For the past month, my fourth year students have been preparing for the NOK. That's the capstone test that if they pass will certify them to teach English through 7th grade. You may think that they've been preparing for the test since they entered the college, as you make the assumption that the test will assess the knowledge they have gained over the past four years. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Studying for the NOK is done by memorizing as many questions and "correct" answers as possible from a bank of questions. The first problem with the test is that memorizing correct answers is not the same as learning. I'd like to say that only Kazakhstan thinks this way, but giving a subset of a bank of questions with publicly available correct answers is also how the FAA tests the people who fly our planes. I distinctly remember studying for the instrument pilot written exam and thinking, if I see this radar map, the answer is D thunderstorm. I had no idea what was happening on the map, but was able to remember the answer D and pass the exam. My students are similarly adept at this rote memorization, and also similarly incapable of understanding why the answer is what it is.

Where the FAA pilot exams and the NOK differ is in the quality of the questions, which brings us to the second problem with the NOK. Most questions have more than one right answer, no right answer, or test some esoteric knowledge that is completely useless for being a primary school English teacher.

Complete the following sentence: Almaty is ______ than Astana.

A. most big

B. biggest

C. big

D. bigger

E. the biggest

A legitimate question testing knowledge of comparative adjectives that has exactly one correct answer. Questions of this sort make up less than 25% of the English questions on the exam.

Complete the following sentence: Johnny likes _____ in the ocean.

A. swam

B. to swim

C. swim

D. swimming

E. swims

Ah, yes, the trick question where there are two acceptable answers and although one may be better than the other to grammar freaks, there aren't enough clues to correctly determine gerund or infinitive. To their credit, my students asked me about this question when they were studying.

In what year were schools made comprehensive?

A. 1965

B. 1967

C. 1966

D. 1968

E. 1969

Is this question about Kazakhstan? The United Kingdom of Great Britain? The Romulan Empire? Even if we specify where, how is knowing the answer going to help the student be an effective English teacher?

Under whose reign did Shakespeare write?

A. Kind Edward II

B. King James I

C. Queen Elizabeth I

D. Queen Elizabeth II

E. King Charles

If your goal is to beat Ken Jennings at Jeopardy, then this is a legitimate question. If you're going to be an English teacher in a Kazakh primary school, you don't need to know that Shakespeare wrote under BOTH James I and Elizabeth I.

Complete the following sentence: Rachel went to the city _______

A. two weeks later

B. four weeks later

C. six weeks later

D. eight weeks later

E. ten weeks later

I cannot fathom an explanation that would excuse the test writer for vomiting up this asinine question.

In addition to the terrible questions, or more hopefully because of them, cheating on the NOK was rampant. Although the ministry of education sent a proctor to the test, she was conveniently taken out to lunch while it was being administered. It's not an exaggeration to say that in her absence, it was a Charlie Foxtrot of cheat sheets, teachers, students and administrators all scurrying about trying to answer as many questions correctly on as many computers as they could. Technically, I wasn't supposed to see how the sausage is made, and the teachers gave my counterpart some flak because I dropped by and made a little bit of fun, but as I explained to the students I actually love the current system.

First, I had to explain to them that passing the NOK, especially by cheating, but even legitimately, had zero correlation with knowing English or being a good teacher (except that presumably students willing to work hard to memorize all the answers are also willing to work hard and actually learn English and teaching skills). I explained that given a few months, I could memorize enough question/answer pairs in any language that uses the latin alphabet to pass such an exam. So in their system, after two months of memorizing, I could be a certified Vietnamese teacher. They retorted "but you wouldn't even be able to speak Vietnamese!" Connect the dots, connect the dots...

Sadly, most of the students who actually can speak English and understand how to teach it will pursue careers in other, more highly paid fields, leaving those whom they helped to pass the NOK behind to teach be present in the classroom with future generations. The Kazakhstan teacher mill is thus churning out very poorly educated teachers, and ranks last in an English skills test. As a result, Kazakhstan is forced to invite foreign people like me to help out. Since I love my job, and I want future generations of Americans to have the same opportunity, it serves my interests for the quality of English teachers in Kazakhstan to remain poor.

At least that's what I told the students, because getting them angry that their system is holding their country back is more moving than just telling them it's a ridiculous system. In reality, I'd very much like for the quality of education here to be much better and feel completely hamstrung in my efforts by a certification system that doesn't reward good students and punish poor students.

I've asked my regional manager why we still have this ridiculous test, and she said that despite extensive lobbying by the National Association of English Teachers in Kazakhstan, the Ministry of Education decided to keep the test. I doubt anybody from the Ministry reads my blog, but here's one more voice. If you want to remain dependent on the generosity of the American taxpayers for good English instruction, keep the NOK and keep failing future generations. If not, here are some recommendations:

1. Use new test questions for every test and keep them a secret. Your students are excellent at memorizing, that ability will not help them be good teachers.
2. For each question, ask "Does this question have exactly one correct answer?" and "Will knowing that answer make the taker a more effective English teacher?" If the answer to both is not yes, throw out the question.
3. Stamp out cheating. Fire teachers caught helping students during the test. Fail students who give answers. The reason for the test is to assess if the person taking it will be a competent teacher. It is not a team building exercise.