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Hello All There has been a huge amount of concern – very valid concern – on this issue and I agree that NATECLA, as the professional body for ESOL teachers, should take this forward. We will be discussing it at our next Management Council meeting in January and drafting a response. Before contacting awarding bodies, however, we felt it was important to get feedback from as many ESOL tutors/managers as possible; therefore we are carrying out a short survey of NATECLA members’ views on exam boards and assessment. The survey will be sent out later this week so please make sure you complete it and forward it to colleagues to complete. The more feedback we get from the professionals, the better it will support our argument. If you are not yet a member of NATECLA, I would urge you to consider joining! Best wishes Judith Kirsh Chair, NATECLA www.natecla.org.uk From: ESOL-Research discussion forum and message board [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of James Simpson Sent: 25 November 2011 14:34 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Edexcel Video Recordings Importance: High Hello ESOL-Research and NATECLA ESOL forum, There has been much concern about the issue of EDEXCEL’s policy of videoing speaking assessments (as voiced on the ESOL-Research email list). The issues raised in the discussion include: · the (unbelievable) lack of clarity of information from the exam board itself; · the lack of consistency across exam boards (only EDEXCEL make this requirement, it seems); · the lack of consistency within the exam board (only ESOL tests have to be filmed, and not tests in other subject areas, it seems); · the ignorance (wilful or otherwise) on the part of the exam board of the real concerns some students might have about being filmed; · the ignorance (wilful or otherwise) on the part of the exam board of the effect of having cameras present in the assessment event generally · the financial and practical issues surrounding the requrement for filming … etc etc. Given this, do you think it is appropriate for NATECLA to raise a protest with the exam board? I do. All the best James Dr James Simpson Senior Lecturer (Language Education) School of Education University of Leeds Leeds LS2 9JT United Kingdom T: +44 (0)113 343 4687 F: +44 (0)113 343 4541 E: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]:[log in to unmask]> W: http://www.education.leeds.ac.uk/people/staff.php?staff=39 From: ESOL-Research discussion forum and message board [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Naomi Nikhata Sent: 25 November 2011 12:21 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Edexcel Video Recordings Importance: High Hi Everyone It would appear that everyone is getting told different information by Edexcel and their Standards Verifiers ( EVs). We were relieved when our EV told us this was a change over period and that he would be expecting to see our S&L exams all video recorded by the end of the academic year. Unfortunately today we have found out by Edexcel that this information is INCORRECT. ALL S&L exams this year must be video recorded. We have exams on Monday and so at 2pm are having a crash course in filming. I’m dreading telling the learners at 8:45 am on Monday to sign a form allowing them to be filmed and going straight into the exam room with no forewarning or practise for them or our staff! So good luck everyone! Naomi Please see e-mail below: Good Morning Karen, I have spoken to the ESOL team, they have confirmed that all levels of ESOL Speaking and Listening exams need to be video recorded. The information in the ICE document is correct. Kind Regards, Linda Kingsley Customer Relations Advisor www.edexcel.com One90 High Holborn London WC1V 7BH From: ESOL-Research discussion forum and message board [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Cheryl Thornett Sent: Friday, November 11, 2011 12:05 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Edexcel Video Recordings However well an exam is designed, it always seems to take too much of limited class time to teach exam knowledge and skills, rather than the knowledge and communication skills the exam is meant to test. I always devoted a couple of class sessions to mock exams (with feedback) but that’s not quite the same thing. Mock exams with a different teacher might have been better, but our disorganised set-up made that virtually impossible. One of the reasons I did this was an attempt to reduce anxiety and allow students to communicate in a more natural way in the actual exam, but even so, a few had to resit at least one exam at least once before they could pass and begin to demonstrate the speaking and listening ability they demonstrated in less stressful settings. Fortunately it only took one exam for most people. (We found the majority of the Trinity examiners were quite good at establishing an atmosphere which was not too stressful.) When teachers are required to be interlocutors, they need training and practice as well, including the use of the equipment. I would certainly perform less well if aware of a camera pointed at me, and this is really a taboo for some Muslim women, who are not even willing to be in a class photograph taken by a female classmate, and only meant to be shared within the class. I would certainly suggest giving students a chance to become accustomed to recording, especially to video recording, when it is a required procedure. This leads us to the more serious question of exam-driven learning, of course. Cheryl Thornett ESOL & Adult Literacy Tutor Birmingham From: James Simpson <mailto:[log in to unmask]> Sent: Friday, November 11, 2011 10:17 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Edexcel Video Recordings Hello all Dominic makes some interesting points here about the conditions under which we assess the oral competence of ESOL students. I too believe that an array of recording devices will hardly calm a student, though also take the point that students are becoming used to the presence of recording devices in daily life. There is also the question of the quality and reliability of the record made of the test. Video is preferable in many ways to audio, because it captures, to an extent, the non-verbal and paralinguistic features of oral communication which are so important in meaning-making. But video can be intrusive, and some students will not willingly be filmed. Recording speaking tests (as well as carrying them out in the first place) also raises the question about what exactly is being tested, that is to say, what is the construct? If you are testing students’ ability to negotiate a high-stakes event where they have to answer questions posed by people more powerful than they are, while being recorded, then that’s fine. But if what is claimed to be tested is prototypical spoken conversation, then the validity of the test needs to be looked at very carefully. Beyond the intricacies of exam board requirements, there are other issues concerning the testing of speaking that we shouldn’t lose sight of. In our book on ESOL, Melanie Cooke and I took this discussion further, posing the question of why some ESOL students failed to perform in a testing situation to the extent of their ability. Here is a slightly edited version of what we said at the time, in Cooke, M. and J. Simpson (2008) ESOL: A Critical Guide. Oxford: OUP (pp.87-88): There are a number of possible answers to this question, some of which are listed here. The first two are suggested by Steven Ross in his paper ‘Divergent frame interpretations in language proficiency interview interaction’ (1998). • Learners might not possess the pragmatic competence to tackle or answer the question. That is, they do not possess the knowledge and ability to use communicative language (in this case, test-taking language) appropriately in its sociocultural context (in this case, a speaking test). • The phenomenon of saying little in a test is called by Ross ‘under-elaboration’. Under-elaborate answers might ‘mark the boundaries of what are considered by the candidate as private matters’ (Ross 1998: 345). • A student’s idea of how to perform in a speaking test may not match that of the test designers’ expectation. Nonetheless they possess a notion of correctness. Even if they have little experience of formal schooling, they come to the test with some knowledge, possibly based on knowledge of the overall dominant educational culture in their home countries or of their prior learning experience in their new countries, that encourages them to focus on getting the answer right rather than demonstrating their range of ability at the risk of making mistakes. This, coupled with lack of experience of the formal testing situation, may prompt ‘new’ test takers to feel that it is better to say little in the test itself than to produce incorrect utterances. • Speaking test candidates in general are undoubtedly under an amount of what Brown and Yule, in their book Teaching the Spoken Language (1983), term ‘communicative stress’, where they are in the presence of unfamiliar listeners, where it is not entirely clear what they are expected to produce in terms of length and complexity of utterance. Like actors with stage fright, an effect of communicative stress is for people to ‘dry up’. • During a test, there is a clear inequality between the less powerful test taker and the more powerful tester. When a test ends, there is a corresponding shift in power relations. When students no longer feel that they are the subordinate partner in an unequal interaction, they are able to expand their responses. • Different cultures have different expectations of conversational style. The insight from Dell Hymes’ work on the ethnography of speaking (1974) is that descriptors in a speaking test may well describe aspects of conversational style valued by a particular speech community and not by others. That is, the descriptions of language in a speaking test taken by ESOL students might well correspond with what is deemed desirable by test designers in western, English-dominant countries. There is a norm in such tests based on a ‘western’ model of communication to which all learners are obliged to aspire. What emerges from this complex range of possibilities is that conclusions drawn from any hesitations and minimal responses on the part of the candidates in a speaking test risk conflating lack of ability with a number of other potential accounts. The obvious implication for testing oral communication in ESOL is that test takers should be made thoroughly aware of the test format and properly trained before embarking on the test. Given the high stakes nature of tests which are designed to satisfy a language requirement for naturalization or employment, as well as the widespread introduction of national tests for ESOL students, test-taking training is becoming an integral part of ESOL lessons even at the very lowest levels. This will perhaps combat, if not solve, the problem of inexperienced test takers having to be taught how to undergo complex assessments of which they have little previous experience. Some students in low-level ESOL classes had little or no experience of school as children, which means that they also lack experience of what is expected in formal teaching and learning situations, rendering the training of test-taking techniques difficult. Ultimately, it is questionable whether it is fair to expect migrant learners with little or no previous educational experience to possess appropriate and adequate interpretations for a speaking test. If not, other alternative assessment approaches may have to be explored. There is more (much more!) along the same lines in a paper I wrote on this topic, which I can send to anyone who is interested: Simpson, J. (2006) ‘Differing expectations in the assessment of the speaking skills of ESOL learners.’ Linguistics and Education 17/1, 40-55. One or two recent subscribers to ESOL-Research are language testing professionals, and I wonder if they have anything to add? Cheers James From: ESOL-Research discussion forum and message board [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dominic Clarke Sent: 09 November 2011 20:44 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Edexcel Video Recordings Hello everyone I am not sure if many people who have taken part in this discussion work in small , poorly resourced outreach locations. I am fully in agreement with doing audio recordings of S&L assessment - if this doesn't happen then there is no record , also it means that assessment can be carried out after the activity. We do C&G exams - during the activity , when I am acting as assessor , I just sit there and make sure the tape is running, I don't take notes. I am guessing that having someone taking notes is not really going to put the candidate at ease. I feel that students can experience massive stress levels during exams, many of them have enough to put up with in their daily lives anyway. This idea of videoing exams seems ridiculous to me - why increase the stress of an already stressful event anyway for no obvious reason ? In addition it also adds to costs - where I work we quite often don't have toilet paper so we aren't about to run out and get flip cameras for everybody , tripods etc. I thought that adult education was supposed to be enduring massive spending cuts just at the moment. I personally use audio recording in the classroom a lot - I just use a crummy old Sony cassette recorder , I get students to record themselves talking to each other , away from the group, so they get used to being recorded. I don't use digital recording technology - I have seen how much of a pain in the neck that can be when the technology doesn't work, which seems like quite often. I guess the outcome of this is that only heavily funded educational providers will end up using EdExcel. Regards Dominic Clarke *********************************** ESOL-Research is a forum for researchers and practitioners with an interest in research into teaching and learning ESOL. ESOL-Research is managed by James Simpson at the Centre for Language Education Research, School of Education, University of Leeds. To join or leave ESOL-Research, visit http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/ESOL-RESEARCH.html A quick guide to using Jiscmail lists can be found at: http://jiscmail.ac.uk/help/using/quickuser.htm To contact the list owner, send an email to [log in to unmask] *********************************** ESOL-Research is a forum for researchers and practitioners with an interest in research into teaching and learning ESOL. ESOL-Research is managed by James Simpson at the Centre for Language Education Research, School of Education, University of Leeds. 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