Testing Times Ahead

The teaching of literacy and language skills, both in the UK and overseas, needs significant reform to curb the "unproductive" effects of government standardisation, a major new study suggests.

Whenever you have standardised testing imposed by a government, the curriculum is inevitably narrowed because they only end up covering what the tests demand.

Dr. Dominic Wyse

Writing in the Routledge International Handbook of English, Language and Literacy Teaching, scholars argue that excessive state control of the way in which English is taught and tested, both in Britain and abroad, has a recurring, restrictive effect on pupil performance and on teachers.

The international study found that education policy-makers all over the world succumb to the same cycle when trying to drive up children's attainment in language and literacy - first tightening their control of the curriculum, then loosening their grip as the approach proves "unworkable, uninspiring and ceases to provide the results it is intended to deliver."

Researchers behind the study argue that teachers and pupils should be given more input into the shaping of curricula, and that the present system of assessment for children's literacy skills in the UK should be redeveloped so that it becomes "the servant, rather than the master or mistress of learning".

The book also calls for the introduction of "e-portfolios" for children as a more effective way of monitoring their progress in these subject areas.

The recommendation is just one of a wide range of ideas that emerge from the handbook, which is published this week. It brings together contributions from researchers who study the teaching of English and literacy all over the world, in an effort to find issues of international relevance that might improve practice and inform policy.

"The question we are trying to address is what do teachers of language need to be doing in order to ensure that they engage young people and teach them successfully?" Dr. Dominic Wyse, from the University of Cambridge's Faculty of Education and one of the book's co-editors said.

"One of the key messages is that the restrictive effects of standardisation is an international phenomenon. Whenever you have standardised testing imposed by a government, the curriculum is inevitably narrowed because they only end up covering what the tests demand. What we need is a system where teachers themselves take an active role in deciding what the structure of a curriculum should be according to the needs of their own pupils."

The book features a number of different studies of the way in which English, language and literacy are taught, both in English-speaking states (such as Britain, Australia and the US), and other areas where pupils learn English from an early age, such as Scandinavia and sub-Saharan Africa.

One pattern that emerged was that in many cases governments, responding to concerns that children's literacy was under-developed, had taken responsibility for improving their performance by controlling the curriculum at the expense of teachers' autonomy. A "battery" of new tests then followed as policy-makers sought to measure the success of their intervention.

The approach appears to have had similar effects in a number of different countries. Researchers report "a plateau-ing of performance against the government's own standards", signs that children's writing skills tend to be considerably worse than their reading skills, and a conservatism in curriculum design which means that little changes to respond to these deficiencies.

In England, for example, they report signs of lingering and apparently unresolved problems with pupils' attainment. Between 1998 and 2008, a relatively consistent figure of 15% to 20% of 11-year-olds were considered to have failed to reach the required standard in reading. Similarly, the average assessment marks for 11-year-olds' written English have consistently lagged 20 percentage points behind their marks for reading since 1997.

Problems were also found with internationally-devised forms of assessment in English, language and literacy. In many cases, these were seen to be working against the interests of poorer states, because the tests failed to take account of those states' differing socio-cultural context and standards of education in an effort to make the results internationally comparable.

In all such cases, researchers consistently recommend that language and literacy need to be taught in a manner that is mindful of context and responsive to the particular needs and backgrounds of the pupils themselves. Governments cannot address these needs, and therefore more responsibility ought to be handed back to the teachers themselves in handling the way in which pupils are taught and assessed.

One suggested solution is that end-of-course testing itself be replaced with electronic or digital portfolios in which children's accumulated work enables teachers to track the development of their literacy and language skills. Patterns of progress could be identified from these portfolios and fed back to central authorities to identify local or national trends in attainment.

In the case of Britain, the study observes: "There remains, in spite of the important reports and subsequent debates about the national curriculum in 2009 a need for significant reform of the curriculum… and pedagogy. One essential feature of this reform is the need for a better balance between control of the curriculum, by government, by teachers and by pupils."

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