Testing vs. Learning.

[WARNING: Possibly dry content]

Without any further ado:
The Japanese education system is insanely 'kibishii' (strict? gruelling? much-pressure-placed-on-exam-results?). Kids graduating from jr. high into high school go through such cramming as we in Canada don't experience until we are preparing for university. Indeed, that is how you determine which high school you go to in Japan: high marks, you may be accepted to an `academic` high school....low marks, you go to a technical or trade school. And lots of schools in between. There is tons of pressure on these young kids to pass well on their exams. Since they are tested on the curriculum (i.e. textbook material), teachers are pressured into jamming as much of the textbook into their heads as possible.


Every teacher, educational administrator, person who teaches anyone anything, comes across the dilemma of testing: how to test, what to test, and accordingly, how to teach what is to be tested. I've never really appreciated this issue until now but it's a hot topic amongst teachers - especially English teachers (or any language teacher, really). This is because there are multiple facets to the learning of any language, which include: listening comprehension, reading/writing, and speaking (I'm sure you are all aware of this; I'm just laying out the premise for my mild rant, or whatever this is).

The bane of many ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) in Japan is the emphasis placed almost exclusively on reading and writing with the result being that many students, even if they can manufacture a grammatically correct sentence on paper, are completely at a loss when confronted with an English-speaking human.

Anecdotal evidence:

My students just finished mid-term exams and are currently getting their results back. Some did really well, some did poorly - that's to be expected. What surprised me (and what prompted me to write this post) came about when I was talking with a 9th grader named Kana about her test. She was really excited because she predicted her usual 50% but she outdid herself and got a 69%! I'm not making fun of her; I was genuinely happy that she did so well (relatively speaking). Glancing over her test paper, I asked her if she knew what the following sentence meant: "Lisa is liked by everyone." She had correctly written that sentence, she got it right. BUT - she had no idea what it meant! No comprehension of what she had correctly written.


I don't think testing and learning are mutually exclusive but seriously, sometimes I wonder.

Related to that, I find it interesting that at one of my schools (I haven't investigated this with my other two schools) those classes which are energetic and outgoing and actually try to communicate in English (hereinafter "the Awesomes") often perform poorly on exams while those classes which won't/can't speak a word of English (hereinafter "the Ivory Towers") are those that perform well on tests.

I guess if the English exam is just a means to an end (i.e. get into a good high school but never really have anything to do with English for the rest of your life), then that's fine. But for those who are studying English to be able to expand their world, to communicate with people all of the world in what is quickly becoming a universal language, I have to ask (rhetorically), who is more likely to successfully adapt? The Awesomes or the Ivory Towers?

After reading this, I feel I should clarify that I'm not blaming the Awesomes and Ivory Towers for their respective short-comings. What I'm blaming is the SYSTEM that pressures students and teachers alike into learning/teaching the textbook instead of reality! Who has seen the Matrix? Just kidding.