An Example of Language Assessment in Assessing Writing

LANGUAGE ASSESSEMENT

(ASSESSING WRITING)

Ade Nugraha N.M

10.8.03.51.31.2.5.3749

ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION

MAHASARASWATI DENPASAR UNIVERSITY

DENPASAR
2013

1.      INTRODUCTION

       Writing is one of the productive and basic skills which one acquires in the formative years. Firstly, the term writing has been defined by the Oxford dictionary as the activity or skill of marking coherent words on paper and composing text. Writing is the vital means of communication within an organization. In fact, a survey goes on to say that almost 30% of our work is accomplished through written communication. Therefore, the skills of tactful writing are essential for achieving career and business goals. Apart from the workplace, writing is essential in many other areas as well.

These are the importance of writing skill:

·         Writing is one of the important ways of expressing your thoughts, and communicating ideas and views to others. Some have the innate ability to put their thoughts into words. Writing is more beneficial, specifically for those who are emotional, and do not express verbally. This tool allows them to express their ideas, thoughts or their existing mental condition, which otherwise, may not be possible. People express themselves by writing novels, short stories, biographies, and even personal diaries, etc.

·         Writing is an art, which you develop over a period of time. This practice will make you more mature as a writer, because you gradually start putting yourself into the shoes of the reader, and express accordingly. Also, the more you write, the more flexible your vision and thought process become towards the requirements and demands of the readers.

·         While writing, one has to be extra cautious with regard to the tone and tenor of the language, grammar, spellings, etc., so that the reader can decipher the intended meaning of the content. When we write something, there is a tendency to read the content over and over, for possible errors or mistakes. By doing this, we thoroughly understand what we have written, and how we can improve it, to explain to the reader in a simple and concise way what we are trying to convey.

·      For communication in Education: One learns the art of writing in school and college. The skill of expressing one's thoughts, and communicating ideas and views to others is developed here. Exams are an ideal opportunity to demonstrate this facet.

Therefore, Writing is a central part of any design activity. Quality is improved since writing an explanation of the design, forces the designer to consider and explore it fully. For instance, the simple procedure of insisting upon written test-plans forces the designer to address the issue. Designs which work just "because they do" will fail later; designs whose operation is explained in writing may also fail, but the repair will be far quicker since the (documented) design is understood.

2.      TEST ITEMS

      Since we are designing assessments for a broad range of performances, there will be many instances in which we don't ask any questions. We might observe and rate actual performances instead. The number of test items you write depends on several factors. First, if the purpose of your test is to determine the degree of mastery of the instructional objectives, you'll need at least one test item per objective. Second, if part of the purpose of the test is to diagnose learners' errors, you'll need at least one test item for each sub-task and/or prerequisite skill, or at least for those that represent common stumbling blocks. Third, if learners can guess the answer to an individual test item, you may need one or two more items to test mastery of that objective.

THE TYPES OF WRITING PERFORMANCE

a.      Imitative Writing

        To produce written language, the learner must attain skills in the fundamental, basic tasks of writing letters, words, punctuation and very brief sentences. This category includes the ability to spell correctly and to perceive phoneme-grapheme correspondences in the English spelling system. It is a level at which learners are trying to master the mechanics of writing. At this stage, form is the primary if not exclusive focus, while context and meaning are of secondary concern.

There are available text items in imitative writing:

• Tasks in [Hand] Writing Letters, Words, and Punctuation

1. Copying

2. Listening cloze selection tasks

3. Picture-cued tasks

·         Spelling Tasks and Detecting Phoneme – Grapheme Correspondences

1. Spelling tests

2. Multiple-choice techniques

3. Matching phonetic symbols

b.      Intensive Writing

       As one may think, Intensive writing as described here has nothing to do with writing intensively, but controlled. Under this definition, students are supposed to copy sentences and words, rewrite texts and passages, order sentences among others.

There are available text items in intensive writing:

Ø  Dictation and Dicto-Comp

      Dictation is basically copying what your hear (imitative). Then, Rewrite a paragraph with their recollection from what was understood.

Grammatical transformation tasks (practical, reliable)

-          Combination of sentences

-          Active to passive

-          Direct to Indirect

-           Reduced forms

-          Endless possibilities

-          Inversion

Picture-Cued tasks (nonverbal means to stimulate written responses)

-          Picture description

-          Picture sequence description

-          Picture-Cued Short sentences

Vocabulary Assessment Tasks (to see if the test-taker knows the word

-          Defining and using a word in a sentence (collocation and morphological variants)

Ordering Tasks (somewhat inauthentic)

-          Order or reorder scrambled set of words

Short-answer and Sentence Completion Tasks

-          Limited response writing tasks (vary from simple to more elaborated responses)

c.       Responsive and Extensive Writing

          Responsive: It requires learners to perform at a limited discourse level, connecting sentences into a paragraph and creating a logically connected sequence of two or three paragraphs. The writer has already mastered the fundamentals of sentence-level grammar and is more focused on the discourse conventions that will achieve the objectives of the written text.

       Extensive: It implies successful management of all the processes and strategies of writing for all purposes. Writers work focusing on the achievement of a purpose. Organizing ideas logically, using details to support or illustrate it and demonstrating syntactic and lexical variety.

          Both extensive and responsive writers are able to produce real writing. They are able to process ideas in a conscious way and their texts are expected to be meaningful. They become involved in the art of composing a text instead of simply displaying it. There are available text items in Responsive and Extensive writing:

·         Paraphrasing

·         Guided Question and Answer

·         Paragraph Construction Tasks :

      - Topic Sentence writing

      - Topic Development within a paragraph

      -  Development of main and supporting ideas across paragraphs

3.      IMPLEMENTATION

        In my experiences, we usually got imitative writing test item. Especially Picture – cued tasks (nonverbal means to stimulate written responses). This implementation is commonly use because it appropriate with student abilities. This test is trying to master the mechanics of writing. In this stage, form is the primary if not exclusive focus, while on text and meaning are of secondary concern.

The strengths of this test item are:

-          Students learn to produce the letter and then built from there. They start with tasks in hand – writing letters, words, and punctuation, then spelling task and detecting phoneme – grapheme correspondences

-          Students are able to understand the spacing of letters and differentiate between where one letter begins and ends.

-          Students could be aided by having a word box and picture to choose from.

The weakness is:

-          The students are too familiar with the existing model. When the teachers give another test without using an image or other example, the students will find any difficulties to write a sentence in grammatically or contextual.

4.      Group Test Items

We use intensive writing, because as one may think, Intensive writing as described here has nothing to do with writing intensively, but controlled. Under this definition, students are supposed to copy sentences and words, rewrite texts and passages, order sentences among others.

NOTE:

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