A few thoughts on vocabulary tests

I’ve been teaching since 2004 and setting Latin and Greek vocabulary tests all that time – sometimes 5-6 in a week = 3000 vocabulary tests? Here are a few thoughts on vocabulary tests:

• Always have two tests – an A test and a B test. This reduces the possibility of cheating, plus students who did A test marking a B test can see different words and bonus questions and learn from the answers.
• Make it as ‘rich’ a test as possible – use bonus questions judiciously so you can test grammar, translation skills (I often have a sentence to translate) and links to other languages (a controversial part of the Latin GCSE but one I like for its showing of the relevance and usefulness of Latin).
• Get the students to mark it – Dylan William says the best person to mark the test is the one who took it – I say it’s quite useful to have a peer mark it too and then engage in dialogue about whether half marks can be given for giving the verb but not in the correct form etc. I always take the tests in to double check marking!
• Retesting – we have a 50% pass mark for KS3 and 70% in KS4 and KS5. Retesting gets the message across that learning vocabulary is important. However, we do allow on occasion, the production of a revision resource e.g. flashcards, in place of a retest to get the student to engage more fully with vocabulary learning.
• Support is needed when students begin to learn vocabulary. We have an excellent resource, created over a few years, which I’ll post soon to show some of the strategies we encourage in our students e.g. identifying derivations, making flashcards, getting someone to test them.