Tests... who's really getting tested here?

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WARNING!!! THIS IS A BLOG SPECIFICALLY MADE TO RANT ABOUT TEST GIVING EXPERIENCE IN THAILAND.

**even though this blog sounds angry and frustrated (which I was) I am still taking this as a learning cultural experience. You learn from everything in life**

BEGIN RANT

Erika, Mike, and I were so excited for test week at our school. We were sure it was going to be a breeze. How hard could it be to watch kids taking a test and getting the grading out of the way at the same time? We even thought we could get other things done like blogging, reading a book, etc. Oh how we were wrong! It was actually much harder than we anticipated. We had to watch each class like a hawk. These students love to copy and they would copy their life away if they could. They are not very creative in their cheating skills and for the most part are very obvious that they are cheating. It's annoying when you are forced to stare the class down for 50 minutes because they know if you look away for a split second they can cheat. I had to explain that there could be absolutely no talking once the test was out because I wouldn't be able to tell what they were saying. I would get really frustrated at my classes when they continued to talk as I began passing out the test. Test giving was a breeze compared to what followed though but first, cheating techniques.

Thai cheating techniques:
<ol style="margin-left: 0.375in; direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed; margin-top: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" type="1"><li style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; vertical-align: middle;" value="1">Obviously look over at my neighbors paper<li style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; vertical-align: middle;">Pass the white out pen back and forth a million times<li style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; vertical-align: middle;">Whisper in Thai, either I won't hear them or understand them… If I ask about it they say they are just asking for the white out pen<li style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; vertical-align: middle;">Writing on the desk<li style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; vertical-align: middle;">Writing on the test copy (had to reuse the same tests for all the classes)


Grading 1,100 tests is the most time consuming and frustrating thing. This was the first test where I could see what the kids were learning. Apparently, 75%!o(MISSING)f them have learned nothing. Not surprising with how much they talk in my class and don't listen to a word I say. Many open answer questions were answered with them copying a different question into the answer spot. Bravo children, bravo. My bonus question was always entertaining to grade. The bonus question was, "where is Teacher Carolyn from?" and I got so many different answers. There were some kids who were smart and made educated guesses like Canada, Britain, London, America, Australia, or USA but then there were some like "she like to go dancing." Even with a co-teacher to translate things for me some students didn't even put their number on the test.. Their number is the only was I can tell who they are on my grade sheets. It's really sad that I don't know a single students name… but I never expected to with over a 1,000 students and only seeing each once a week.

While grading I found some students who managed to copy each others answers word for word! I don't know how I missed that one but they sure earned zeros. Speaking of zeros and failing students.. I'm about to rant about my least favorite thing about Thai schools. They don't let their students fail instead they let the students retake a test a million times until they've memorized the answers and are able to pass.. eventually. Oh and students that missed the test can take a retest whenever they feel like it apparently. One class only 10 students showed up out of 50. There is no way 40 students had a legitimate excuse for not being at the test. I had multiple students come up to me on multiple occasions asking to take the test even 6 weeks after the test!!!! I wanted to strangle someone! One class, I let 5 students take the test outside the classroom while I reviewed the test inside. After class, a student who sat through the entire review exclaimed that she needed to take the test! I was astounded. She really just sat through all the answers and then asked to take the test. She retook it, and magically got every multiple choice answer correct! Imagine that! They must really think us teachers are dumb or something.. I don't know. Thing that bothered me the most was that these students were wanting to take the retake so late that the answers have been long out in the open. The Thai teachers don't see the problem. I have tried to explain to them that in America when you give a test it is a one time thing and if you fail that is your fault and you need to do better later on. Here, the students run the classroom. They decide when they are ready to take a test and how many times till they pass. It's not learning and it's just a waste of time for the teachers. I have given about 10 make up test sessions since the test one and there are still students who haven't taken it or are still failing. For my next test I am stating it weeks in advance that there will be one make up test only. No more of this crap.

So to make matters worse with their skill levels. These kids are high schoolers right? The future leaders of Thailand and possibly the world. Well… they can't even say the one number that is assigned to them to remember in English. Passing back these awful tests was a nightmare. There I would be standing at the front of the class shouting out a number waiting for a student to come up and claim their test. I'd say it 10 times, and then surrender to saying it in Thai. That's when I would finally have the student come up. Ok, this is only in my worst level classes but really… if your number is 5 and you take an English class with a non-Thai speaking teacher, could you at least learn the one number that I have to identify you?!

END RANT

Sorry for such a rant.. But it needed to happen. This was by far the worst teaching experience that I have encountered while over here! Even worse than my worst behaved class where a kid told me "fuck you". I love teenagers… I hope that test 2 will go much smoother and that I have learned how to handle it better. Fingers crossed.

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