Do We Have to Choose Between Acquisition and Test Scores?

By Beniko Mason

One concern I often hear from teachers is:

“I would like to use more acquisition-based methods, but I must use the textbooks and worksheets that my school requires.”

This concern is understandable. Schools often require teachers to follow a textbook schedule, teach specific grammar points, assign vocabulary study, and prepare students for standardized tests.

But let me ask a few questions.

When you teach entirely according to the textbook schedule, assign vocabulary memorization, and spend class time on grammar exercises and test preparation, do your students perform exceptionally well on tests? More importantly, do they acquire the language?

Now consider a different situation.

Suppose you take a small amount of time from the regular schedule and tell a story in every class. What happens?

• Do students suddenly perform worse on tests?
• Do they perform about the same as before?
• Do they seem more relaxed and engaged?
• Do they tell you that they enjoy hearing stories?
• Do weaker students begin to fall behind?
• Or, in some cases, do students actually perform better on the tests?

Many teachers are afraid to devote significant time to Story-Listening and Guided Self-Selected Reading because they worry that students will fall behind on the assessments schools require.

But have you considered the possibility that the opposite may happen?

If students receive large amounts of optimal input, they may actually perform better on the standardized tests that schools require.

This is especially true when the input is not merely comprehensible but optimal.

Not all comprehensible input is equally valuable. Some input is limited, artificial, fragmented, or uninteresting. Some input is not abundant enough to produce substantial growth.

Optimal input is different. It is comprehensible, compelling, rich, and abundant.

Teachers often assume that they must choose between two goals:

Preparing students for tests.
Helping students acquire language.

I do not believe these goals are in conflict.

My experience has been that when students receive P.O.U.I. (Pure Optimal Unified Input), their language competence grows. As competence grows, vocabulary develops, grammatical accuracy improves, reading ability increases, and test performance often improves as well.

Ironically, many teachers spend enormous amounts of time preparing students for standardized tests through grammar instruction, vocabulary memorization, and test practice, even though the tests themselves are largely measures of listening and reading comprehension. If the tests are primarily measuring comprehension, then improving comprehension may be one of the most effective ways to improve test performance.

Schools want evidence that students are making progress.

If your school requires standardized tests, give them.
If your school requires achievement tests, give them.

Do not be afraid of Optimal Input.

When acquisition is occurring, students usually demonstrate that growth on the assessments that schools and society value.

The real question is not:

“How can I teach to the test?”

The real question is:

“How can I help students develop genuine language competence?”

When competence develops, test performance often follows.