Student Generated Tests are a good way to prepare quick tests or quizzes for the class but with little effort from the teacher.

Ten minutes before the end of the lesson ask each student to individually write down 2 or 3 questions based on the material they have learned over the past week or so (note that this will depend on how often you teach the class, but the questions should relate to the previous few lessons).

Explain that the questions can related to grammar or vocabulary and they can be multiple choice or gap fill or sentence rearrangement, etc. Whatever they like, in fact as long as it’s in English!

Collect these and choose the best questions. In the following lesson give the test out to the class who have fifteen minutes to complete it.

Then have them swap papers so as you read the answers they can mark each others work.

After grading, they sit down with their “grader” and work out where the mistakes are.

Advantages

There are several pluses to doing this.

• less work for you in preparing a test
• students feel good when they can answer their own question
• it reinforces what you have taught the past week
• you can get a good idea about areas the students are having problems with by looking at the questions no one asked!