9.1 The Standard 8 primary school leaving certificate
9.2 Monitoring reading achievement at national level
Two areas will be considered here. One is the nature and effect of the Primary School Leaving Certificate Examination at Standard 8. The other is the monitoring of reading achievement at national level.
9.1.1 It is widely recognised that nationally set examinations have a powerful washback effect upon teaching. In Malawi the Standard 8 examinations are especially important as they control entry to secondary schools. An exhaustive analysis of the examination would be out of place here (and would in any case require an investigation of results) but brief consideration of the English part of the examination is worthwhile, and in particular the nature of the reading comprehension component. The following comments are based on July 1990 and July 1991 papers.
9.1.2 The English examination (Paper 2) consists of 6 sections:
Section 1: Structures (15 marks). Pupils are asked fill in blanks in sentences (requiring structural words, eg prepositions)Section 2: Punctuation (5 marks).
Section 3: Comprehension (10 marks). A text plus questions (discussed in more detail below).
Section 4: Vocabulary (10 marks). Pupils are asked to write sentences to show the meaning of 5 different words.
Section 5: Grammar (30 marks),
(i) Completing the rewriting of given sentences, through transforming words from one part of speech to another. eg He sent the letter by post. > He _______ the letter.(ii) Clause analysis. This involves identifying subordinate clauses in sentences, and identifying their type and function.
Section 6: Written composition (15 marks), with guidance cues.
The time allowed is 90 minutes (for extracts see Appendix H).
9.1.3 In terms of its washback effect on teaching it may be noted that Structure and Grammar sections take up 45 marks out of 85, while Reading Comprehension takes up only 10. It is highly likely therefore that in the final years of upper primary a significant amount of time is given to grammatical accuracy and to identifying parts of speech and clause analysis rather than improving what the children are actually able to do with the grammar they know in reading and writing.
While a case can be made for attending to grammatical accuracy, the analysis of parts of speech and clauses is distinctly questionable in circumstances where the majority of pupils have great difficulty in producing and comprehending fairly simple language. To refer again to the Standard 6 incident (see 6.6.7), it is more important for pupils to be able to use "like" appropriately, than to be able to say whether it is being used as a verb or preposition. Furthermore the latter is not a precondition for the former. If the examination is to have a more positive effect on teaching, and be more relevant to the pupils' future needs, it should put more emphasis on testing their ability to use English (through reading and writing tasks), and less emphasis on manipulating English forms for their own sake (although there may be a place for testing grammatical accuracy in meaningful contexts). I would suggest that sentence/clause analysis should be dropped completely from this level.
9.1.4 The reading comprehension section (6) consists of a passage of 250 to 300 words, followed by 5 open ended questions.
Language level: The 1990 comprehension section seems difficult relative to the performance of Standard 6 children in the Word Find tests. The 1991 paper seems easier but again it is hard to see how the majority of children who were tested in Word Find at Standard 6 could improve sufficiently in the intervening 2 years (given the conditions for learning) to achieve reasonable comprehension of this passage. The apparently high difficulty level could be verified by investigating past results. Presumably the difficulty derives from the examination's function as a selection device for secondary school with its concomitant need to discriminate only at the top end.
Text types: one weakness of the current examination is that it only contains one passage for comprehension. In both 1990 and 1991 the passage is expository. While pupils should certainly be tested on expository text, there is room also for a greater variety of text types, some of which could be more relevant for the majority of pupils (eg forms, instructions, etc). Text types used in other areas of the primary curriculum (eg simple diagrams) could be considered.
Answer format: open-ended questions have the advantage of allowing for personal conclusions (compared to multiple choice, for example). However, there are only 5 such questions, carrying a total of 10 marks; this does not seem a very heavy weighting for reading comprehension, given its practical importance. Adding another text (or two) would enable reading comprehension to be more heavily weighted, and also give the opportunity for other text types to be introduced.
Reading skills: While the comprehension questions in the examination are not confined to "factual" reference from the text, there is clearly a limit to the other skills that can be addressed in only 5 questions.
9.1.5 It may be assumed that in due course the examination will be amended so as to be in harmony with the new English syllabus (Ministry of Education and Culture, 1991 - see paragraph 6.2 above). This new syllabus includes the following general Subject Objectives:
By the end of Standard 8 pupils will be able to:
- Read with understanding different types of narrative and non-narrative material (eg short stories, notices, instructions, newspapers, booklets on farming methods, health care...)- Use various reading strategies (eg extracting factual information...)
- Follow the logical development of ideas in a variety of reading materials...
- Make simple critical judgements (eg distinguish fact from fiction,....)
(Malawi Primary School Teaching Syllabus, 1991: 3)
In view of the all the above points, I would suggest that modification of the reading comprehension component should be focussed on:
(i) extending the range of reading ability assessed, so that the examination could more adequately show what average pupils can do, and not only what they cannot do. In principle it should be possible to do this while still attending to the top end of the ability range, and without sacrificing the discriminatory power of the examination.(ii) extending the range of text types along the lines suggested by the new syllabus.
(iii) giving more attention to a wider range of reading skills, which would necessitate more test items. This would be necessary if more text types were included.
9.5.6 Clearly it would be unfair on pupils and teachers for any changes to be effected in advance of appropriate materials and teacher training being made available. In the meantime, however I would recommend that specialist research be carried out into:
(a) specifying the reading comprehension abilities which are:- relevant to current real life situations, as well as to likely future needs in Malawi;
- relevant to reading to learn in other school subjects;
- relevant to the majority of pupils who will end their schooling at Standard 8.(b) investigating test item types which lend themselves to the assessment of the selected reading abilities in addition to open-ended questions, bearing in mind the practicalities of production and marking.
This would involve a consideration of topics and text types for such pupils. It should also consider relevant reading skills and degrees of fluency in reading. Such work would clearly need to be integrated with the material preparation for the last years of the new Activities in English material.
This study has indicated that the level of reading in English in Malawi primary schools is low, and that in particular it is difficult to see how the majority of children are able to read to learn from Standard 5 onwards when the medium has switched to English. Given the importance of reading in English in the current system, then it might be worthwhile to set up a system for monitoring achievement in reading in English on a national scale and at regular intervals. This could be part of a national assessment system for primary education, or organised apart from such a system.
By monitoring achievement levels over time such reading tests in English would indicate the success of new curricula, teacher training etc. They could be carried out on the basis of a small but scientific sample, and would therefore not be excessively costly. They would not necessarily need to be carried out annually. The tests would be concerned with basic reading in the sense of recognition and understanding of simple written English. The most appropriate point at which to administer the English reading tests would probably be early in the latter half of the primary course after the medium of instruction has switched to English. I would accordingly recommend that a study be carried out into the feasibility of instituting a reading achievement test for Malawi primary schools. The study would look into both the practical aspects (costs, appropriate Standard, sample size) and academic aspects (content, test format, etc).
