Students will be very familiar with this concept, but that does not mean they’ll be looking forward to it! “Studying” and “exams” are often words with very negative connotations in our students’ brains, and in my house are usually accompanied by groans and eye rolls.
One of our superpowers as teachers, though, is that you can encourage your students to look at them from a different perspective! Just as practice strategies like breaking hard passages down into bite sized pieces can be applied to studying other subjects, if students can approach the exams as an opportunity to see what they’ve learned, they become a little less scary. I like to chat with each of my students, leading up to the exams, to talk them through what each test will be like. By the time we’re just a couple of weeks away from the MLP, they’ve taken a practice theory test, two practice sight reading tests, clapped through a page of rhythms with/for me at their level, done practice listening drills for intervals, dictation etc., and played their prepared scales for me. I assure them that they are prepared, and that I know they’re capable. Assessments like the MLP are just a way to demonstrate what we know, and the reminder that I am aware of what they know, no matter what happens in the exams, takes a bit of the pressure off.
At the end of the day, the test results only really matter to me as their teacher, in that they show me that students know what I think they know. I remind them that when they simply do their best, that will be exactly what I expect. Any fluke that happens during testing, such as forgetting something or getting flustered, is not an indication of lack of knowledge. Sometimes things happen! After I get back all of their scores, we talk through them together, see where they excelled, talk through any crazy mishaps, and figure out what we need to work on together for next year. Happy studying, everyone!