Read the text below and answer the question.
Thought-in-Action Links
It is important to recognize that methods link thoughts and actions, because teaching is not entirely about one or the other. As a teacher of language, you have thoughts about your subject matter – what language is, what culture is – and about your students – who they are as learners and how it is they learn. You also have thoughts about yourself as a teacher and what you can do to help your students to learn. Many of your thoughts have been formed by your own experience as a language learner. With this awareness, you are able to examine why you do what you do and perhaps choose to think about or do things differently.
As an example, let us relate an anecdote about a teacher with whom Diane Larsen-Freeman was working some time ago. From her study of methods in Stevick (1980), Heather (not her real name) became interested in how to work with teacher control and student initiative in her teaching. She determined that during her student teaching internship, she would exercise less control of the lesson in order to encourage her students to take more initiative, and have them impose the questions in the classroom, since so often it is the teacher who asks all the questions, not the students.
However, she felt that the students were not taking the initiative, but she could not see what was wrong. When Diane Larsen Freeman, who was her supervisor, visited her class, she observed the following:
HEATHER: Juan, ask Anna what she is wearing.
JÜAN: What are you wearing?
ANNA: I am wearing a dress.
HEATHER: Anna, ask Muriel what she is writing.
ANNA: What are you writing?
MÜRIEL: I am writing a letter.
This pattern continued for some time. It was clear to see that Heather had successfully avoided the common problem of the teacher asking all the questions in the class. The teacher was not asking the questions – the students were. However, Heather had not achieved her goal of encouraging student initiative.
(Larsen-Freeman, D. 2000. Adaptado)
Instructions: answer question based on the following text
(Avaliable in: https://people.com/parents/vacations-better-than-toys-holiday-gifts-kids/ – text specially adapted for this test.)
Leia o texto e responda à questão.
For years attention has been paid to so-called communicative tests – usually implying tests dealing with speaking. More recently, efforts have been made to design truly communicative tests of other language skills as well, such as reading comprehension.
Canale (1984) points out that a good test is not just one which is valid, reliable, and practical in terms of test administration and scoring, but rather one that is accepted as fair, important and interesting by test takers (the teachers) and test users (the students). Also, a good test has feedback potential, rewarding both teachers and students with clear, rich, relevant, and generalizable information. Canale suggests that acceptability and feedback potential have often been accorded low priority, thus explaining the curious phenomenon of multiple-choice tests claiming to assess oral interaction skills.
One example of a communicative test has been referred to as a “storyline” test. In such a test, a common theme runs throughout in order to assess the effects of context. The basis for such an approach is that the respondents learn as they read on, that they check previous content, and that the ability to use language in conversation or writing depends in large measure on the skill of picking up information from past discussion and using it in formulating new strategies.
Swain (1984), for example, developed a storyline test of French as a foreign language for high school French immersion students. The test consisted of six tasks around a common theme, “finding summer employment”. There were four writing tasks (a letter, a note, a composition, a technical exercise) and two speaking tasks (a group discussion and a job interview). The test was designed so that the topic would be motivating to the students and so that there would be enough information provided in order to give the tasks credibility. There was access to dictionaries and reference material, and opportunity for students to review and revise their work. Swain’s main concern was to “bias for best” in the construction of the test – to make every effort to support the respondent in doing their best on the test.
(Andrew D.Cohen. Second Language Assessment. IN: Marianne Celce-Murcia(ed). Teaching English as a second or foreign language. Boston, Massachusstes: Heinle&Heinle. 2nd edition. 2001. Adaptado)
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