This week’s readings are very important because they tackle the crucial issue of assessment. Although assessment does have some specificities in different contexts, there are overall common issues that have to be addressed regardless of the context where we are teaching. In my teaching context, writing instruction is still product-oriented. Yet, even here where writing instruction is supposed to be process or post-process oriented; there is always an end product that is graded. So in the assessment, teachers may consider the process behind this product but still the last draft turned in is the one that counts most.
In many Expanding Circle countries, writing is used to take exams. Even with the adoption of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), the instruction and examination landscape did not change much. Assessment was still exams-based, with much emphasis on writing and no oral component is part of assessment, especially in national exams that decide who is to enter the university and who is not.
Reading throughout these articles, I found Ferris’ chapter on “Responding to writing” representative of many of the concerns I had when I was teaching academic writing in an EFL context. Ferris chapter was well organized and read as a series of strategies and practices that can be used in SLW instruction. These were based on research and scholarship on teacher response and peer feedback, and are not just mere intuitive suggestions. The way writing instructors respond to second language writers impact the way those writers will take the feedback they receive.
However, no matter what SLW instruction we opt for, \no matter what teacher response or feedback we favor, second language writers are often bound to take exams and standardized tests where assessment is conceived and implemented differently. The 5 paragraph essays is still the form that students taking the TOEFL test have to write in one shot, no drafting is possible, and there is no feedback. Students have to write a 5 paragraph essay at once, especially if we consider the TOEFL Internet Based Test.
For me personally, the dilemma is that despite being knowledgeable about all these issues of SLW instruction, feedback, peer-review, etc. when it comes to assessment, will I assess according to my own standards that stem from this knowledge, or will I assess so as to confirm the national tests in order not to disadvantage my students. It is not that easy to negotiate this.
Hayat, I understand your problem and share your concerns. However, I personnaly think that it is not easy to find a cure-all solution to the puzzle. The most we can do is to draw on our academic knowledge, assess local needs and contextual realities, institutional and political constraints, and then decide accordingly. Otherwise, you can venture shaking a system, In other words, do learn globally and apply locally! Otherwise, as a single individual, do you think you can be strong enough to shake a system or a tradition? Make sure you are not shaken, instead! What do you think?
ReplyDeleteThanks Theo. I do indeed agree with you. There is for sure an establishment that is there, and it will be difficult to change it at once. Any change needs to be instilled slowly and surely. Any decision that is to be made needs to be field-driven. Even before joining this program, I already had some "new" ideas that I tried and implemented. At the beginning colleagues were a bit skeptical and reluctant, not all of them approved the changes, but a few did. So, I think that there is always hope and one needs to be armed with perseverance and why not idealistic.
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