Ways to Help Students Overcome the Testing Hurdle: Tunisian Experiences

Abstract:

Ways to Help Students Overcome the Testing Hurdle is a paper presented at the Study Day on Testing and Evaluation at the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences of Tunis to assess Tunisian EFL students’ performance in their exam papers. The testing methodology used with these students was revised for the sake of implementing an Action Research methodology instead and revealing typically our Tunisian experiences in this regard. The importance of the paper resides in its attempt to revolutionize the classroom teaching experiences we are witnessing. Furthermore, there is an attempt to shed light on hidden facts we seem to lose sight of. Particularly, the findings of this investigation revealed that certain conditions accounted for having bad results on many testing occasions such as class discipline and size, students’ struggle with Language skills and their lack of motivation in dealing with their language courses. The findings also revealed that the implementation of Action Research methodology in my classroom teaching was effective in dealing with the aforementioned problems.