Here I sit on exam duty. I am supervising 32 quiet students who are writing their 3 hour long Dzongkha I or English I paper. In language classes students write two 3 hour papers. In English 9 the first paper is 350 word expository essay, a business letter, 10 marks on the Nature of Language and 30 marks of grammar questions. Next week they will write their literature paper. Four sections of 20 marks each: short story, novel, essay and poetry. Both the short story and novel they have already studied, the other two are unseen.
In class 9 the question papers are written by the teacher. Grade 10 and 12 have ministry exams at the end of the school year. I believe there are ministry exams in class 6 also. I had past exams to use as models and found myself very much sticking to the model and teaching to the exam. The one change I think I may have introduced was to ask students to understand what they have memorized. For example the Nature of Language the students have memorized: "Language is a systematic means of communication by using words, conventional signs and symbols." They even have actions to go with it. On the quiz I gave, students were shocked to lose marks when they substituted convectional of conventional. uh oh . . . they need to understand and be able to explain it to me, relating the definition to the purposes of language (which they have also memorized).
I will see see if they have succeeded when I mark their papers.
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