Test Anxiety

Teaching and testing often goes hand in hand. (sadly….) For some students, test anxiety is a real-life nightmare, especially for big exam like TOEFL. As a teacher, it is important to train your students how to get over their test anxieties.

Here are few tips that can help easing the anxieties:

1.      Know you material

Don’t let the test/exam be a total surprise. Help your students to be familiar with the materials, question formats, testing tool---score cards, computer, etc. The two-hour exam is not the place or time to figure out how to use a mouse.

2.      Learn actively, not passively

Students are more comfortable taking the traditional roles---passively taking notes. However, you must force your students to be active learners. Memorizing old examinations will not help the students at all. Involve your students in the hands-on running of the class, so they are never sitting down for any length of time. Active learning needs active movement!

3.      Set goals

Test requires dedication and diligence. You should set up standards with your students. Standards could include time, score, etc. These standards can help your students to be more familiar with the test and also easier to track their progress!