When and why do we test students?

Placement / Level tests

When students enroll in a language course, they are usually given a test to check how much English they know. This kind of test is known as a placement test or a level test, and it is used to help ensure that students are placed in an appropriate class.

Well-designed placement tests include sections on grammar and vocabulary as well as all four skills. A test which consists entirely of multiple-choice questions may be convenient for students to take, and very quick to mark, but it won’t give you ‘the complete picture’ as far as a student’s language proficiency is concerned.

Teachers are not usually responsible for designing placement tests, but they do need to be aware that the results of these tests are not infallible. If you have new students in your class, keep a careful eye on them during the first few lessons to check that they are in the right class.

Progress tests

Once students have been assigned to a class, they are usually required to take regular progress tests. As the name suggests, one of the aims of these tests is for teachers to check on their students’ progress. In fact, most teachers are already very aware of their students’ progress without the need for a test.

However, there are many other good reasons for setting progress tests. Firstly, when students know that they have a test coming up, they are usually more motivated to revise. Progress tests also help students to become more aware of their progress, and (hopefully!) gives them a sense of achievement, which in turn has a positive effect on their motivation.

End-of-course / Achievement / Exit tests

At the end of a course, a semester or a year, students are usually given a final test to check how much they have learned. The results of these tests may have a bearing on whether students can move up to the next level. As with placement tests, good achievements tests focus on grammar and vocabulary in addition to all four skills.

Informal testing

As mentioned previously, teachers rarely need to rely on the results of progress tests to find out how their students are doing. This is because they constantly evaluate their students’ strengths and weaknesses throughout every lesson. This is true not only during the ‘test’ stages of a Test-Teach-Test approach, but also while monitoring during speaking skills tasks or marking students’ written work. Basically, we should ‘test’ our students all the time!

Alternatives to testing

Testing is by far the most common way of evaluating students. However, the fact remains that some students don’t perform well in tests. Some institutions use continuous assessment, so that students are evaluated based on their performance throughout the course rather than on one or two particular days.