Correct policy
The Ministry of Education and Training has just issued an official dispatch guiding the implementation of secondary education tasks for the 2024-2025 school year. It notes a number of specific issues regarding the testing and assessment of Literature.
According to the document, middle and high schools should avoid using texts and excerpts learned in textbooks as test materials to assess reading comprehension and writing skills in periodic tests.
In addition, assessment must be carried out in accordance with regulations, not exceeding the requirements of the program, and periodic testing and assessment must be enhanced through practical exercises, learning projects, etc.
In addition, schools also need to strengthen the construction of question banks and test matrices according to the requirements of the subject program; prepare 9th grade students to get acquainted with the orientation of the entrance exam for grade 10, and 12th grade students to get acquainted with the orientation of the high school graduation exam.
The use of materials to create tests and exams in Literature has always received public attention. Recently, some schools have caused a stir when using inappropriate materials outside of textbooks, with sensitive elements.
Mr. Nguyen Phuoc Bao Khoi, lecturer of Literature at Ho Chi Minh City University of Education, said that the requirement that educational institutions not use texts and excerpts learned in textbooks as materials for periodic Literature tests is actually a step to detail the content 2a and 2b in Official Dispatch 3175 of the Ministry of Education and Training dated July 21, 2022 on legalizing the requirements for sources of materials used in testing and assessment.
Specifically, it is necessary to identify that students need to apply the knowledge they have learned and the skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening to new contexts and materials. Moreover, in the assessment, it is necessary to avoid reusing the texts learned in textbooks as materials for constructing reading and writing tests to accurately assess students' abilities, overcoming the situation where students only memorize lessons or copy the content of available documents.
According to Mr. Khoi, the requirement not to use texts and excerpts learned in textbooks as assessment materials is a consistent viewpoint with the implementation of the 2018 Literature program in the direction of developing qualities and abilities.
This is a correct policy that has been repeated many times, further affirming the determination of the Ministry of Education and Training in innovating assessment and evaluation, especially for Literature, a subject that receives close attention from public opinion.
However, Mr. Khoi noted that in the assessment of Literature, it is necessary to develop a set of criteria for selecting materials. Because although the 2018 Literature program has stated a number of criteria, these criteria still need to be specified and detailed to form a checklist for assessing materials, thereby serving as a basis for standardizing this issue.
'Avoid excessive and indiscriminate freedom'
Mr. Ho Tan Nguyen Minh, a Literature teacher at Luong Van Chanh High School for the Gifted, Phu Yen, said that not using textbooks to create periodic exams is an inevitable trend of the new program that focuses on developing students' abilities.
This brings some benefits such as: Meeting the requirement of "one program, many textbooks". When providing materials outside of textbooks, it will ensure that the ability of all students is tested, ensuring fairness for all students regardless of which textbooks they study at school.
Providing materials outside of textbooks will limit the situation of “teachers guessing questions, students learning by heart”, the situation of parroting, memorizing… From this, teachers are forced to change the teaching method from simply conveying to forming skills and abilities for students. Students must also actively practice their abilities to be able to do the exercises.
In addition, the extra-textbook materials will promote the expansion of the scope of learning materials for both teachers and students. Because in the past, when the materials were in textbooks, teachers and students would just go around and return to a few texts until they got bored, now to create test questions, teachers have to read a lot of materials. Students who want to do the test also have to practice on many different materials.
However, according to Mr. Minh, in order to effectively publish non-textbook materials, it is necessary to carefully consider a number of things. Specifically, not publishing textbook materials will open up freedom for teachers in choosing materials. However, this can also easily lead to excessive, indiscriminate freedom, leading to unpleasantness, being too lofty or too easy and superficial.
“I think that when choosing materials, we need to pay close attention not to choose according to teachers’ preferences but to choose materials that are suitable for students. Accordingly, the selected materials must be coherent, clear, suitable for students’ abilities, age-appropriate, and ensure good customs and traditions,” Mr. Minh warned.
In addition, Mr. Minh believes that the answers must be open, the marking method must also be open, not forcing students into a mechanical system of ideas given by teachers. We must know how to accept different reading comprehension abilities, beyond the boundaries of the answers, especially artistic texts.
Avoid having many different texts in the same exam, which leads to students not being able to solve them or not having time to think thoroughly.
“It is necessary to integrate and choose a good text that meets many requirements. Both the reading comprehension and writing sections (social and literary essays) are asked from that text. On the other hand, since it is a text outside of the textbook, students have to process it themselves to do the test, so when grading, we should not be too strict. We need to accept the writing style and expression that may be a bit immature and clumsy, but that is the students’ writing, not copied from somewhere else,” said Mr. Minh.
From this year, no more textbooks will be used to test Literature.
Why is the Literature score of the 2024 high school graduation exam so high?
Only 1 candidate achieved 9.5 points in Literature subject in 10th grade exam in Ho Chi Minh City
Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/su-dung-van-ban-ngoai-sach-giao-khoa-kiem-tra-ngu-van-tranh-de-dai-phan-cam-2308921.html
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