Time for Finals!

 

“I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”
― Albert Einstein

The past two days have been a grueling experience.  I’ve devoted my body, my mind, and my time to the academic duty of giving FINAL EXAMS!  It’s seems like only yesterday that I was preparing for my own set of final exams to take.  I can remember the nervous jitters, the mad rush to get everything done at the last minute, and the overwhelming doubt that there was something I had missed.  Hmm… Strange how not much has changed since then!

Don’t get me wrong, I was a good student and I did fairly well on my own final exams.  However, that never absolved the fear that I just might fail the next one.  Call me a pessimist when it came to predicting my own future.  I’m only an optimist with other people’s futures!

Anyway, I’m on the other side of the desk now with all those nasty final exams behind me.  Now it’s my turn to give the final exams rather than to receive (Clearly this is a case where it is better to give than to receive).  But, I can’t feel a little bit of empathetic nervousness for my students.  Perhaps it’s my post-traumatic stress syndrome kicking in from my own college days.  Whatever it is, I still want my students to do well.

I’ve been trying really hard the past few days to capture my feelings in words.  It’s been tough.  The closet thing I can come up with sounds like the noise some makes when they get their hand slammed in the car door, “grrrbfft.”  Okay, Shakespeare, I’m not.  There’s just something about setting and giving a final exam that’s a bit daunting.  The final exam is meant to be a test of everything the students have learnt up to this point.  As a teacher, I hope that I have given the students everything that they need to pass the final exam.  I’m like the master handing the tools to the apprentice.  It’s now their responsibility to use the tools properly and not screw it up.  However, the doubt that I feel is one of whether or not I’ve really prepared them to use the tools.  After all, I don’t want them to screw up the English language anymore.  It’s already screwed up enough!  Safe to say, I feel like the time that I’ve had this term with my students has been so limited.  I have almost 140 students and I’ve only got a total of eight hours a week to help them all.  It’s a highly improbably task…  But it’s still my task.

I’m quite thankful that I got the responsibility of setting my class’s final exam.  The textbook I was given to teach this class was absolute rubbish and I would have hated to have to give a standardized test from that piece of nonsense.  So that relieves some pressure.  The final is what I say it is!  So I designed it to be a real test of what they learned this term.

The focus of these courses was on oral English.  It’s about talking.  So, I taught them how to talk.  Now, you might not think that’s a tough assignment but what does one talk about anyway?  Sure, it’s easy enough to talk when we have something to say but what should we say?  It’s was my goal this semester to give the students something to talk about.  That way they could really practice their English.  That’s why we looked at everything from relationships, to food, to culture, and so much more.  Whatever the students wanted to talk about, we talked about… and in English!  So now, the question is whether or not my chaotic teaching methods would prove worthy.  That’s why we have final exams… Yes, the final exam: the ultimate test of both the student and the teacher. 

I set the final exam to work like a human-to-human conversation.  Each student would enter the classroom alone and speak solely to me.  I would ask them to talk about a topic and it was their job to talk about that topic.  Now, I did let them know the topics beforehand.  This is intermediate English after all and they needed time to prepare their thoughts.  I asked them questions about culture, English, relationships, food, and I even asked what they planned to do in the future when they graduate.  All of my students are freshmen and I’m their first real college examination experience.  Safe to say, they were all extremely nervous.  Some of the students were so nervous that they were literally shaking.  I knew they would be nervous so I mixed into the final a couple of fun and easy questions to put them at ease.  I asked questions about what they had done over the holiday weekend or whether or not they had seen any good movies recently.  They all seemed to settle down once they felt comfortable.  It’s hard to relax in the middle of an inquisition but it’s easy to relax if you’re talking with a friend over lunch.  I tried to give them a similar environment as the later.

I’m very pleased to report that a large majority of my students did extremely well with this final exam.  It showed that they had put a large amount of effort into preparing their answers.  Some of the presentations were a little bit shaky but most did really well.  Of course, there are always a couple of rotten apples in the bunch.  I had some students that put little-to-no time into preparing for this final.  Most of the slackers managed just enough proper English to squeak by with narrowly passing grade.  However, there were a few who were not so lucky.  I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to fail anyone.  But, that was not the case.

I’m not really surprised a handful of students failed.  I merely hopped that they would have done better.  The problem is that this handful of students is led by young woman who doubts my authority to teach English.  She has questioned my methods from day one and blatantly refused to do any of the work.  I’ve tired appealing to her reason and I even thought I was making some headway.  However, today’s final exam proved differently.  She approached the final exam with a flippant attitude and even laughed when she failed to come up with the correct words.  I didn’t see anything funny with the inability to construct a sentence.  The problem was that this student’s attitude has spread to her posse.  They too were treating the whole ordeal rather flippantly.  I’m not sure what they thought was going to happen.  It’s merely speculation and conjecture on my part but perhaps they thought their buddy, the English teacher, would spare them a failing grade.  Oh, how little they know me!

I failed the lot of them.  I think the initial shock of being failed was disbelief.  However, quickly they soon realized that I was dead serious.  It took only a moment of silence before the students were begging for another chance.  They all had tears in their eyes and even the ring leader of the posse said to me, “Do you know what it means for a Chinese student to fail?”

I looked at her and replied, “Yes I do.  Do you?”

I was really torn in this moment.  In a way I felt saddened that these students hadn’t even cared enough to give a mediocre effort, let alone a good effort.  It saddened me because I knew they could do better.  I’ve seen them in class really make some progress.  However, today was a major setback.  This final exam is worth 60% of their grade.  Why wouldn’t they work for that?  Maybe it’s a spirit of entitlement, maybe of laziness, but I don’t think they thought I would fail them.  From my position, this is probably the easiest exam they will ever get in college… and yet they still failed.

Now, the Chinese education system has certain rules and failure isn’t really an option for teachers.  The school will just make me give the students another chance.  However, the students don’t know this.  So I felt it might be best to bring home a little fear of failure for the night.  I told the students that I would “consider” giving them another chance.  However, they would have to write a 1-page paper apologizing for their poor effort and give me a detailed list of what they will do to improve themselves as students.  Within hours I had four papers waiting in my inbox.

These bad apples are a drastic contrast with some of the better students.  In my final exam study guide I gave fifteen possible exam questions.  I only used four of them.  However, I gave directions for the students to prepare conversation points on each of the topics.  One of my students actually researched each point, wrote a composition on each point, and memorized each of her compositions word-for-word.  Now, I’d say that what she did was above and beyond the call of duty.  I was very impressed.  Safe to say, she got an A+.

Teaching is not easy.  It’s a challenge to give the students an environment where they can learn on their own.  I could lecture them for hours and not a single bit of knowledge would sink in.  On the other hand, homeschooling has taught me that efficient teaching is to teach the student how to teach themselves.  Basically a good teacher is constantly striving to work themselves out of job.  A good student should only need the teacher so long as they don’t know how to teach themselves.  That’s what I’m trying to do with these students.  I feel like I’ve succeeded with most.  They’ve improved their English, they’ve grown in their skill to communicate, they’ve learned how to voice their opinions, and they’ve learned how to get over their shyness.  That’s why I’ve very pleased with most all of them.  They’ve really been a great bunch of students to teach.  I hope I will get to teach them again next term.