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Grzegorz Śpiewak

To test or NOT to test? Towards smart assessment in your teenage classroom

Audience focus: Teachers of adolescent learners, Teacher trainers

Abstract

Any language teacher knows that students, particularly teenagers, hate traditional tests. And that testing, in its traditional format, has come under massive attack in recent years. This said, we also know that a typical learner does want to know whether s/he is making any progress. So, the solution really isn’t to abandon all testing but rather to be a lot smarter about how we select, design, and organise assessment activities for our language learners.
In this super practical session, I’ll offer a number of alternatives to traditional testing methods. Come along to sample them all, and also learn some tricks and assessment lifehacks, all tried and tested with numerous teenage students. Some illustration and examples will come from the Gateway to the World course series from Macmillan. You’ll see for yourself that such alternatives are NOT time-consuming or difficult to prepare – in fact, they can make your workload quite a bit lighter! Intrigued?

Biography

Grzegorz Śpiewak is a graduate of University of Essex, UK (MA in Linguistics) and University of Warsaw (Ph.D in English & Linguistics). Teacher of English, academic consultant, ELT project manager, teacher trainer, international conference speaker, author. A former academic lecturer and deputy director for English Teaching & CLIL at the Department of English of Warsaw University. An on-line tutor on MA TESOL programme, The New School for Social Research, New York.
Currently affiliated with Macmillan Education (as Head ELT Consultant for Central & Eastern Europe and a key teacher trainer) and with DOS-ELTea – an independent teacher development centre (as its co-founder & president). An Honorary President and advisory board member of IATEFL Poland.

This talk is sponsored by Macmillan Education.