Rubayee, Bangladesh
Tests are important in determining the students' learning achievements in the classroom; at the same time they also help teachers to monitor his/her teaching methods in the classroom.

One must be careful not to take a test just to evaluate a student and his/her academic learning achievements. In order to be cautious of this common tendency (to judge a student) schools should have some sort of test policies for all teachers to follow.

I am thankful to the BBC for providing this valuable information network. I hope many teachers try to use the information provided here and use it in their schools or share with their colleagues.

Alphonse, Rwanda
Testing is one of the best ways which enables the teacher to see at a glance how the students' perform or how they are progressing.

Simon, Eritrea
Testing is the only means of knowing your capability; of how much you understand. So in my opinion you have to take a test before reading or studying because it shows where you have to work hard and not. That's why I vote for 'totally agree.' Thank you.

Margot McCamley, Tunisia
Let's not see tests as a boogey. Afterall, if you want to be a qualified teacher, you have to do a three hour test for DELTA!!

Students are required to do tests in many walks of life and in language learning it surely is no different. If we look at the following you will see the reasons why tests are given:

• Category of test Placement - General Reference forward to future learning
• Diagnostic - Detailed referenced back to class work
• Summative/Achievement - General Referenced back to a course -
  Certification - Comparison with others at the same stage Proficiency
• Specific purposes - Reference forward to particular application of language required
• Norm-referenced - To select when there are more candidates that places available

So let's not group tests as one type only. Tests have multi-purposes and should be used according to the need.

Gagah, Brazil
Most teachers already know the students who are improving more & the others who need more attention, but tests are - yes unfortunately -practical & part of the whole process.

Dipmala, India
A test can help the students. It helps in checking their knowledge. It helps to know whether they have understood or not. It can have negative effects also.

Liliana Burga, Perú
As a person who designs test for students different ages and levels, I think that yes, tests help learning in a way , but how fair they are? Can a score obtained sometimes under pressure demonstrate all what the students have learnt?

Inna Tatarina, Ukraine
I think using tests is inevitable as long as we are interested in the results of our work. As for the students' being nervous during the assessment, a lot depends on the atmosphere we create in the lessons.

Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hanh, Viet Nam
I think testing is one of the best ways to help us improve our knowledge about learning English with 4 skills. So I vote for totally agree.

Kevin Solan, France
Graduated tests (such as the TOEIC and others), when used with cartesian students, only evaluate the student's ability to decipher and analyse the testing technique in order to find a "method" to pass the test. They do not assess the wide variety of skills related to the use of the language. The ability to communicate in the language relies on (a predisposition for) practice, a broad scope of source material and a sense for expression... more comparable to an artform such as music or painting, where, while "assessment" is more subjective than in the case of the exact sciences, the students' overall ability to express themselves can be vastly improved. We need an element of "artistic" expression in assessments, where the result is not a number but an informative commentary on the student's real abilities.

Afshin Derakhshan, Canada, Toronto
Testing in general word is good, even when you are teaching the beginning levels. Tests are evaluations between teachers and students which the teachers can find the weakness of his/her students.

Dan Danforth, Canada
Testing is a hammer that can be used to build a student, but it can also break his or her kneecaps. How testing is used determines whether it is helpful - to drive a nail or pumitive - to break kneecaps. Unfortunately, many teachers use testing as a discipline device to garner compliance. If you don't pass this test then . . .. There are saws and nails and glue and boards and mortar and . . . to use for assessment. Your website listed several, others are peer assessment, self-assessment, incremental assessment and holistic assessment. How'd I do? 74%

Huu Hieu vietnam
Giving tests for students to do is the most effective way to know how the students are studying and I agree that we should give tests for students to do during the course.

Idit, Israel
Tests are one of the tools that a teacher includes in the language course. I believe that teachers must prepare tests carefully to review what was taught and it should give the student the result of a possitive learning and satisfactive feeling of accomplishing goals to teachers and students. It's the teacher who should cover the preparation of tests to encourage the student to cope with his or her "poor" performance. It is clear to me that the critics about the exam should be sensitive and give the student the opportunity to improve his or her grades with assignments and alternatives. No comments abouts the grades in front of other students nor colourful remarks on the exam papers shouldn't limitate the student reaction but only possitive written words to strength the student to make a non threatening approach to tests.

Zheng Deming, China
Each coin has two sides.Test has both advantage and disadvantage. We must use test system scientifically.

Soli Cowasji, India
Testing is a must without which no evaluation can be made.

Goksu Muftuoglu, China
I think the purpose of testing is evaluating ourselves rather than judging our students' work. We as teachers can easily observe in which point we were succesful or not. Therefore it will give us the opportunity to change both our teaching techniques and strategies. I also believe that the tests should be prepared before the unit is covered so that we can know what we expect our students to succeed and organize the lesson above this criteria.

Exams have always been the nightmare of the students or even the adults. Although I have been a teacher for ten years, I still get excited and determined myself to get a grade. If the grade is not good I feel myself as if I knew nothing. In fact by giving the same exams to all of our students on the same day and expecting them to write all they know in one hour is not logical and even has already been refuted by all of the researches about human physcology. We should bear in mind that as teachers of English we are responsible to assess the process rather than the product. Getting 40 from 100 might be a failure for a succesful student whereas it might be a very good improvement for the weak one.

Dominic McCabe, UK
The problem with many tests is their gatekeeping function and in the context of English testing the high stakes that are often attached to these tests. This tends to lead to teaching to the test an inevitable narrowing of the curriculum and an impoverishment in terms of both the how and what of teaching and learning

Davood Sepahi, Iran
Testing sure does help learning though one should not forget that it is only one component among all others in language teaching. Testing gives a sense of progress; learners can monitor their degree of success. Teachers and learners can plan for the future based on the data collected through testing. However, teachers have to explain that it is the "result" of the test given to the learnes not the learners' knowledge of whatever language.

Viviana Kay
I think test are necessary for both teacher and student. they should be tailor made and test only some specific areas of knowledge. I´ve tried giving my sts.ten- minutes tests after two or three lessons so as to see how well they are performing before the actual test.

Juno, China
I think tests should be the only criteria for assessment. It is the only one tool that we can use.

Bev Darle, France
I prefer the word "evaluation" to testing, especially in our field: in work training. Just the words "test next week" are enough to put some people off coming! We find a continual assessment approach much better, eg a role play or an exercise at the end of a unit.

Barbara Gaston, New Zealand
I have found that Asian students particularly expect to work for tests and put in very little effort if they do not gain "marks" for it. I think for this particular group the end justifies the means and ties in very much with what they expect from the education system.

Amalia Fernández Nicolás, Spain
On the one hand taking into account my own experience, as negative as you are able to imagine, and on the other hand thinking of my years of teaching, a test can be helpful if we tell our students it is to know if we can manage the information received and to detect "the black holes" we have got in our minds that seem to eat what we try to retain in our memory. In this case it works wonderfully. If the result is negative the teacher must encourage the student to try again and again until they achieve their goals. As ever, success depends a lot on the importance we give to the results. If we do not dramatize the tests will be a great tool to help our people to improve.