What not to say to your examiner
This is just a quick blog about something that happened while I was helping to examine a speaking test - it really made me chuckle!
I teach one English class at the Junior Teachers' College for students who are training to become teachers. They are 46 of them in their first year (of three) and had their end of first term tests this week. As I had a bit of free time, I offered to help with the speaking tests, so I was one of two examiners who were conducting the test. The other examiner is also an English teacher at the college and the assistant head of the English department.
Each student came into the room and had to read a text aloud and answer questions based on it. They then had to speak about a given topic and situation, and at the end I asked them a couple of general questions. I kept them easy and asked them things like, 'Tell me something about your family', and 'What do you usually do at the weekend?'. However, when we were down to our second to last student, the other examiner asked if he could ask a question, and proceeded to ask the student to describe him. The student very sensibly answered that he looked like a kind and friendly man, however, the teacher persisted and asked the student to describe his appearance. At this point, I started to get a bit nervous and was praying that the student would just describe eye and hair colour. It was not to be and she quietly said (as she is a very shy student and also very nervous), 'You're quite fat and going bald'. At that moment, another teacher had walked in and burst out laughing at her answer, which at least meant that I could laugh openly, and to be fair, the examiner was laughing as well. If that was not enough though, he then asked her if she thought he was good-looking, to which she meekly replied, 'No, not at all'. He did ask!
I teach one English class at the Junior Teachers' College for students who are training to become teachers. They are 46 of them in their first year (of three) and had their end of first term tests this week. As I had a bit of free time, I offered to help with the speaking tests, so I was one of two examiners who were conducting the test. The other examiner is also an English teacher at the college and the assistant head of the English department.
Each student came into the room and had to read a text aloud and answer questions based on it. They then had to speak about a given topic and situation, and at the end I asked them a couple of general questions. I kept them easy and asked them things like, 'Tell me something about your family', and 'What do you usually do at the weekend?'. However, when we were down to our second to last student, the other examiner asked if he could ask a question, and proceeded to ask the student to describe him. The student very sensibly answered that he looked like a kind and friendly man, however, the teacher persisted and asked the student to describe his appearance. At this point, I started to get a bit nervous and was praying that the student would just describe eye and hair colour. It was not to be and she quietly said (as she is a very shy student and also very nervous), 'You're quite fat and going bald'. At that moment, another teacher had walked in and burst out laughing at her answer, which at least meant that I could laugh openly, and to be fair, the examiner was laughing as well. If that was not enough though, he then asked her if she thought he was good-looking, to which she meekly replied, 'No, not at all'. He did ask!
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