Useful tests
Every now and then I take an on-line test of Spanish, just out of curiosity. Just now, I tried some flash cards about pronominal verbs (which is a topic I am fairly confident about), and I didn't even score 50% (I just got 43% or something like that). I have to confess that I didn't study the study or recall sections, but I never expected to get a score close to failure in my own language and in a topic I have studied for years.
I don't know how much do people learn out of these tests, but one thing is for sure: they are not learning how natives speak (or my score would have been 100%), and they are not learning about linguistics (or I would have got a very high score). The question is "What on Earth are they learning with it, if natives and expert in Spanish fail the test?" My guess is that they are learning how to get a good score in a test, whether it has to do with how natives speak or not.
I'm becoming increasingly convinced that most exercises to learn languages are designed to teach students how to apply some fixed rules that natives don't use or understand, and have little or no use. If a native can't pass those tests easily and with flying colours, the test is pointless. A test should be designed to allow you to understand how natives think, how to express yourself correctly, to help you appreciate all the possible ways to express one idea,... Exercises where you just have to get the "right" option are often tiring, pointless... and even worse: wrong. I've scored badly in tests because my choice was (supposedly) "wrong", even though it was perfect.
For those who share my ideas about bad questions, I strongly advise you to check the questions on "Gramática básica del estudiante de español", which is, to my, so far, the best grammar ever written for those whose language is not Spanish.
13 Answers
This is a very contentious subject. Hardly a day goes by when I do not see someone respond to a question by saying "Nobody says ..." and I think "Well, maybe you don't or nobody of your acquaintance does but I do or I know many people who do or I encountered that precise word/phrase in the book I was reading yesterday. In English (and I suspect in Spanish) there can be huge differences in the constructions that are commonly used by people of different levels of education (whether formal or informal).
The very fact that you (Lazarus) can find employment in England, teaching Spanish speaks well for their educational system. When I was at university (as our British friends would say), all but one of my teachers were native speakers of Spanish. On the other hand, in retrospect, I would classify the Spanish teacher that I had in high school as "advanced beginner" (it's hard to be certain because she almost never attempted to speak Spanish).
From the teacher's point of view (especially those whose knowledge of Spanish is a bit shaky), it is much easier to teach simple "rules" (such as the abominable permanent/temporary "rule for "ser"/"estar") than to deal with the potentially messier aspects of real language..
Despite the wide availability of native speakers, in the US (below university level) a large portion of Spanish teachers are not native speakers. As if that were not problem enough, they are for the most part strongly encouraged to teach "to tests". That is to say, there are a number of questions/topics that they know will appear on standardized (state/nationwide) tests and they are encouraged to teach the students to respond as those tests expect (irrespective of the validity of those expectations).
The R A E frequently qualifies its example of usages by saying "en la lengua culta ...", thus tacitly admitting that we do not all speak the same English/Spanish. Dictionaries and books about grammar/usage in English, frequently employ similar devices. The blind instance on adherence to the "rules" (without regard for their source nor logic) is, of course, silly. However it is equally silly to suggest that "whatever" anyone anywhere says, the mere fact that a "native speaker" says such a thing makes it correct/acceptable is also silly. People (including native speakers with respect to their native language) make mistakes.
I think some of the online tests are made by language instruction institutions for the express purpose of convincing the participant to sign up for their Spanish class.
"See? You're not as good as you thought. You really need our class!"
This is the best test I've found on the net: link
I agree with you about teaching stupid rules and testing your ability to recognize them, right or wrong, and it's not just true for Spanish, or even other languages: it's all tests. Simply knowing how to do tests allows one to score well on subjects one knows nothing about, while being knowledgeable about a subject subjects you to being rated by people who often aren't. Perhaps the worst example is IQ tests, which are constructed by people who aren't smart enough to define intelligence and probably don't really understand what quotient means.
Apologies in advance to any IQ test designers.
From the teacher's point of view (especially those whose knowledge of Spanish is a bit shaky), it is much easier to teach simple "rules" (such as the abominable permanent/temporary "rule for "ser"/"estar") than to deal with the potentially messier aspects of real language..
Maybe I wasn't expressing myself clearly. I am not against test, or simple rules. I have a problem with anything that supposedly helps students, but natives find it almost impossible to figure out. Rules should be simple, but not misleading. Rules should guide, not confuse. Teaching that "temporary/permanent" thing is a perfect recipe for students who'll come back to you asking "why have I found so many thousands of sentences where YOUR rule doesn't work?"
Give me some time, and I'll show you what I mean by an exercise designed to make students think, rather than applying blindly some useless rules there are not practical.
Lazarus, regarding the book, "Gramática básica del estudiante de español", I see two of those on Amazon.
One is by Rosario Raya
and the other is by Sl Difusion
To which do you refer?
Yes, you are absolutely right, that's the thing which bothers me a lot too, at school for example, they teach me nothing but pointless details. But they are forgetting to give the real speaking rules. On the other hand , I have an English friend who can't even spell definitely, which I found very interesting. And my classmates can't even understand the natives because they are totally fulled with grammar rules and some rare vocabulary. The 'social' ones can survive by playing an online game or watching some movies, but the others I mean the 'nerds' really fail although they know twice the vocabulary I use. This is a rare and disturbing situation in English also.
I agree, and this applies to all subjects, not just languages. I have most of a masters degree in education (teaching high school physics), and I see the same emphasis on passing tests in all areas. In fact, in the United States with No Child Left Behind, it's all about passing standardized tests, whether they makes sense or not. Blind students are being given written tests. Students who don't speak a word of English are given tests in English only. It's insane.
But it is difficult and time consuming to design methods to teach and evaluate students without using rules, rubrics, and standardized tests, preferably multiple choice or True/False. It's all about making things fast, easy, cut and dried, black and white.
A test should be designed to allow you to understand how natives think, how to express yourself correctly, to help you appreciate all the possible ways to express one idea..
¡Muy bien dicho!
By the way, for those interested in the "Gramática básica del estudiante de español" (from Difusión), I strongly recommend that you purchase it from Amazon.uk or any other place in Europe (starting on $25). Even with the delivery charges, it will be much cheaper, and you'll get to see the original version, since the American one has some censorship on some of the pictures (that were not intended to offend anyone at all).
Oh now that I would love, someone who wrote a book or tests or whatever designed to make me think like a native not to translate what I'm thinking in English into Spanish - please let me know when you find one or probably more likely, when you write one 
Why are there so few tests or exercises that are designed to make you think closer to the way natives think? There are things that many natives get wrong all the time, especially on orthography, but those tests cannot be very useful before you reach the fluency of a native speaker. In the meantime, if natives find the exercises incomprehensible, difficult, or weird, the usefulness of the exercise to bring you closer to natural fluency is debatable at best, in my opinion.
Would anyone trying to learn Spanish like to change your high score in those flash cards for my score for 43% and my command of the language? If the answer is 'yes', what does that score prove?
Lazarus,
What direction do you think is best for students of Spanish? Are there better or worse tests, and we should steer towards the better tests, or are you condemning all current tests? If there are no tests that meet your ideals, are you thinking to attempt composing such tests?
I'm usually disappointed in my own test results, but find the experiences useful in discovering weak areas that I can work on. So I don't plan to abandon using tests as one part of my study habits. I would be thrilled if I knew which tests may help me the most.
Thanks in advance.
That's a very broad subject, I won't even try to pick up the gauntlet. But good you've brought it up
