I just finished another round of testing in my ESOL classes, which can be somewhat of a long process but at the end, it’s worth it. We use a converstation test called Best Plus to test our ESOL students, which requires one-on-one testing. A little difficult to do when you have between 12-16 students in each of your classes.
Luckily for me, I spread it out this year and tested students at different times throughout the fall and that Carol Joy had the time to help me with the testing this past Tuesday night. Just goes to show you that anything can happen even with a well-thought-out plan, or that I really hadn’t thought about the number of students I’d need to test until I started signing students up last Thursday night. In this case, I think I’ll go with the latter.
If she hadn’t helped me I wouldn’t have been able to test the 9 people I had scheduled since it takes about 15 minutes to test each student. Thanks Carol Joy!
The students did great! Almost all of my students showed significant improvement. A couple of my students even improved 4-5 levels. It shows how hard they have all been working and their willingness to give up their time to come to class to improve their English.
My favorite part was the thank-you present one of my students, who actually records each of my lessons and generally corrects any innaccuracies I made during the past lesson, gave me after she finished her reading test (once they test out of the conversation test, students start taking reading test so that they can keep coming to the program). It was an large oblong package wrapped in brown shipping paper addressed to me, but she had written on the package that it was a gift “From God”. Before opening it, I knew that it was going to be entertaining and smiled when I read what the sign she had given me said: No one is listening until you make a mistake. What can you do but laugh? At least my students keep me honest… and provide me with a multitude of things to decorate my desk and house. Hey, I’m not complaining.
