ones that were crying.  It was too hard for them.  They didn't know the words.  That's what I heard a lot of; I could read, but I didn't know what the words were.  Just as I figured.  If it was too hard for my girls that are reading on a H/I level, imagine what it was like for those that can't read at all.  They also had to write, but they said that the writing was easy.  Who knows for sure though. 

I was able to sympathize today because I feel the same way in Arabic.  I had to ask Lara for help today becuase I needed to answer the questions relating to the paragraph that I read, but I couldn't figure out the words.  How can I (or they) answer a question if we can't figure out the words in the question to know what the question is asking?  Help me with that one!

Tomorrow is math.  Maybe that will be better!