Assessing Writing

Writing is probably one of the most difficult skills to develop during the learning process. Sometimes we find it difficult to put in written word what we have in our mind. That is one more of our challenges as language teachers; whether we teach a mother tongue or a second language, improving students’ writing skills is a complex process that lasts several years. How can we, as teachers, help students to reach an appropriate level in writing skill?

To get a superior level in writing it is necessary to have the guidance of a teacher who knows the different micro and macro-skills to develop; having a clear idea about that, the teacher could create activities, materials, and tasks appropriate to achieve the goals of the course. Those micro and macro skills are well explained in Brown (2004) as well as the types of writing performance (imitative, intensive, extensive, and responsive writing) that every language teacher must take into account before planning their activities and tasks related to writing skill.

Many different tasks can be created according to the level of the students and the type of writing performance. However, to know whether the task is the appropriate one for our students we should assess our students constantly, not only to give them the corresponding feedback, but also to determine if the methodology used in our classes is the suitable one.

We must remember that assessing is not just to assign a grade to the students’ performance, but to enhance their learning process and our teaching effectiveness. Assessment is useless if it does not lead to make decisions about how to teach better and how to improve students understanding.

I would like to share with you and interesting video by Dr. Andrew Johnson, who talks about the importance of authentic assessment in assessing writing and the usage of rubrics for that purpose.

REFERENCES:

Brown. H. D. (2004). Language  Assessment. Principles and  Classroom Practices.

Pearson Longman. Chapter 9.

Integrating Listening and Speaking Skills in Classroom Assessment

Assessing skills is a complex issue especially when it has to do with the receptive skills. Performance of the receptive skills cannot be observed neither during the process, nor during the product unless you have a special device that scan student’s brain in order to show is using his/her receptive competences. For that reason, I think integrating them with a productive skill is necessary to create not only a communicative environment –the appropriate one for learning a foreign language–, but also a pertinent assessment method for measuring listening competence by observing speaking (or writing) actual performance.

Taking into account that it is difficult to assess competence because what you can observe is performance, and that performance does not give us a reliable measure of true competence, we must trust in the teacher’s criterion. Of course, it implies a subjective point of view from the teacher that should make that subjectivity as positive as possible in order to enhance students’ learning process.

To assess oral production, there are several kinds of tasks that can be created according to the type of speaking (imitative, intensive, responsive, interactive, and intensive). Maybe all of the tasks designed to assess those types of speaking are useful at different levels of English learning and that can be integrated with a receptive skill. Let’s talk about listening to complement the previous post. The test-taker listens to a spoken stimulus and has to understand it as much as possible to perform well in oral production.

It sounds interesting but there are many problems that can rise. How to be accurate when assessing listening and speaking if, for instance, a student understands what he/she heard but the shyness as high as to make him make many mistakes when speaking? On the other hand, how can you measure students speaking performance if they do not understand well the spoken stimulus? Probably some students are good at speaking but if they do not understood the spoken stimulus they will not participate because the lack of information about the topic.

Nevertheless, we, as teachers, must to create activities in which students have to use their receptive skills to understand some information provided by spoken (or reading) stimulus and then give their opinions about the topic. Giving them the opportunity to ask for repetition when they cannot understand fully the spoken input, and letting them to work in smalls groups to avoid shyness.

I think discussions are an appropriate activity for measuring students’ actual performance in listening and speaking. The teacher should guide the process, of course, but give students the opportunity of share their thoughts freely and choosing some advanced students as moderators of the discussions. Remember that it is important to triangulate students’ measurements to get a more reliable assessment. So, do not trust only in a final exam that can be affected by students-related reliability factors. It is important not to generate a grade from the activities, but a set of goals that can be related to the micro and macro skills established by Brown (2003).

Let’s have a look of the following video as guidance for creating discussion activities in a classroom. Changing the goals of the activitiy to assess listening and speaking competence, and making some modifications we can create a good exercise for intermediate and advance learners.