I completely avoid the use of any “big tests”, which are disruptive, waste class time, usually require memorization, alienate students, give the control of the grade over to the teacher, require time to assess that I do not have in my new vision of myself as a relaxed teacher, and are generally inaccurate anyway.
As stated in the previous blog entry, I use quizzes. Half of my grading is based on short ten point yes or no scantron assessments. One fourth of it is a straight up weekly participation grade, and the other is a reading test that shows volumes in terms of what was learned the previous week.
I don’t even write the two content quizzes – my students do. It saves me time when my students write the quizzes, and I know that they are amazingly fair. My purpose never has been to fail students but to help them succeed.
Since the quizzes are simple and direct and require that the student merely listen during class (all quizzes are same day except for the second reading quiz), grades of B- and above are common.
This flies in the face of the ancient bell curve, which is punitive and insulting to students of languages, because anyone can learn a language. I know that the concept that all students can succeed in languages, if not in physics or statistics, is not accepted by all language teachers. Nonetheless, I believe that it is true.
Advantages of using quizzes to assess, therefore, include:
– you don’t have to sit at your desk messing with your grade book after school while the traffic builds up for your commute home.
– you don’t have to accept that indefinable level of confusion (that not only affects and frustrates you but also your students) about how much certain work “weighs” (whatever that means). Things are straightforward, simple and direct.
– you save precious class minutes that, instead of being devoted to judging kids, can be used for real acquisition via comprehensible input.
[As Jody pointed out in a comment recently, none of the above is advertised as anything more than what works for me – these are merely suggestions and opinions, as is all of the content on this blog]