Issues in English Language Teaching & Testing in Nepal During Pandemic

Abstract

This article elucidates the challenges introduced to English Language Testing (ELT) by the COVID-19 pandemic. Delving into the fundamental nature of testing within English Language Teaching (ELT), this paper investigates the experiences of educators amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Comprising comprehensive interviews and narratives from English language instructors situated in diverse regions of Nepal, this study systematically analyzes the arduous conditions confronted by these educators. The research endeavours to discern the implications of such circumstances on the efficacy of English language testing during the pandemic.

Key Words: – English Language Testing, Covid-19 Pandemic, Issues in ELT

In this part of this paper, the context related to English language testing in difficult circumstances has been discussed. This section also deals with the problem of the statement of my research as well as the purposes of my research study. The research questions are also mentioned in this chapter. The rationale and the delimitations are further discussed part of my study.

Context of the Study

The issue I have discussed in this paper is my own experience and the challenges I faced while testing students’ English Language learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research is the product of the challenges I encountered during the language testing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In my professional life. My issue is based on language testing in difficult circumstances. I believe there is always a role of professional experiences and challenges which we encountered in selecting the research issue. The encountered challenges trigger our minds to explore more in a particular area. So this research/issue is influenced by my personal experiences.

When I was teaching English to school-level students, the testing system was fixed. Students have to appear for three or four terminal exams. Teachers had to design the testing tools in a prescribed pattern by the concerned authorities like schools. Coordinator, resource centre, curriculum, or the district education offices. There was no room for students’ prolonged process of learning assessment. The situation is yet the same because the final exam of the basic level is conducted within the prescribed norms of local authority/government and the secondary level exams are conducted under the norms of NEB (National Education Board): When we see in a normal situation the prescribed norms are the valid testing system for School level English language learners.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic schools were shut down as students/teachers needed to maintain social distancing and the government had announced not to gather more than 25 people. Out of several reasons some of them were against the traditional schooling/testing system. Students couldn’t attend the physical classes, however, learning was continued from different alternatives/radio learning/ tole Shiksha/online learning and so on.

The government announced the summative assessment for the academic year 2077. The government has not given any framework and reliable tools for students’ evaluation, in this context. Teachers started to search for alternative ways for evaluation/ testing. While using multiple techniques for assessment teachers had to face different challenges. I am also one of the teachers, and I have faced a lot of challenges. As being the language teacher and the ICT coach of my school I had to train teachers for alternative ways of testing. Training teachers who have limited knowledge about ICT was another issue beyond language testing but it was one of the root causes for language testing in difficult circumstances due to the covid-19 pandemic.

Problem Statement

Language teaching and testing are interrelated. When we teach language we need to test the language ability of the students using valid language testing tools. Testing is only an authentic tool for validating the students’ understanding. In the context of Nepal exams/paper-pencil tests are only the methods to evaluate the students’ understanding of content comprehension. However, the covid-19 has created an issue in the traditional testing systems. People are supposed to maintain social distancing and are not allowed to gather in one place so the traditional language testing has failed. There are a lot of ways for language testing but due to the situation, there have been various challenges in language testing.

The prescribed evaluation system of ELT in Nepal (school level) has been clearly divided into two parts. The first part contains a paper-pencil test for (reading and writing) 75% whereas 25 % is for listening and speaking activity which has been considered as the practical mark. In this context, teachers are unable to conduct the prescribed model of testing due to the covid-19 pandemic. Teachers and schools had to use alternative ways of evaluation as the government had announced the deadline for final assessment. Teachers struggled a lot with designing the testing tools/questions and context-sensitive testing methods. Considering the other reliability and validity constructs of testing tools and systems there are other complexities as well however this paper dealt with the tools designing and implementation of tests in difficult systems.

Implementing the language test using ICT tools and traditional tools in social distancing situations are real problems which are explored in this research. With the limited ICT knowledge and the difficult circumstances, teachers struggled a lot to test and validate the students’ learning outcomes.

Research Purpose

The purpose of this study is to explore the teachers’ struggles and challenges in English language testing in difficult circumstances. There are multiple issues but due to the covid-19, there are some more additional issues in English language testing. This study tries to explore those issues with possible further recommendations.

Any research is governed by the research questions so this research is also based on two major questions related to language testing during difficult circumstances they are:

• What are the challenges created by COVID-19 in English language testing?
• How can we validate different language testing tools in Difficult Circumstances?

The Rationale of the Study

As an English language teacher, I had to design and train the teachers for language testing in my school. While training teachers I felt like the teachers must have basic ICT skills for designing testing tools. The context for language testing will not be similar all the time. There are various affecting circumstances for language testing. While testing students’ learning outcomes I faced the challenge of making the testing tools which matched with the desired curricular outcome. I also felt challenges in language testing and tool designing, and the same is the case with other English language teachers. This study tried to explore the challenges faced by ELT professionals in testing English in Difficult circumstances to validate alternative testing tools and explored the teachers’ challenges in language testing through their experience

Delimitations

This research is limited to issues aroused in English language testing during the COVID-19 pandemic situation. This paper explores the experiences, stories, and challenges faced by the English language teacher while conducting the summative evaluation of the academic year 2077 in Nepal. The data are limited to three participants’ stories collected through in-depth online interviews.

Review of the Related Literature

In this section, the main themes of the research have been dealt with in detail. The literature that supports my topic is implicated in the section to defend the topic. The entire section assists the research to make it authentic. From a thematic approach, the section has been developed. A theoretical review has been presented. Then, moving towards the review of literature on the issues of English language testing during difficult circumstances has been explored. Later, the research gap has been found and is mentioned at the end of the section.

Language Testing and Authenticity

Peter (1991) argues that In most countries the school curriculum for foreign language instruction is formulated in terms of communicative competencies and a logical consequence of this is that testing is also organized according to those competencies. Language testing is not a set of prescribed structures rather the testing tools should be designed based on the context the students are learning it. The same techniques for language testing may not work everywhere so the language instructor is responsible for designing the testing tools considering the level of students and ‘curricular approach’ (Peter 1991). There are multiple criteria although the major criteria of the test should be in mind when making or applying for the test.

Theories and Policies for Assessment and Testing

The term assessment is used both as a general Umbrella term to cover all methods of testing and assessment (Clampham, 2000) In this sense testing is one of the parts of the assessment. With the use of function and application methods, there are various types of tests. The teacher has the right to design the methods as per the need. Clampham (2000) further adds methods of assessment may affect the teaching in the classroom while the theories of language learning and teaching lead to a change in the change in testing practices.

Supporting the mentioned view, teachers can design the contextual testing items for the assessment. There are two ways of assessing the students in the context of Nepal for example summative assessment and formative assessment. Summative assessment talks about the upgrading exam and it’s the product of prolonging learning activity to validate a certain level of understanding in content whereas formative assessment deals with the evaluation of the process in which the learner is assessed based on their involvement in teaching-learning activities. Valette (1994) as cited in (Clapham, 2000) says that ‘tests’ are large-scale proficiency tests and that assessments are school-based tests. In general, the act of assessment is a chunk of tests that can be formal and non-formal.

Increasing critical opposition to contextualizing testing authority and to the globalization of the international language testing industry also brings into focus the complexity of language assessment policy-making (Ross 2008). The complex structure of prescribed testing tools does not allow teachers to modify the tools according to the student’s ability and the testing environment. In this context, the difficult circumstances created the question of the authenticity and validity of tests that are based on alternative assessment methods.

In the language testing policy there often exists a competition between governmental policy prioritizing language education for national educational needs and development (Callies, 2015). Teachers are trained and instructed to meet the national educational needs of the prescribed curriculum. The influence of training and prolonged curricular activities motivate the teachers towards the national educational need which is completely based on a paper-pencil test where we can’t find any room for the testing methods and students’ learning interests.

Language Testing in Different Circumstances

Testing language has different circumstances. Due to different purposes and contexts, the English language has been tested in various ways. There are multiple purposes for English language learning however learning English for academic purposes demands certain proficiency in use. In school level English language courses, it is mandatory to score a certain percent for summative assessment. On the other hand, the level of proficiency should be higher than the school-level language learning (Weir, 2005). For example, in English for abroad studies, the learner has to secure the B2 level of proficiency which is the standard scale of language proficiency according to (CEFR) the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. There have been different methods of testing however the focus is always on the four core language skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking). One difference among all the tests is that most of the proficiency tests give equal credit to all four skills but school-level English testing is different which I have discussed in chapter one.

Research Gap

While going through the different researchers I found that many of the researchers have talked about language teaching theories, practices, and issues. Some of the research is focused on testing as well. However, language testing in difficult circumstances is an emerging issue in the context of Nepal. The covid-19 pandemic and social distancing are not practiced phenomena in academia so this has created a new issue in the English language testing field. So that this research helps to bridge the gap between existing practices/ issues of English language testing and the situations created by the covid-19.

Methodology for this study

This chapter consists of the subtitles; research design, population, sample and sampling strategy, research tools, sources of data, data collection procedure, data analysis and interpretation procedure, and ethical considerations.

Research Design: Narrative Inquiry

To achieve the objectives of this study narrative research design has been used. Narrative inquiry is the type of research design where participants are selected through a purposive non-random sampling method and participants are asked to give detailed information about their experiences in the related fields. It is a form of qualitative research which emerged in the twentieth century. The narrative inquiry could be considered an established approach to qualitative research in our field (Barkhuizen, Benson & Chik, 2014). The narrative inquiry includes field text like stories, autobiographies, journals, field notes, letters, conversations, interviews, family stories, photos, and other artefacts and life experiences as the units of analysis to research and understand the way people create meaning in their lives as narratives.

Narrative inquiry is a means by which we systematically gather, analyze and represent people’s stories, which challenges traditional and modernist views of truth, reality, knowledge, and personhood (Maharjan, 2017).  Narrative inquiry helps people to understand about self by telling and retelling their stories. Cheng (2016) mentioned one’s experience is associated with his/her experience (temporally) concerning other individuals (sociality) at a certain place. From this saying, we can understand that narrative inquiry is a design of qualitative research in which the researcher can be familiar with the participant’s life history and experiences.

According to Maharjan (2017), there are seven commonly used steps during a narrative inquiry. They are:

Step 1:  Problem identification:

First of all the researcher should identify the problem of the interesting issue. Problem identification provides the purpose of the study and enables the researcher to understand the personal or social experience of an individual.

Step 2:  Selection of participants

The researcher should carefully select the participants. Participants should be selected according to the problem that can provide appropriate data for the study.

Step 3: Story collection from the participants

Stories are collected through conversations or interviews with the participants. Besides this; journals, diaries, letters, photographs, memory boxes, and stories acquired by friends or family members are also the sources of stories.

Step 4: Retell the story:

This step involves examining the raw data, identifying key elements, organizing and sequencing these elements, and then retelling a story that describes the individual’s experiences.

Step 5: Collaborate with the participant

Throughout the narrative story collection process, the researcher works with the storyteller to ensure the participant’s experiences are accurately portrayed.

Step 6: Write a story about the participant’s experiences

It is the biggest step in narrative research. In this step, the participant’s experiences are written into a story by the researcher. The specific themes which emerge throughout the story are highlighted in the story.

Step 7: Validate the report’s accuracy

This step is the confirmation of the story’s accuracy. An accurate report is essential to preserve the story. In this step unnecessary and disconfirmed evidence is avoided and accurate evidence is kept to protect the story’s credibility.

The discussion above clarifies that narrative inquiry is one of the important research methods used in educational research. It is mainly carried out to find out people’s attitudes, and opinions, on certain issues, events, or situations. So, to explore the uses of English language testing during the COVID-19 pandemic, I have chosen a narrative inquiry research design for my study.

Paradigm of Interpretivism

Interpretive paradigm is about the meaning which is important for the researcher to understand social actions. Gray (2004) claims that interpretivism deals with social actions and its focus is on the actions of people. The interpretive model has a principle that human beings have their actions, experiences, and reality. They then make sense of that reality by attaching meaning to it.  Researchers of this paradigm believe that human beings go through different circumstances and these circumstances give them experiences.

Interpretive research allows the researchers to view the world through participants’ perceptions and experiences (Thanh & Thanh, 2015). Their experiences make sense and that helps to generate meaning to the data. Interpretivism is an approach that keeps its concern on human social as well as cultural life whereby they construct a meaningful nature of human behaviour and participation (Elster, 2007; Walsham, 1995 as cited in Chowdhury, 2014).  I will make sense of my participants’ world by providing meaning to it. Interpretive research keeps its belief in reality and the reality is constructed socially.

Data Collection Tool and Procedure

The interview is the major data collection tool for my study, as my research design is narrative inquiry. The interview is semi-structured. I took a virtual interview with one of my participants because of direct availability. I used Google meet to communicate with the other two participants. I considered all the ethical and moral consciences during my interview. As I needed detailed information about the participants, I needed to develop a good relationship with participants, for this, I was in touch with them regularly. I called them regularly and was convinced of the interview. I made sure that the interview was taken only for research purposes and that it would not harm their personal and professional life in any way.

Quality Standards

Morrow (2005) insists that quality standards bring goodness to research and these are paradigms bound which makes the research trustworthy. I have maintained credibility in my research. Anney (2014) claims that credibility is a confidence that is gained by the researcher and this confidence is based on the truth of the research findings that signify the reasonable information drawn from the participants’ real data. Similarly, O’Brien et.al (2014) put on their view saying that using strategies for ensuring trustworthiness help researchers keep track of procedures and decisions.

As credibility is one of the ways to achieve trustworthiness, I have maintained credibility through prolonged engagement with participants and participant checks, validation, or co-analysis. Gunawan (2015) claims that confirmability is more related to validity which is adopted to avoid artificial consensus and to get the meaningfulness of the finding. Reference to literature and findings by other authors that confirm the inquirer’s interpretations can strengthen the confirmability of my study.

Ethical Consideration

Every research is governed by ethics. Human activities run in everyday life are alarmed with ethics. As humans, there are certain things that we do not want to reveal in front of other people. According to Stevens (2013), ethical consideration is about protecting the participants from any harm such as disclosure of confidentiality. A researcher, therefore, needs to follow a moral guideline which we call ethics. Fouka and Mantzorou (2011) affirm that ethical consideration is a guideline for researchers to be aware of human rights concerning the values they have in their society. In the research field, a researcher needs to act ethically. I, as a researcher, will keep the ethical standards as this is about people’s rights. I have considered the overall welfare of my participants which includes trust, confidentiality, harm, deception, and consent. This is how I ensure that I abide by them fully before and after my research.

Conclusion

This chapter can be considered as a product of the whole research as it has presented the findings of the research. The data collected from the interview has been analyzed in different themes and presented as the findings of the study. Finally, with the findings of the research, the implication of the result has been presented. Due to COVID-19 teachers and students have faced different challenges and the finding of these studies shows the challenges and the opportunities teachers got to be familiar with ICT tools. The impact of various types of assessment has been presented thematically under the following subtopics.

Findings of the Study

Unrealistic Result in Complete Online Testing

One of the participants shared the experience about the test result, the statement indicated that the students are free with the resources available to them. The testing tool and questions were made based on the textbook. Students copied the answers from the textbook. Though the participants could understand that the answer given by the students was not his own the teacher had to give the number for the question. Sharing the experience the participant highlighted the fact that the comparatively poor students copied the answer from the textbook or other resources but the good students honestly tried their best however the ratio of errors was higher on the answer given by good students. “We couldn’t satisfy ourselves to give good scores to the students who didn’t perform well in the class, said a participant.

On the other hand, the teachers had to give more than the required time frame as all of the students may not access the question at a time. In some cases, teachers had to travel to different places for the testing so that they had to limit the time for those who were physically writing the test. The various methods of testing and flexible time frame have led to the unrealistic result of the test. However, the participants compromised in the internal mark to balance the students’ results.

Parental Involvement in Testing (Cheating)

Parental involvement is expected in the junior level of students’ assessment in distance mode. However one of my participants shared about parental involvement in writing students’ work. This is the case of a complete online summative assessment. It’s common that all the guardians want their students’ good performance but involving parents in the assessment system doesn’t allow students to explore and teachers can’t give the necessary feedback to the students. In this situation, the formative or summative assessment are the tools to understand the students’ level of proficiency in the language. If parents involve themselves in the assessment process then the teacher can’t get the students’ level to treat further.

Lack of Teacher Training For Using Online Tools

Teachers are found to use Google Forms as a system for language testing. Google Forms has limited functionality for language testing. On the other hand, to use it effectively the teachers need to have a certain level of expertise. Google Forms, Google Docs, Microsoft Word, and other communication tools are commonly used for the summative assessment; however, the participants shared their confusion about using the available functions in those online tools. Google Docs have a feature that we can see who is working and it can be used as a tool for language assessment like live exams. But it needs to be used by an expert and a good internet connection. Google site is another collaborative tool for the evaluation process however it has not been found useful among the participants. The participants shared that even if they know some more about the tool, some are inapplicable for language testing and some are difficult for the students as most of the students use mobile Phones for online learning tools.

Shared Answer (Via Online)

One of the common issues among the participants who took their test fully or partially online is that students submitted a similar answer for the question. They also said that it was impossible to prepare separate questions for the individual students, however, they could have modified the pattern of questions if they had not shared the answer like this. The problem could have been minimized. ‘One of the bad effects of the online system is that students always try to share the answer”, said one of the participants.

Difficulties in Design Context-Specific Testing Tools

Teaching and testing the English language in difficult circumstances is challenging. On the other hand, the context of Nepal is under resource for distance language teaching and testing. There are limited systems and methods for language testing in Nepal. Using online language assessment in Nepali contests is new. Teachers and other stakeholders are not aware of available resources and tools for language testing.

Traditional Tools Are Not Appropriate

At the school level teachers should follow the prescribed patterns to prepare the testing tool, while preparing the question for English language testing teachers need to include all the skills like reading, writing grammar and vocabulary along with other skills. The traditional tools are designed considering the traditional testing system so that the same pattern of language testing tools is not appropriate for online assessment. Though most of the pattern of questions can be made in online tools however it needs a higher level of expertise in designing.

Not a Fixed Tool for English Language Testing in Difficult Situations

From the analysis of the collected data, it has been found that different language teachers used different tools for language assessment. The concept of tole Shiksha and tole parish has been a good concept I found during my study. One of my participants shared about parental perception about the testing. One of the participants narrated the parents’ perception like this.

The neighbouring school is running exams in school. They are maintaining everything well but why are you visiting village to village to collect students’ papers? You might spread the coved infection. Better don’t do it. They have not read anything it is just a waste of time. My participants wanted to say that if the particular rule for testing in the different situations had been made by the concerned authority it wouldn’t be happening with them. The participants said that they were blamed to be the means of COVID-19 transmission.

Lack of Authorized Alternative Assessment Tools for Summative Assessment

Though the discourse of alternative tools is at its peak there are no reliable tools for alternative assessment. If the teacher evaluates the student’s performance with the learning process the parents don’t believe in the teachers. They just wanted red-marked copies with a good number of their child, and one of the participants expressed the view on alternative assessment.

Conclusion of the Study

Educational Implication of the Study

There are certainly lacking in the traditional English language testing system. They have been under study and those studies have developed multiple options for language testing. While doing this research I have found that there are very limited methods of language assessment systems at the school level. The prescribed model of questions can’t measure the language proficiency obtained by the students by watching movies and videos. So there is a strong need for reformation in the language testing systems considering the situations.

The coronavirus has triggered the minds of expert test-takers, designers,s and other stakeholders to manage alternative and reliable tools for language testing and this study also supports highlighting the issue which might create better solutions in the future.

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