That �s how it works for me and I believe for all teachers in Portugal: Every term I test my students on the 4 skills. In my school, we �ve decided to test together reading + writing  and separatedly listening an speaking  (in 100%, 40% for each. the other 20% of the final grade of the term is for General competences (autonomy, responsability, cooperation, behaviour). For the secondary level it �s a little bit different. Only 5% for general competences and 95% for the 4 skills.

 

Every term, we usually do 2 reading + writing tests, and 2 listening + speaking tests. These tests are made by the teachers of each class. That �s why many of my reading comprehension contributions are tests. But of course they can be used by other teachers as worksheets. I myself use them later as so, because we don �t use twice the same test.

 

As grammar is today considered a tool for communicative competence, many and many more teachers are not testing student �s knowledge on it separatedly. Instead, they assess it through the 4 skills of the language, i.e., they assess students � competence - the way they use grammar to communicate. That �s quite different, because although the students have to have the knowledge to use it in context, not every student who has the knowledge is able to apply it, to use it in a communicative situation, whatever the skill he might be using.

 

Don �t you do those kind of tests in your country? How is it with other teachers from different countries? I �d very much like to know.

 

A nice day to you all!

mena

 

Yes I work at a private language school, not in the national school system. But we have a 4 skill based evaluation with an emphasis on speaking skills (40%-20 for speaking test, 20 for presentations) because our students are young adults who have studied English in the public school system for years and still cannot make a sentence on their own. Therefore, to help our students reach their goals of being able to converse, we emphasize listening and speaking skills in the program and therefore our assessment emphasizes them. Our students have usually worked largely or exclusively with grammar, vocabulary and reading exercises and therefore reading is usually their strongest skill so we don`t emphasize it. However, we certainly do reading activities in class with a communicative aim. We do have readings on our exams but they are standardized by our department and therefore we don`t need to write our own so I guess it never occured to me that tests could be shared. 

 

Yes I work at a private language school, not in the national school system. But we have a 4 skill based evaluation with an emphasis on speaking skills (40%-20 for speaking test, 20 for presentations) because our students are young adults who have studied English in the public school system for years and still cannot make a sentence on their own. Therefore, to help our students reach their goals of being able to converse, we emphasize listening and speaking skills in the program and therefore our assessment emphasizes them. Our students have usually worked largely or exclusively with grammar, vocabulary and reading exercises and therefore reading is usually their strongest skill so we don`t emphasize it. However, we certainly do reading activities in class with a communicative aim. We do have readings on our exams but they are standardized by our department and therefore we don`t need to write our own so I guess it never occured to me that tests could be shared.