Assessment for certification

that students could keep committing the same mistakes repetitively. Henceforth, homework was given based on the interest of the class and students and thus were not obligatory.

If you do something extra at home, it helps you a lot because you expose yourself to language. That’s the most important thing for me and if you expose yourself to language every single day for 5 minutes, it will help you a lot. (Smith)

In short, the outcome of the study revealed that teachers practiced these assessment means to corroborate student accountability fitting to the need of the policy.

They also used grades to indicate to students what they know and do not. For instance, if they work hard they will get better marks and if they don’t they get lower marks. Teachers justification regarding the frequent use of marks was that scales have their own purposes which is to cater to learning differences and specify learning based on their mettle. The teachers stressed that grading learners’ performance is a dominant means to substantiate the accountability of students, teachers and schools, but not necessarily for improving teaching and learning as is evident in the statement below:

I just use grades but I don’t believe that when you give marks it will somehow form the children. No, it won’t. It will just give them the information that you know this and you don’t know that, so you should learn this. (Terry)

Simultaneously, marks were also used to track student’s learning progress as apparent in the statement:

I find out their improvement through the assessment. I have a spread sheet. After I give them assignments, I record the marks in the spread sheet and over the process, September, October, and November. So, every month, I record marks and with this, I can find out the growth or progression and that’s how I try to attend to afterwards through observing the marks. (Pat)

Furthermore, marks in the form of percentages were also used to grade student learning.

This was mainly used for the purpose of certification as grades needs to be shown at the end.

According to the teachers, these percentages were set from the beginning of the academic year, so that it is easier for the students to calculate their achievement on the grading scales by calculating the score point based on their performance in the test by the end of the academic year or term. Moreover, each time a test was conducted, teachers as well as students were

expected to record the marks as well as the percentages in their notebook. These recorded marks served as a basis for students to figure out their final scoring point and allows the students to calculate and associate percentage with grading scales as was evident in the following statement:

I use the percentage so that everybody knows how many percent they need to get 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 and with each test they get of course a mark but together with that they get the percentage. So, they know how many percent to get from each test and they can have a look because we write that down every time in the notebooks so that they know how many percent they got from every test. They can see and they can compare their papers so that they know I got 77 percent so it means mark 2. This is the way we do that. (John)

In this way, the percentage score was applied for the purpose of certification. In addition, teachers were also found administering regular small tests and various other alternative activities including projects, portfolios, extempore speeches, grammar bytes and role plays. Grade adjustments were made on these activities to serve the objective of fulfilling the requirement. For example, teachers awarded small marks when students were able to improvise on the spot without any home preparation and students were graded and given small marks when they took the test seriously and when they do prior preparation as indicated by the teacher:

If they manage to do well in the class when they don’t have home preparation and so on and still, they are able to improvise and do well in the lesson., Then, I give them small marks because they are usually good and so it’s very positive. (Carla)

Grammar bytes were organized to test and enhance students’ grammar knowledge and skills and based on their performance, they were graded as expressed by a teacher.

We do or what I like doing is, we have grammar bytes on Friday and it’s essentially on that day. I write a sentence up on the board which has a variety of grammatical errors:

things like punctuations errors, spelling and things like that and it gets graded and it gets harder as we go higher up. (Debbie)

In addition to those above practices, teachers conducted regular tests in the class. The test materials consisted mostly of gap filling, matching, multiple choice questions and short sentence correction and as well as translation exercises. These tests were conducted on weekly and monthly bases or at the end of the unit. Following the tests, the teachers marked and graded them as grades needs to be exhibited in the end.

Teacher hands out test materials based on A5 format having 5 sentences. The sentences were in Czech. The students were required to translate those sentences into English.

(Class observation, Dec 12, 2018)

As reported by the teachers, they conducted these tests while considering the circumstances of the students. Teachers perceived such tests as mild, positive, and humanistic in nature, as they made adjustments depending on the situation. Teachers said the purpose was to provide students with ample time so, they can obtain better grades as was evident in the extract:

I always try to assess with heart and with understanding of the concrete situation. For example, there can be a situation that you prepare a test and somebody is not prepared for writing it. I discuss it with him and if I understand that he is not ready to write it, I try to be sensitive to the feelings of the pupil. (Terry)

These activities were carried out to meet the passing requirement by the end of the term, as teachers were expected to show the students’ accumulated marks before the final marks were added. In this way teachers were found using various channels to substantiate assessment for certification. Although marks are associated with the teacher-centred approach, they are nonetheless dominant in the assessment practices of teachers in these schools as they were required in the educational as well as in the school policies. Teachers therefore organized these different activities to meet the marking requirement for the purpose of certification and to a larger extent to accommodate the needs of the society, as there is a strong inclination judge schools and a child’s performance based on the grades they achieve. This reflects the supremacy of grading in the assessment practices of the teachers.