Posts Tagged 'Testing'

Diagnostic Testing for Vocabulary

I’m teaching two writing courses and I’m giving a diagnostic writing in each.  They write an sample essay.  However, I found out a tremendous amount about my student’s vocabulary with a simple vocabulary activity that I did in class. I gave them various vocabulary lines like   scorching……. freezing in which I asked them to add words in between or at the ends such as scorching…boiling…hot…cool…frosty…icy…freezing.  I gave them four other opposite  lines to do.  I could quickly tell who had an indepth vocabulary and who will probably have difficulties in expressing themselves. I walked around as they were doing the vocabulary sheets and recorded my observation.  Next class, I will have to do activities to help them enlarge their vocabulary so they can be expressive writer

What quick diagnostic tests do you do in your class that give you powerful results

Diagnostic testing Questions

I was sharing college teaching stories with another instructor who also teaches a course similar to mine. She has her students do a three hour online diagnostic test and then the students do the grammar drills for each part that they did poorly on.  I was shocked  to hear that they spent three hours on the  diagnostic and then about 1/3 of each class on grammar drills and quizzes.  She shared her course outcomes with me and grammar in one of several items in only the first of  the seven outcomes.  When do our students spend more time  being tested rather than being instructed? When do we know so much about our students through diagnostic tests but do not have time to change how we teach them? When do our diagnostic tests not really measure our true goal such as writing? I took a grammar term practice test and missed a few questions although I considered myself a fairly good writer!


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