Testing Times and Cheating Minds

Friday 7th August 2009
Basically now things are winding down to the 'end game'. Those students who are doing well know that and also the students who have had enough are also showing this.
Actually now there is one important week of revision to go plus, in the week after that (the last one) there will be the Final Exams and Speaking Exam for them. So in fact it is NOT the end of the trail just yet either for them or for me.

However, as much as I should still be pushing them through this ….. I don't WANT TO. Oh, all I want to do just now is get on that plane bound for London and leave those good-for-nothings behind. I'll be shedding tears of course …... tears of JOY that is!

The last progress test a few weeks ago produced its share of drama. It is the ONLY time that I can get some work out of them. BUT, in their eyes it is ME who has to do the work in revision and they can just do whatever they feel like doing (or not doing).

The last test then. They'd been away for their week of holidays (and I'd had a nice break from them too!) and now they were back. The test was set for the last day of the week (Wednesday) and revision was being done.

Did it mainly on the board. However, like all things here, those boys make it very hard. There's me standing at the front doing board work, three or four of them are sitting around taking notice of what I'm doing while most of the others are locked into their own conversations ….. which invariably are about nothing much at all. Certainly nothing that can't wait, but then this is the time of the day when they all get together and they do what they can. For sure, the LEAST part of that is learning anything like English.

It just annoys me, but now I let it go. It is too late to worry much about those time-wasters and lazy toe-rags who just can't be bothered any more. Because I TOO can't be bothered about THEM! Yes, I know I know – a sinful thing to say as a respectable teacher of English. But it is August now, I have less than two weeks till my summer holiday and THAT is the only thing I care about now!

So I got through the revision part of the week. There was some debate, as always on WHEN we should have the test. First I'd said Wednesday. But I'd heard a rumour that it was going to be their Student Day this Wednesday coming and therefore the test couldn't take place. This rumour continued in my mind until, I think, Monday and then I went to ask and was told that it was NOT to be the Student Day.

By then, three of the class had gone. There was some reason why they were being allowed to go to their homes early. Also, one other student had said that he was going to be away in the next week because he was getting married. Well, before I was able to make the decision on when to do the test, those three had already gone.

Anyway test day came. Period 1 of Wednesday is always last-minute revision time, then it came to the test. Before the students came back in, I reorganised the chairs so they were spaced out sufficiently. Normal procedure for any test. You don't want them sitting too close together as they cheat like crazy and I want to try to stop it. Not always successfully.

In they came and all seemed to head for that same corner. Most were seated fine, but two were not and were too close to others. I asked them nicely to move and pointed out where I would like them to move to. I was not going to start until they were seated properly of course.

Now, one of them moved quite willingly but the other one refused. “No!”, he said. I asked him again politely to move and again he refused. AGAIN I asked him more firmly but STILL he would NOT move his place and seemed to think that I was unfairly asking ONLY him to move. Not true as he was one of TWO I had asked. ONE more time I asked him to move and pointed out that I was waiting for him and only HIM before I could start. But still nothing.

OK, I thought. I then gave out test papers to everyone else but did NOT give him one. If he was not going to do a simple thing then he would simply be excluded from the whole thing. And there is NO WAY he would have refused if I had been a teacher in uniform or another Saudi teacher. It was because it was ME that he thought he could be rude and defiant in this way. Or was it that if he moved then he would be further away from those he could communicate with for cheating purposes?

This particular student was one who started as not a bad guy but has progressively grown worse and worse. He will not stop talking and is VERY much one of those people who is hot-headed in nature and, when provoked, tends to go off. He is also one of those at the bottom of the class as far as test marks so far goes. Therefore he should be looking to better himself …. but they don't think that way and students like him and the so-called 'Leg Man' do very little in lessons except chatting loudly, playing with their phones and wasting time.

All the other students had their papers and started writing. This one did NOT. So back I went to the front. He was sitting there with a face that was about to explode like the H-bomb.

Then he got up angrily and stormed out of the classroom slamming the door behind him.

HOW PATHETIC IS THAT??

Well, I thought, one less to mark. I stood there and said loudly to them, “Anybody ELSE want to JOIN HIM??”. Nobody said anything and got on with their tests.

He reappeared some time later but already had lost about 20-25 minutes. When he came back, he DID finally sit where I had asked him to move to. I gave him his paper and he started on it.
WHAT KIND of attitude WAS THAT?? Tell you what – he is VERY lucky I didn't choose to go and report his unreasonable behaviour as I had done with Leg Man and his key throwing 'antics' earlier in the term. Really I think it is what I SHOULD have done because it was blatantly undisciplined behaviour and total disrespect for a teacher. They wouldn't do it for their superiors so WHY should I have to put up with it?

Of course, because of this disruption, things didn't go well. Mutterings went on despite attempts to keep them quiet. Now, I had already decided today to be more lenient with them than normal since many of them NEEDED these marks. But STILL there were some of them who insisted, despite my warnings, to go on their obvious communications and they got deducted marks.

WHY do these people never learn? OOOHHH I REALLY hate doing tests with these people!!
It is something of a love-hate thing. “Love” because I like to see them squirm and sweat and because for many it is the ONLY time I can get work out of them. “Hate”, on the other hand, because they JUST don't get the idea that they should shut up, bring pens and that I WILL not have them cheating in their tests in this way. When I tell them to NOT talk, then I MEAN IT! And when I come to deduction of marks, they react in such a way like I am wrong to do so and that I should LET them.

Some time ago I was one of the invigilators of the college end of year tests. It was a one-off afternoon occasion. But it was memorable for several reasons. First, the fact the students STILL cheated. Secondly, the Saudi teachers sitting with us as invigilators actually went around and HELPED THEM when they didn't understand. Thirdly, that soon after the exam began, in came a man (probably the professor or something similar) whose job it was to explain any questions or parts of questions they did not understand.

Why is this unusual or strange, you ask me. Well, come ON!! This is an EXAM, a test of THEIR KNOWLEDGE. If they don't understand the questions then it is their OWN fault as students. OK, one thing I would say is that there are times when a question is badly worded and that IS then the teacher's fault. I personally try to keep instructions simple though there are times they may not be. But I ALWAYS give an example to show them what to do (but even THAT confuses some of them at times!)

Explaining the question as as good as telling students HOW to answer the question. NOT the role of the teacher! I HATE IT when, during a test, a student asks me if “this” is the answer or what a word means or something similar.

It is the STUDENT'S job, during an exam, to answer the question. NOT the teacher's!!

And yet they constantly try it on!!

I rather feel that if people are allowed to get away with cheating, they will continue to do it and it will become acceptable practice. ALSO I think this: in this country the teachers want their students to do well as it reflects well on them as teachers. That's obvious for us all as teachers of course. But if a teacher gives his students answers and help then WHOSE brain is being used during the exam?

In this country too, the teacher is always the man at fault. If his students do badly then it is the TEACHER who is at fault. Not the poor, helpless, innocent student – oh no, no, NO! But ALWAYS the teacher.

Students here do very little study outside classes. I am convinced of that. And yet they feel they have some RIGHT to behave like that because the blame for bad marks and grades will rarely lie at THEIR doors. Well, if YOU knew that the teacher would get the blame instead of you then of course YOU would do the same, wouldn't you?

Looking at it, for one moment, from a student's point of view. There are situations where the student has too many exams at one time and where it is not always possible to study as much as you would like for everything. Times when it is UNREASONABLE for a school to give so many exams at one time or where giving exams has no real value. In such situations, YES, it might be justified for a student to find ways to get through such a “landslide period” of so many exams by giving himself an “advantage”. I've seen the cheat sheets before!

But THAT is rather the exception, NOT the rule. Students should not be thinking that the way through ALL exams is by cheating the system.

I was never much good at exams. But they DO have an important use – they test that we have in our heads the things we NEED TO KNOW in order to progress further whether in life or career or other times. IF somebody gets through such times by cheating then in the end they only cheat themselves because they go will go further they then are able to.

So …. revision week (of a sort) is coming up. Then it's Final Exam week which will include their Speaking Exam (to be devised). And if they think they're in for an easy ride in THAT week then they'd better think TWICE!