Dan – am loving the ‘units’ thing with teachers ‘delivering’ and students accepting pre-packaged ides. One thing my 16 year old Tom is struggling with as he prepares for his GCSE Eng Lit exam, is accepting that he has to write answers which will ‘score points’ rather than answers which reflect his more individual reaction to and interepretation of the text…..
Thanks, Kerry. Sounds like a good example of how exams don’t always accurately measure intelligence but rather how good you are at exams! Bizarrely enough, even the “personal responses” which students are encouraged to give are often pre-packaged ideas designed to hit assessment objectives. Luckily, some (most?) examiners are human beings.
Good luck to Tom – can’t be long until the exams now
Brilliant! Just up my street!
I come from a culture where the language is naturally infused with metaphor!
Try this one for exampe, untranslatable:
if you turn your back to someone, you excuse yourself in Persian culture
and the poetic response is always:
“a flower has no front or back”!!! Terrible in English – but v moving in the original!!
Dan – am loving the ‘units’ thing with teachers ‘delivering’ and students accepting pre-packaged ides. One thing my 16 year old Tom is struggling with as he prepares for his GCSE Eng Lit exam, is accepting that he has to write answers which will ‘score points’ rather than answers which reflect his more individual reaction to and interepretation of the text…..
Thanks, Kerry. Sounds like a good example of how exams don’t always accurately measure intelligence but rather how good you are at exams! Bizarrely enough, even the “personal responses” which students are encouraged to give are often pre-packaged ideas designed to hit assessment objectives. Luckily, some (most?) examiners are human beings.
Good luck to Tom – can’t be long until the exams now
Brilliant! Just up my street!
I come from a culture where the language is naturally infused with metaphor!
Try this one for exampe, untranslatable:
if you turn your back to someone, you excuse yourself in Persian culture
and the poetic response is always:
“a flower has no front or back”!!! Terrible in English – but v moving in the original!!