Teachers vs. institutional authorities war on curricular goals and on testing for achievement. First off language is a very difficult area to test. How can you test a students knowledge of a language by a standardized test? I do not believe that it is possible to accuaretly test for communicative proficiency. I feel that using standardized tests to test students only leads to the students studying for the tests and not studying the language for proficiency. Like Brown (140) says "That proficiency unfortunately often turns out to be relatedmore to the ability to cram for a standardized test than to the ability to use English for communicative, meaningful purposes."
Standardized tests take authority away from the teacher. Part of the teachers job is to assess and analyze a students work and if standardized tests recieve the final say of how students are achieving in learning English, should teachers even assess a students proficiency in English? I think standardized tests take away from the effectiveness of the class to teach English. There are a number of other factors including students motivation to take the test.
What if there are no consequences for the students? If these tests are only to assess the "teachers ability" to teach his or her students, what motivation do the students have to do well on tests? Student assessment should be left to the teachers and the teachers effectiveness, professionalism, and work will ultimately shine through his/her students.
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Although studying for tests does not help students learn English except learning about the test, standerdized tests have a really good effect or washback on the community of young learners in a society. Since standerdized tests are very challenging to learners of the English language, the idea of taking the studerdized test make students study harder and promote thier level of proficiency in English, no matter they study for tests or they take English courses before hand to learn English.
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