This year for the first time I have to proctor the national test high school students take to enter university. This test is being done at my school among others and requires a ridiculous amount of training and absorption of information to do correctly.
If you are a non-Japanese teacher of foreign descent, then you will probably find this a bewildering and frightening experience if you are asked to do this at all. Generally, foreign teachers are spared this task, but just in case you are like me and not spared, this post will hopefully help you sort through the piles and piles of documents you will receive outlining the procedures of the examination.
You will likely be called into a meeting that lasts all day, breaking only for lunch, where a member of the administration staff speaks in very rapid Japanese in a general way about the test, our roles, and what we can expect. It is a bit bewildering, but do your best to follow along. Thankfully, they show a helpful series of videos.
The test rules booklet is the thickness of a Sony television's operation manual and about as easy to understand. Of course the book is entirely in kanji, which I can't read well. It would take a Japanese person a week to go through this thing! Considering my dismal reading speed, I would have probably required a year or two to get through it if not for my fabulous, but crazy husband who is in love with kanji and read it for me while I took furious notes.
Here is some of that manual explained in a general fashion. The specific step-by-step procedures would be too long to fill out, but I do have a couple of Word documents with the test directions written out in English for anyone who really wants them. Leave a comment with your email address and I'll send them to you.
Unless you are a desperate foreign teacher living in Japan who can't read kanji well and who must proctor this test, then you should probably just stop reading now. Then again, this is pretty dry stuff, so if you are having trouble sleeping this might be just the thing for you.
General Information on the Test
It lasts two days and it's conducted over the weekend in January. Students must take a barrage of examinations on various subjects all day Saturday and most of Sunday. The amount of organization required to give pretty much every high school student in the country their examination on the same day is mind boggling in my opinion, but it seems to come off without a hitch for the most part. However, please be aware that TV news shows like to talk about any university where the test was flubbed or something bad happened. So, make sure you take this seriously as the "honour" of your university may be at stake.
Also, the university entrance examination is the MOST important test a student will take in their lives in Japan. It determines their future to an arguably large extent as the Japanese hiring system is still very clannish in some ways. For example, a very large number of government employees come from one or two specific universities. Getting into a high-ranked university is very important to some students. All the rules, while they might seem ridiculous or at the very least overwhelming to someone who is not used to them, are there in order to ensure fairness by making sure that every student in the country has the exact same examination conditions as far as possible. So, make sure you make an effort to do it correctly.
If you don't have a plain watch with hands (i.e. not digital) then buy one as there will probably not be a clock in your examination room. Also, it's best to avoid bringing anything with an alarm on it into the examination room.
An important consideration is that you cannot leave the room while you are proctoring. Better to be a couple of minutes late then have to hold in explosive diarrhea for 90 minutes. In other words, go to the bathroom before and stay away from coffee.
Roles
The most basic thing you should know is that there are different roles assigned to each teacher. The head proctor (HP) is in charge of making sure the examination is done smoothly, in the correct order, following the appropriate guidelines, and with clockwork precision. They give all the directions to the students out loud. Since I am not a native-speaker of the Japanese language, I was fortunate to be spared the role of HP. However, the Japanese itself is very repetitive, so it's not that difficult to get the hang of it if you are unfortunately chosen to be the HP.
Aside form the HP, there is a proctor with the role of timekeeper (TK). The TK is responsible for making sure the HP is following the test's schedule. All proctors should sink their watches so that everyone has the same time, ideally down to the second (no really). Students MUST receive the full time they are allotted and not one second less. Therefore, obviously, time must be kept to the second. It says that specifically in the manual. The HP and the TK are provided with stop watches to ensure that level of precision.
There are sometimes other helpers if there are many students in the room. Their job is to assist in distributing booklets, etc. and supervising the students.
Finally, there is the "Contact Person". As I mentioned, proctors cannot leave the examination room, so this person waits outside the room to take students to the bathroom, to receive forms from the proctors, to communicate any problems to and from the proctors, etc.
In a bit more of a Big Brother-style, the proctors are also responsible for watching the HP and making sure s/he doesn't mess up! If the HP messes up, they must commit ritual suicide with a special sword in front of all students. (not really)
While the examination proceeds, you must follow along in your manual and check off each direction that the proctor gives to the students. This is in order to make sure that all directives for the examination have been given. You will be required to cross-check with other proctors that all directives have been given, so if you can't follow along, just do your best and check-mark as many as you can.
Concerning the timing of the examinations, you should know the following for each exam. All the times below, except number 1, are written in your manual and you should bring your manual to every test. Verify:
1. When and where your proctoring group members will gather before the examination to double-check their materials and to get any information about test conditions (E.g. if a student is ill, if the local trains, buses aren't running, etc). This is in a place called 本部 (honbu). It varies from university to university so ask a colleague.
2. The start and end times of the examination.
3. The start, end, and duration of the answering portion of the test (i.e. the part of the test where the students are writing down their answers and not the explanation part of the test).
4. All the examinations have a cut-off time after which, late students are not allowed to take the test. Find out your lateness limit.
Below are some useful vocabulary. If you can't read basic kanji at the very least, you shouldn't be proctoring this examination. Tell your colleague that you cannot proctor at this time. Personally, I can’t read kanji that well (I'm maybe somewhere around 漢検 level N３) so there were a few words that I was unsure of how to pronounce, or only knew a different way of expressing. The list below is not exhaustive by any means, but it is the very minimum that you must memorize.
- A student taking the examinations is called a 受験者 (じゅけんしゃ)
- A proctor is called a 監督者 (かんとくしゃ)
- The head quarters of the test in your school, where you collect your materials, and who you report any problems to is called 本部 (ほんぶ)
- The booklet that has the test questions in it is called the 問題冊子 (もんだいさっし)
- Their answer sheet where the students fill in their choices is called a 解答用紙 (かいとうようし)
- The word "directive" is used all the time. It's 指示 (しじ)
- Lateness limit after which students cannot enter 遅刻限度 (じこくげんど)
- Beginning of test answering period 解答開始 (かいとうかいし)
- End of test answering period 解答終了 (かいとうしゅうりょう)
- Distribution 配付 (はいふ)
- Collection 回収 (かいしゅう)
Each examination has its own directives to follow. Most of them are fairly similar, so once you have done one test, you can do the others without much trouble. However, the listening examination is different from the others mainly because once the test has begun, the proctors cannot speak and therefore, they must use a couple of forms that students point to in case of trouble.
Written Test Forms
There are about a half-a-dozen forms, but usually the head proctor fills them out and deals with them. The names of the most common forms that non-head proctors have to know are:
- “Test-taker condition survey form” (A and B versions) 受験状況調査票 (じゅけんじょうきょうちょうさひょう) Regular proctors only have to worry about B because at some point during each test (varies with test) you need to send Form B to the test headquarters (本部).
- “Improper behaviour notification document” 不正行為通告書 (ふせいこういつうこくしょ) Also called a yellow card. This is to indicate to students that they are cheating or doing something else so wrong that they must stop their test immediately and leave. There is a white version of this that is only a warning.
- “Booklet distribution order confirmation paper” 問題冊子等配付確認表 (もんだいさっしとうはいふかくにんひょう). Your head proctor will probably fill this out.
Listening Test Forms
Once the test explanation is over and the answering period has begun, you cannot talk to students, nor they to you, out loud in case the noise interferes with other students' examinations. Because of this, there is a somewhat complicated rigmarole of forms to deal with.
If a student raises their hand during the “absolutely no-talky” time, you show them the “trouble confirmation form”. トラブル確認票 (とらぶるかくにんひょう). They will circle their problem.
After they have circled their problem, you must respond using the “communication memo” 連絡メモ (れんらくめも). You can choose from the various selections that are already there or write your own response by hand. There are various procedures to follow depending on the problem and it would take too long to write them all out here. However, the central test authority gives out a handy video that you can watch. Even if you don’t understand the Japanese, you can still get an idea of how to behave in a listening test and respond to any problems that might come up.
The students have personal listening devices called IC Players. If these IC Players malfunction, you need to exchange them and fill out some forms. If they malfunction before the answering time has begun, just swap them and fill out “the machine collection survey form” 回収機器調査票 (かいしゅうききちょうさひょう). However, the real pain in the bum is if they malfunction during the "no-talky" answering period. Find out the problem using the “trouble form” above and then you have to give the student three forms. The first is the “incident processing form” 事故処理票 (じこしょりひょう), the second is the “re-take examination confirmation form” 再開確認票 (さいかいかくにんひょう), and finally, the same as above the “machine collection survey form”.
There’s a lot more to know, but the above information is the basic knowledge that will help you have an idea of your role as a proctor for the central examination.
Good luck!
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