The Examiner

This article has a look at examining from the point of view of the invigilator, the interlocutor and the assessor. At the end, a bonus piece by a fellow examiner is showcased entitled: ‘A Day at the Bronx’.

The Invigilator

Imagine you are in the army and somebody barks instructions at you; where there is a sense of uniformity, rigid attention to detail, time-keeping and order; there has to be a system in place with clear rules, not forgetting consequences for insubordination, but, above all, it has to be controlled and adhered to by everybody; even the top brass.

For maximum efficiency, you must ensure that the candidate numbers are all in order. Have the ID’s been checked? – check! Is the exam centre number on the board? - check! The start and finish time? - check-check!! Finally, no banned objects? - check! The only thing missing would be: sir, yes sir!.

Monitoring involves passing out papers, taking candidates to the loo, making sure nobody’s cheating, somebody reads out the instructions, and here’s your chance to shine (at least in your eyes), where, in some cases, a microphone will be at your disposal. You can vary intonation and sound as professional as possible while sounding a little foreboding.

Now and then people will get lost, occasionally ID’s will be forgotten, and there may even be a complaint about noise at a venue. What happens next you may ask? Send them to the supervisor! There are anxious people, latecomers, and those who don’t listen to instructions properly; just take it all in your stride as it’s business as usual. You may be asked a question in the middle of an exam; if it’s purely procedural, then it’s perfectly possible. As long as it’s not a cheeky chancer trying to cheat, then you can answer to the best of your ability. If in doubt, check with the supervisor.

Even the supervisor is not infallible. One hot summer’s day in a hot, stuffy exam hall in an art deco building, two invigilators and the supervisor became distracted by a beautiful lady who was sitting in the front row and had clearly decided to go commando that day. Dripping with sweat, the exam team had a difficult job that day, but did not complain even once.

The Interlocutor

Depending on the culture of the institution, being asked questions during oral exams can be nerve-racking, even for older, more mature candidates. In one case, grades could be given on the spot, but, on one occasion, a lone examiner was challenged by a candidate. He felt uncomfortable with the way that things had been done, so he checked with the person in charge, and from then on in, the grades could be sent by email, eliminating any further episodes involving potentially confrontational behaviour.

Another organisation uses a booklet with questions that are randomly selected for each set of candidates. Sporting alarm clocks with digital timers is common-place, though watches and telephones as kit are not unheard of. The idea it to read from a prescribed script and stick to the timings without saying anything that’s unscripted. Repeating a question is OK if necessary and one mark is given by the interlocutor, based on various criteria.

Nerves can get the better of some of them. The first question is designed to calm them down by asking them where they are from; presumably, even an ignoramus could answer it without too much difficulty. Every so often, they will try to shake your hand or ask you a ludicrous question, i.e. how did I do? or what did I get? There are other less silly questions aimed at the examiners like: do you do this all day? or do you enjoy doing this?.

The Assessor

Although it may seem like a more passive role, assessing requires multi-tasking. Again, depending on the place where you examine, it varies as to what info you need to fill in. For example, mark sheets may include candidate numbers, the date, numbers corresponding to the two examiners, parts used in each exam, and then come the actual marks. At the same time as filling in the previous pieces of information, you must size up which mark to give for each category. Such sections may include grammar, vocabulary, interactive communication and discourse management, for example. Naturally, the examiner had to be trained in how to judge whether somebody’s level for each area corresponds to a norm.

Other regulations can include the following: mark sheets are confidential documents and must not be left unattended; they must be kept in sealed envelopes and given to the supervisor. Examiners also need to return their packs by the end of the day and need to change partners midway through.

Sometimes, if laughter has been suppressed during an exam, you can let loose before the next bunch arrive. Funnily enough, the term ‘threesome’ is often used to refer to a trio of exam candidates and has been known to be the source of some humour. One lunchtime, an examiner innocently announced that she had just returned from a threesome, much to the amusement of her colleagues. At least nobody asked her: how was it for you?

Ideally, your partner should have plenty of character, and, most of the time, he/ she will be a fellow English teacher. You do get all sorts in the world of examining: there are friendly faces, intense disciplinarians, one or two paranoid-neurotics, and the odd trivial gossiper to keep you company among others. Unexpectedly, one of my colleagues gave me some recommendations for a trip to Sicily, which I am grateful for, and he passed on a story he wrote about a bad teaching experience in Italy, which is featured below this article.

At schools, some teachers are banned from doing work whilst they invigilate; perhaps they should keep their wits about them at all times. The jury is out on this one. What do you think?

Do you have any examining stories to share? It would be great to hear from you!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Day at the Bronx

As I cycled around the corner, I checked the street sign, Via Giuseppe Garabaldi. Yes, I was on the right track, but where was the school? About a hundred metres halfway down, there was a group of teenagers passing the time, kicking a can around, smoking and generally lounging around, which was a sure sign of a school, where students were enjoying their break after a morning’s hard work. Hold on! Wait a minute! I had timed my journey to the school to arrive ten minutes before the morning break started, so that I could meet the other teachers, see my classroom, have a general snoop around, and of course, all importantly, to be waiting at the classroom door to welcome the students as they entered my domain. So why were the kids out on the street?

I had been teaching in Italy for about a month. My wife and I had leisurely driven down from Holland with our caravan in tow and had arrived in Volterra on a Saturday, where we had the address of a Dutch journalist. To put the story into historical context, we had heard about the death of Princess Diana when we had stopped for the night in Switzerland, and it was about a week later that we arrived at the site in Volterra. I had always had the ambition to work in different countries and now I had my chance! On a Sunday I got hold of the Yellow Pages phone directory and found several language schools on the coast. The next day I started phoning around and got lucky with the first call; I was told that I could present myself the following day, Tuesday, 10 in the morning at Via Marconi number 10, Cecina From Volterra to Cecina was a short but exciting drive. Down the steep hairpins lacing the volcano Volterra once was, into the wide Val de Cecina with its small towns regularly spaced out along the hills that gently guide the river Cecina towards the sea. As I parked the car, I already felt as if I was participating in Italian life and was not just a tourist skimming the surface. This was exciting and I was excited. I had planned my arrival, having got there early enough to show that I was keen and reported for duty on time at the reception desk on the first floor of what looked like an apartment building that had been converted into offices. The girl behind the desk was a young woman who turned out to be the daughter of the owners of the Institute I was hoping to work for, and as it was still officially summer. She was sporting one of those crevasse-like cleavages that you could fall into and never find your way out again.

I spent the next half an hour pretending not to be interested in the girl’s bosom and with nothing else to do, listened to her fielding incoming phone calls. My knowledge of Italian being zero I was amused by the ’Pronto’ that preceded all the conversations. I thought it meant ‘be quick’ which was a peculiar way to greet ALL callers, but as I say, my Italian was limited. Finally, a door opened, I was ushered into the office belonging to the Signora, who was the operative half of the couple who owned the Institute. She spoke no English but a quick shout to the receptionist produced a harassed looking male (teacher?) who took me off along a corridor into a cupboard-like office with timetables pinned to the wall. He explained that the academic year had already started, but that the lessons were due to begin the following Thursday, which days could I work? I must admit I was surprised by the speed and ease with which I had apparently landed the job, but responded confidently that I was free all week and on Saturdays if necessary, but would need a day to get myself settled in at a campsite in Cecina Marina. His response was to rub out the name of Hughes, (Hughes?), that had been pencilled in on some of the timetables, and insert my own! I did have the decency to ask him if this Hughes wouldn’t mind me taking his hours, but he said not to disturb myself and not to preoccupy myself about Manon. Manon?

I wanted to get down to the details of what I was supposed to do, but he said he had no time to help me right then as he was trying to get everything ready for the first day of lessons, but that he would ask someone to answer all my questions on the first day; I was to teach conversation English. Questions about pay and conditions were to be directed towards the Signora.

So I started my first day without any clear idea of what was expected of me. I had no books and neither did the students; they were aged between 14 to 19, both boys and girls. Later, I understood that the Institute was a private educational enterprise that took in pupils who had in some way failed at, or were not able to cope with the state educational system, but whose parents were able to pay for private education that would guarantee a diploma of some kind at the end of the year, enabling the students to move on to greater things. Not being able to work from a book is not the end of a world but there were worse things to come. Newspapers were expensive, difficult to come by and of too high a level for my students. The Institute could or would not pay for photocopies and I had to buy my own box of chunky chalk sticks in the bookshop over the road. The blackboards were antique and could have doubled for topographical maps with bumps, holes and shiny patches that would not take the chalk.

I survived the first 2 weeks by stretching out my conversation improvisation techniques gleaned in twenty years of teaching in NL but the students were becoming increasingly rowdy and starting to have too much of a good a time at my expense. I could feel control slipping away, but had no obvious way of getting a grip on the situation. There was no support or interest from the Institute and I met no other English teachers. There were compensations though. I was working mornings only and could cool down and relax in the sea after school, and there was a bar on the ground floor of what I first thought was an office, but turned out to be the school, offering a standard Italian breakfast. An espresso cost 80 cents (pre-euro cents!) so I felt that I was living the life, but knew that I was going to have to think of something quick if I were to survive.

I had got to know a French lady teacher, Sylvia, who spoke astonishingly good English and she told me her lessons consisted almost entirely of her dictating or writing stuff on the board with the students taking notes. They would learn these by heart at home so they could regurgitate them verbatim in the next lesson. She did this in every lesson at all her levels and indeed, I had seen teachers coming in after me doing the same thing and the students all writing away as if they never did anything else. No wonder they were using my lesson an R&R period. However, this seemed a good a way as any of keeping the students occupied which after all appeared to be the core business (apart from making money), so I started writing simple pop songs on the board. They copied them in their exercise books, learned them at home and next lesson came to the front of the class to recite them. I was proud of that many of my students excelled at this ‘declamation’. I was able to praise them wholeheartedly, not the toe-curling hypocritical, ‘brilliant’, when a student actually produces more than a couple of words (and thinks he’s Good in English) in this country. I even went as far as to take my guitar to school and sing the songs they had learned but unfortunately for me this was put a stop to by complaints from my colleagues. Their students couldn’t hear them dictating, which would disturb their concentration. After the pop songs, I went on to poems. I had a Penguin book of favourite poems with me and ‘IF’ was proving to be my temporary salvation.

After a month of no feedback, no indication whatsoever of whether I was doing a good job (I wasn’t) and increasing worry and tension on my part, I was told that I was to teach at a different address the next day. I spoke to Sylvia about this and she produced the Italian upside-down smile that meant in this case ‘poor you’.‘ We call it the Bronx’, she said, ‘good luck’. She did not tell me not to preoccupy myself which I felt was a bad sign. It was going to be a new challenge; one I was not ready for. I was feeling increasingly resentful towards the Institute. I had already sussed out that I was the token ‘insegnante madre lingua’ in the adverts on the street and in the flyers, and I had to ask them for my money (8,000 lira per hour) at the end of the month. I was not in the right frame of mind to take on the inhabitants of the Bronx, but was still in the mood for an adventure and a new start.

Arriving at what was indeed the school, which looked like an office block that had been unwillingly pressed into service as a shop and then somebody had changed his mind and it became a school, I locked my bike, hitched my almost empty school bag (one box of chalk and one book of poems), over my shoulder and looked through the ground floor window that gave on to the street. I had to ask a couple of the lads to move aside as they were sitting half in, half out of the window using the sill as a convenient place to rest their weary bodies, but with unfailing innate Italian courtesy, they moved up so I could peer inside what appeared to be a classroom. It was a long dark room, empty of students, desks covered with the usual paraphernalia in long rows left to right, and at the end, sitting with her back to a blackboard, a young lady teacher whom I hadn’t seen before. Her desk and chair were on a raised area and in front of her 3 girls were listening attentively. As I watched the teacher stopped talking, the girls stood up and moved towards the door leaving their books on the desks. I later found out it had been a French lesson. The morning break had begun.

I was to teach in the classroom giving out onto the street and the same class. It was their room. I was at best a guest, at the worst an invader. I was determined to keep the class under control and to carry out the ‘lesson’ I had planned. At the first sign of ‘trouble’ I would ask the offender to wait behind after class and if there were a second one I would take him out of the room, give him a good loud verbal bollocking and ask him to wait come back into the lesson, if he could behave himself. I would then return to the classroom alone and with a satisfied confident look on my face, problem solved. The student could only return when he had decided to behave himself. This was a technique I had sometimes used in Waddinxveen, (where I had worked for eighteen years), and knew it worked. I was not proud of this method and used it sparingly, but if I could neutralise a ringleader within five minutes of starting the first lesson of a new school year then I knew I had done a good day’s work; this was my lesson plan. I stationed myself at the door and welcomed the students as they came in giving them ‘the look’ that I hoped would communicate: ‘I mean business and won’t tolerate any messing about’. I noticed that several boys had come in through the open window, but I had my hands full at the door at the other end of the room so, unfortunately, I couldn’t take any action. That was a mistake; I should have sent them out immediately and have them come in through the door.

It was time for the lesson to begin; the three girls I had seen previously were sitting at the front again, and behind them were five unbroken rows of desks going back to within a metre or two of the open window at the back of the room. Four of these rows were filled with fairly normal fourteen to fifteen-year old boys, not showing any particular hostility nor any inclination to start doing some work. The back row however told a different story. In the middle of the row sat the Alpha male of the class, type Cristiano Ronaldo, perfect haircut, dressed with a nonchalance that spoke of liras a-plenty, radiating a dominant attitude that any Mafia (film) capo would have proud of. Well, we would see about that. He was flanked by lesser mortals who basked in his reflected glory and any trouble would probably come from them first as Ronaldo would advance and possibly sacrifice one of these pawns before making his move. I waited for them to quieten down, my eyes going from face to face until I was certain they had all got the message. They became quiet, waiting for my next move. Ronaldo was pretending to be one of the crowd but he wasn’t fooling me. One or two of his lieutenants had smirks on their faces but I stared them down and they morphed back into what they were: ordinary Italian school kids. I introduced myself, wrote my name on the board and gave my instructions. Pen, book, copy, skip a line., all words I knew they could understand except for skip a line which I explained by mime, talking a lot and very fast. This gave them something to think about other than how they could disrupt my lesson and for me it was a chance to look around the class, identify potential trouble spots and directly eyeball individuals from my position high up on the dais. I started writing on the board avoiding the shiny places and trying not to make the chalk squeak. I had chosen the poem ‘If’ by Kipling as my lesson. I had found out that the poem was well known in Italy and I could easily spin it out for it for four or five lessons. As I wrote on the board, I turned around after every two words to make sure the pupils were doing as I had instructed them. After two lines, I carefully stepped off my platform and walked down the left side of the room towards the windows, checking to see if the class was working. More importantly, I wanted to get behind the potential troublemakers in the back row. As I checked their work, I continued talking, handing out compliments for the handwriting and other nonsense; one or two of the kids actually went out of their way to show me their work. The back row was fine; they had all managed to keep up and Ronaldo even unctuously pushed his exercise book into a position so that I could see what he had written. Amazingly, I was five minutes into the one hour lesson and I was ahead on points.

Returning to my desk, being careful not to trip over the platform I continued writing. After four lines, I stopped and instructed the class to repeat after me. I slowly read the first four words of the poem and indicate that they repeat; it went well. I did not ask an individual to read. That would come later, when and if mutual trust had been established.

I started writing on the board again. It became clear to the class that this would be the pattern of the lesson and they seemed to accept this. I started to settle down a bit too, my adrenaline level started to drop. It was then that I noticed a red spot on the board to the right of my writing hand matching and predicting its movements as it scrawled over the blackboard. The atmosphere in the class behind me had changed abruptly from what I would describe as a normal group of kids performing a mundane task to that of a crowd at a boxing match just before the contestants step into the ring. Something was about to happen. The spot moved with my hand as I wrote on the board; it was a laser light beam coming from somewhere in the classroom. My adrenaline surged back, this was the challenge I had expected and I was ready for it. I continued writing, turning my head every few seconds to try and localise the light source. Aha, there it was, just as I thought, in the back row. It was coming from a boy sitting next to Ronaldo. I had to act but what? I had no idea what to do but then things happened so quickly that I had no time to think. Just he saw that I had spotted him, he shone the light into my eyes and I literally saw red. I slowly put down my chalk on the table in front of me, again carefully stepped off my dais and walked slowly but purposefully down the left side of the classroom towards the back, turned right and three more steps took me to the lad who had the laser. The class had become deadly quiet. I still did not know what to do but I knew that laser beams in the eye can be harmful. I felt as if I had been assaulted, this went far beyond the rules of normal classroom warfare. Unknown territory. What could I do next? Then a picture came to mind of a history teacher, one of my colleagues in Waddinxveen. If he caught kids doing their homework in class he would throw the offending work out of the window, much to the amusement of the class. He would then send the pupil out to pick up his or her stuff. Double whammy. That would do nicely. Standing behind the boy, I took his school bag from the floor and threw it into the road. It fluttered in the air for a moment, scattering books and papers. I turned around and took his jacket from the back of his chair, which suffered the same fate. As I turned again ready for I do not know what, the lad slipped out of his chair and ran along the side of the classroom and out of the door to the right of the blackboard. I stopped, controlled my breathing and walked slowly back up to my place at the front of the class. They kids were quiet, the back -row lads, especially Ronaldo, were studiously pretending to examine their school work but the rest of the class was looking at me. The pawn had been sacrificed to no avail. I picked up my chalk, and poetry book and continued where I had left off.

“If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you“. The rest of the hour passed without any incident, a normal lesson in which individuals came to the front to recite, all things which up until then had been too risky.

After the extended lunch break, I went to the Signora’s office to discuss what had happened. I still felt that I had been attacked, not physically, but where do you draw the line? I wanted to know what she was going to do about it. Again, I was asked to wait and, after the mandatory half hour, was called into her office. She was with the man who had rubbed out Manon Hughes’ name and I sensed that they had come to an agreement. The Signora spoke and he translated. The incident was unfortunate but not unexpected as mother tongue teachers often have disciplinary problems with Italian pupils. Would I like to continue with the young people or would I prefer to teach ‘adulti’ in the afternoons and evenings? I was in a turmoil. My sense of injustice collided head-on with common sense, not a new experience for me. It took me about 10 seconds for my boiling indignation to evaporate, take breath and mumble ‘adulti’. I did have enough self-respect left to ask what would happen to the boy with the laser. ‘Don’t preoccupy yourself about him’, was the only answer I got. I was led out of the office to the cupboard with timetables where my name was rubbed out.

My name was of course filled in in the free ‘adulti’ spaces and from October September until July I worked with ádulti’ and enjoyed myself immensely. So much so in fact that I resigned from my job in Waddinxveen and got settled in Cecina