Vocabulary Tests

[Odubangjang]

Dear Foreigner Teachers,
I am writing because my school asks that my students memorize lists of 40 vocabulary words everyday. When the students do not do well, they often face punishments. I think it is too much for students to have to memorize this lists, but also I do not believe that it is testing their knowledge but rather their short-term memory skills. I am wondering what other foreigner teachers think about this issue and ways to make this a little less difficult on the students or possibly good ideas on how to bring this up with my manager. Thanks so much!

[Jo]

It certainly does sound too much.

Can you please give a little more detail?
- Do you literally mean EVERY day? 5 days per week? 6? 7?
- What country is it?
- What level(s) and age(s) are the students?
- Is it a language school, evening classes, boarding school or what?
- Where do the vocab lists come from/how are they generated?
- Are the words related to current lessons, topics etc? Or random?

In short, the more detail you can give the more advice you should receive.

Thanks :)

[Odubangjang]

It is 5 days a week and the classes range from 1st grade to 5th grade. The words are found in their lessons but some are words that they will never see again. I had a class take a vocabulary test with words such as Shar-pei and disestablishment. I don't know when they will see these words again or why they should know them at their age. I am teaching in South Korea and I love my job but sometimes I feel as though we aren't teaching them since it's not actually testing their true language acquisition and just forcing them to memorize, memorize, memorize ...