Children are normally deferent and have different capabilities to learn, retain and express in the exams. It is true that exams develop some sense of anxiety to most students and so teachers are normally concerned that there should be universal walkthroughs that can help the students gain composure and master their exams. The initiative you have given is very well and workable. Teaching key areas with careful consideration not to carry out drilling process in the name of teaching should be workable to many. Further, students should be encouraged to develop personally generated rote learning methods like mnemonics that help the grasp more from their taught materials. I would also vouch for revision oriented approach towards the closing days to the exam, and if you have got a site for questions databank, kindly make good use of it.
However, avoid introducing that too early on in the class for the students, rest assured, they will not learn. I suggest that you also include individual differences in trying to develop strategies to reduce anxiety and enhance learning. Students should be made to have intrinsic motivation and self-generated confidence based on their attitude. So it is also important to work on the attitude development, a psychological perspective (Schonert-Reichl et al., 2015).
Reply to Samantha
I agree, there is value on the extra effort taken. Now that students are not detectives, they cannot read as detectives unless they are given a reason to read as detectives. That is a very aggregable point to begin the review. In other words, I would say that instead of just teaching and challenging the children to read into details, the work can be easily done when the children are given a reason to read. There will be no follow up, but they will read nonetheless, and to make it better, on their own.
The only questions that remain are what can motivate your students to go out in the extra mile and read like they mean to get the deeper meaning of it? That area would need carefully rework and planning. All the same, I agree with you that teachers should not be deterministic in their teaching. Making the teaching dynamic, enriched and likable for some reasons will let the students read the extra mile (Rodgers, 2004). Therefore, it may not be all about rewards, but a bit of psychological rework and diversifying the scope of the learning needs.
Reply to Melissa
I strongly believe that language is dynamic and very rich. There are many approaches that one may take to learn a new language (Mitchell, Myles, " Marsden, 2013). In many cases, the efficiency of any method deployed should be dependent on resources available. Nonetheless, I suggest that no one way would be an accurate and foolproof formula for learning the language in all cases. Therefore teachers should assess their class needs against what entry knowledge the learners have and use the most appropriate approach, whether listening, translation, comprehension or any other.
However, I also believe that based on the class set up and the entry knowledge, one approach like translation should be given more weight to the other supporting approaches. In the end, the need to have a well-planned system of learning should be used or the class use. Therefore, I would expressively give your model greenlight, hoping that it will best fit the needs of the students and the class in general.
References
Mitchell, R., Myles, F., " Marsden, E. (2013). Second language learning theories. Routledge.
Rodgers, J. H. (2004). Scripted And Strategic Power Relations Within Student Teaching Triads: Experience, Understandings, Accommodation/Resistance and Transformative Possibilities in Curriculum, Classroom Management and Evaluation Decisions (Doctoral dissertation, University of Pittsburgh).
Schonert-Reichl, K. A., Oberle, E., Lawlor, M. S., Abbott, D., Thomson, K., Oberlander, T. F., " Diamond, A. (2015). Enhancing cognitive and social-emotional development through a simple-to-administer mindfulness-based school program for elementary school children: A randomized controlled trial. Developmental psychology, 51(1), 52.
