PRACTICAL ISSUES TEACHERS FACE ASSESSING WRITING
Good writing abilities are highly appreciated in students who aspire for higher education and/ or better jobs. That is why language teachers must assure that our writing assessment practices be valid and reliable.
There are two major approaches in assessing writing, which are:
a. indirect measures of writing assessment, and
b. direct measures of writing assessment.
Indirect measures of writing assessment is the approach that refers to the correct use of sentence construction, spelling, punctuation, through multiple choice and cloze test formats, to measure writing sub-skills in accuracy of sentence construction and grammar.
Direct measures of writing assessment is the approach is the approach which assesses the ability to communicate through production of written texts, integrating all elements of writing, such as organization of ideas, use of appropriate vocabulary, and syntax.
There are four basic elements in designing good writing assessment tests, according to Hyland (2003), which follow.
1. Rubric: the instructions to carry out the writing task and/ or the set of criteria by which a paper or a project is evaluated. Most of the information comes from the test specifications like topic, text type, length, areas to be assessed, timing, weighting (percentage), and pass level.
2. Prompt: the writing prompt, which can be base prompt - states the entire task in direct and simple terms, framed prompt -presents the frame to interpret the task, and text-based - presents a text to respond or use in their writing.
3. Expected response: description of what the teacher intends students to do with the task.
4. Post-task evaluation: assessing the effectiveness of the writing task.
Some relevant issues in writing assessment are the following.
Time allocation. This is how much time is allowed for the sttudent to complete the task.
Process versus Product. More value has been given to the process of writing, so the process approach, such as working with a portfolio that includes all drafts, is suggested.
Use of Technology. The use of technology allows grammar and spelling checkers, which could plasce students with no access to technology in a disadvantage, so be consistent with all students.
Topic restriction. Some teachers provide a list of topics for students to select one, which allows them to write about what they like and know, while limiting to one topic does not produce variance in scores. It is recommended to select topics of same genre and rhetorical pattern.
There are two major approaches in assessing writing, which are:
a. indirect measures of writing assessment, and
b. direct measures of writing assessment.
Indirect measures of writing assessment is the approach that refers to the correct use of sentence construction, spelling, punctuation, through multiple choice and cloze test formats, to measure writing sub-skills in accuracy of sentence construction and grammar.
Direct measures of writing assessment is the approach is the approach which assesses the ability to communicate through production of written texts, integrating all elements of writing, such as organization of ideas, use of appropriate vocabulary, and syntax.
There are four basic elements in designing good writing assessment tests, according to Hyland (2003), which follow.
1. Rubric: the instructions to carry out the writing task and/ or the set of criteria by which a paper or a project is evaluated. Most of the information comes from the test specifications like topic, text type, length, areas to be assessed, timing, weighting (percentage), and pass level.
2. Prompt: the writing prompt, which can be base prompt - states the entire task in direct and simple terms, framed prompt -presents the frame to interpret the task, and text-based - presents a text to respond or use in their writing.
3. Expected response: description of what the teacher intends students to do with the task.
4. Post-task evaluation: assessing the effectiveness of the writing task.
Some relevant issues in writing assessment are the following.
Time allocation. This is how much time is allowed for the sttudent to complete the task.
Process versus Product. More value has been given to the process of writing, so the process approach, such as working with a portfolio that includes all drafts, is suggested.
Use of Technology. The use of technology allows grammar and spelling checkers, which could plasce students with no access to technology in a disadvantage, so be consistent with all students.
Topic restriction. Some teachers provide a list of topics for students to select one, which allows them to write about what they like and know, while limiting to one topic does not produce variance in scores. It is recommended to select topics of same genre and rhetorical pattern.
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