Tag Archives: testing

Survey: Teacher Attitudes To Foreign Language Anxiety

ELTvista is participating in a research project on teachers’ attitudes to a phenomenon known as ‘Foreign Language Anxiety’ (FLA) with regards to oral tasks in the classroom and on proficiency langauge exams. FLA is most often characterized as a feeling of uneasiness experienced by non-native speakers when using or learning a foreign language.

Research  studies into the circumstances of FLA has suggested it is generalizable to both a classroom form, sometime referred to Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA). As form of performance anxiety, it is also often linked general exam anxiety.

Following the conclusion of this specific research, a series of articles will be published on this website presenting both the findings of the study. It is hoped that the conclusions of this research will shed light on and yield practical suggestions for helping teachers help their students overcome FLA.

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Creating Tests With Your Students

A necessary part of exam preparation, testing needn’t mean hours of slaving away to produce the definitive paper, or using pre-written models which often don’t really explore problematic areas. Instead, testing can become part of the learning process, rather than merely a 30 minute window on your students’ progress. It’s easy!

Imagine you have ten B2 (or above) level students. Find ten suitable newspaper articles, appropriate in content and reach, based ideally on ten different topics which you wish to explore during the course. Photocopy the articles and give a different copy to each student. Allow students in class reading time and go through content, problematic vocabulary and contextual issues that may arise.

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