Cambridge ESOL IN-SERVICE CERTIFICATE IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

LANGUAGE FOR TEACHERS MARKSHEET

TASK NO. 3 Focus on the learner’s written language
Tutors should mark this task using the General Mark Scheme for the assessment of written language on page 39 of the Syllabus and Assessment
Guidelines(2005) and the Task Specific Assessment Criteria on page 24 and the notes to centres on page 25.

Task-specific criteria Gabriel Dominguez

Language Accuracy and Language Awareness

Tick box if met
3a use accurate language in summarising comments to learners √
3b demonstrate understanding and use of terminology to describe learner language x
Range and Appropriacy
3c employ appropriate professional discourse in describing the rationale for correction x
3d use appropriate language in summarising comments to learners √

Organisation and Content

3e identify and correct all errors in the corrected version √
3f make appropriate choices of errors to correct in the annotated version x
3g make appropriate use of language reference materials such as dictionaries and grammars √-
Audience Awareness
3h provide appropriate and helpful feedback and summarising comments to the learner √
3I inform a professional reader of rationale for correction. x

Word limit respected √

Appendices correctly attached and labelled √
General Mark Scheme
Language Accuracy and Language Awareness
Your comment to your learner is clear. You have used some terminology to describe learner language but this is quite vague and not well qualified. x
You need to demonstrate more in reference to the nature of error and language acquisition
Pass
Merit
Distinction
Range and Flexibility
Your assignment lacks professional disourse to infom of what made your decisions of what to correct and what not to correct. This has meant that x
your rationale is rather weak here. You do have suitable and appropriate comments for your learners though
Pass
Merit
Distinction
Organisation and Content
You have identified all the errors in the text though there isn’t an annotated version of your learners’ writings. Be careful as some of your corrections x
are incorrect. However these need to be justified in the body of your assignment. You also need to refer your learner to materials to help them
Pass
Merit
Distinction
Audience Awareness
Your comments to your learner are helpful and clear and well balanced. However a reader would have limited information about your rationale and x
what you chose to correct as this isn’t consistently and clearly stated in the assignment
Pass
Merit
Distinction

General Comments: The candidate has made a good attempt to correct the errors though he needs to pay attention to accuracy. He does need to provide an
annotated version as well. There is an attempt at some correction though this needed to be organized into two sections and he needs to focus on specific
language with rationales for why he corrected. In fact organization is quite a serious issue here. Moreover, he needs to state how he corrected along with a
rationale.
Overall recommended grade for Task 3. Circle as appropriate.
Distinction Merit Pass Not to standard

First Marker:__E. Fishwick___________________ Date:_30 March 2017_______________________

Second Marker:_ Date:

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 IN-SERVICE CERTIFICATE IN ENGLISH
LANGUAGE TEACHING

COMPONENT 1

Language Task 3
Focus on the Learner’s Written Language

CANDIDATE: Sergio Rosendo Tovar

Date Set: March 12th, 2017

Date Hand- in:

Marker:

Return date:

COURSE TUTORS:

Orlando
and
Ricardo

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IN-SERVICE CERTIFÍCATE IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING
COMPONENT 1 - LANGUAGE FOR TEACHERS
TASK 3- Focus on the learner's written language

Length: 750-1,000 WORDS

Task outline
You are required to identify and correct the errors ¡n a sample of written work from
two learners who are at different levels and provide appropriate feedback for the
learners
Guidelines
1. On one copy identify and correct all the errors (the corrected version)
2. Correct and annotate the other for the learner; include a brief summarizing
comment written to the learner (the annotated version)
3. Write a brief rationale for the choices made in the annotated version explaining
why some errors have been corrected and some not.
NOTE:
1. One of the samples must be written by a learner of at least intermediate level
and be of around two hundred words in length
2. Before starting work on the assignment you should label the work, indicating
learner level and age if appropriate. You should then make two copies of both
samples
3. The rationale should give justification for such areas as: the style of feedback
(e.g. error code, full correction); any type of errors consistently left uncorrected; the
style and content of the summarizing comment to the learner

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 General Assessment Criteria PASS level assignments will
show that the candidate can:
Accuracy

1a use accurate language in summarizing comments to learners

1b demonstrate understanding and use of terminology to describe learner

language

Range and Flexibility

1c employ appropriate professional discourse in describing the rationale for

correction

1d use appropriate language in summarizing comments to learners

Organisation and Content

1e identify and correct all errors in the corrected version

1f make appropriate choices of errors to correct in the annotated version

1g make appropriate use of language reference materials such as dictionaries and

grammars

Audience Awareness

1h provide appropriate and helpful feedback an summarizing comments to the

learner

1i inform a professional reader of the rationale for correction

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Table of Contents:

Introduction 6
Student A
Profile 6
Rationale 7
Style of Feedback 7
Main Feedback 7

Student B:
Profile 8
Rationale 8
Style of Feedback 9
Main Feedback 9

Conclusion 9

Bibliography 10
Appendices:
Appendix 1: Student A – Original Work 11
Appendix 2: Student A – Corrected Version 12
Appendix 3: Student A – Annotated Version 14
Appendix 4: Student B – Original Work 19
Appendix 5: Student B – Corrected Version 27
Appendix 6: Student B – Annotated Version 30

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Introduction:

This assignment may work as a simple case in regards to how to feedback writing
assignments of students, my focus will not be in error correction, neither I intend to
develop a master piece correcting every possible aspect of the writting samples; it
will rather be developmental feedback prioritizing attention to the key features that
would to take the Ss further.

“Errors are evidence of learner development and are made for a variety of
reasons...”
Lizzie Pinard (2013,)
so we have to rather be able understand mistakes and errors as evidence of the
degree and stage of develpment of an student.

The best practices to be applied will be:

A systematic and friendly way to “mark” the corrections on behalf of the Ss.
A piece of of written feedback coaching Ss towards academic topics
and, delivering positive feedback.

Student A: B2 Level

Profile:
Rommina is an adult student (in her middle 50’s) targeted between B2 and C1, her
spoken expression is mostly fluent and her reading comprehension skills are
outstanding; she has faced difficulties regarding her listening skills and, her
writting is probably her weakest skill.
She has spoken basic English since she was a child, she often displays many
fossilized mistakes;
her main motivation to study English formally is to gain self-confidence and to be
portrayed as the educated person that she is, as she would eventually need to
speak English in business situations.

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Rommina is a brilliant physician who speaks Portuguese as her 1 st language and
she is a semi-native speaker of Spanish so, she may often have some “interference”
of her 1st and 2nd languages.
She has admitted that she is not longer used to writting, for many years, since the
time when she graduted, she has written nothing but prescriptions.

Rationale:

Provided her personal profile and being familiar with her writting work I know that
she would barely make mistakes that compromise meaning. She expects me to
rather correct the most urgent features that may compromise appropriacy.
There will be some feedback regarding content and style to help the student to
achieve her communication goals more effectively.

Style of Feedback:

Rommina is a very autonomus student, she expects and appreciates academic

feedback, she really wants to know what system and language topics she would
need to reinforce.
On the other hand she is very open to error correction.
So, my feedback will be very straight forward and
it will also include some generalization” and rules to promote autonomy.

Main feedback:

Ss’ efforts and improvement were praised.

Considering the interests of the student the marks on her text were mostly in
regards to appropriacy.

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There was a reference and a recommendation to review the rules for
“definite articles” Vs. “indefinite articles” from a certain book that the student keeps
as a PDF file.

Student B: His level is A2

Profile:
Oswaldo is a student of the 8th grade.
He didn’t have any background in English when he started the secundary school (1
year ago,) now he has become a very enthusiastic learner. He is been targeted as a
visual and kinesthetic learner; he has a very artistic profile and he is very fond of
drawing, painting, and creative writing.
Paraphrasing his teachers I would say that “Oswaldo has difficulties to keep his
attention focused in one task for more than two minutes,” his attention normally
goes back and forth; this is reflected on his writing works as a lack of coherence or
continuity. So far the best we have done is to combine writing and drawing
alternatively.
Oswaldo has displayed emotional problems to cope with negative feedback.

Rationale:

The feedback will be delivered in separate texts, without marking his works, giving
him opportunities to correct enhance the writting on his works without loose of
graphical value.
The feedback will mostly focus on spelling and mistakes that could compromise
meaning.
The lack of coherence or continuity is a matter of maturity that, according to the
school specialists, will get gradually corrected as the student grows up and gains
maturity; therefore I will provide general guidelines for coherence and I will mark the
corrections in a separate document.

Style of feedback

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I’ll be very careful to deliver any feedback,
since “error correction may put obstacles in students’ attempts to write” Krashen
(1984.)

Oswaldo as the very young student that he is perceives the feedback as an external
motivation and could be unable to cope with any negativity.

Most of the observations he got on his last work were in regards to verb clauses,
and appropriacy of discourse; provided h is so creative and fond of narrative he is
starting to have an authentic need for grammatical comptence in regards to Present
Perfect and Past Perfect so, hopefully he will be readly to handle it in furter lessons
by now, I don’t expect him to learn it right away from the feedback but any way I
included a comment and one example to seetle some background.

Main feedback:

I sincerely praised the Ss’ narrative skills and the fact that his spelling has recently
improved considerably.

Provided there was some lack of coherence I simply inquiered if I had gotten his
cardboard cartels complete and in the right order.

In regards to accuracy I mentioned that in English every verb should go along with a
noun or
pronoun and then I used one of his sentences before and after correction as an
example.

Conclusions:

Correcting a piece of writting could seem intimidating at first sight provided the
great amount of work that it could potentially need so it becomes very important to
let the students know that teachers would not mark everything and that there will be
a certain focus on the most relevant features to be developed.

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Not all the feedback has to be in regards to accuracy, it is very important to praise
Ss in written, that will help them to perceive their work as memorable and to remain
motivated for further tasks.

In a personal level, with this frame-work, I re-discovered the value of the written
feedback as a personalized channel of communication between the teacher and
each one of the Ss.

1027 words

Bibliography

L. (2013, August 12). Delta Notes 1: Error Correction. Retrieved March 13, 2017, from
https://reflectiveteachingreflectivelearning.com/2013/08/10/delta-notes-1-error-
correction/

Dr. Stephen Krashen answers questions on The Comprehension Hypothesis

Extended. (n.d.). Retrieved March 13, 2017, from http://jalt-
publications.org/tlt/articles/2001-dr-stephen-krashen-answers-questions-
comprehension-hypothesis-extended

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Appendix 1: Student A - Original Work

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Appendix 2: Student A - Corrected Version

(top right)
your address,
and any other personal information
that you’d like to include.

(immeditely below on the left)

the name and address
of the person you’re writing to.

the date should normally go here:

Sunday, 12 March 2017

On 25 September my son Macario Perez, MP 4/4/89

was admitted to the hospital Zaragoza

vomiting and bleeding.

He was very weak because he had lost blood.

I was angry, impatient and overwhelmed.

He had a car accident

where he tried not to run over a poor dog who crossed the street.

A big truck did not see his car and it crashed into him.

He was admitted to Zaragoza ward

where I spoke to the General Practitioner

explaining the situation I told he needed 24 hours supervision

due to his critical condition.

I offered to stay all night long to check look after him,

the Doctor said NO but I wanted to see him well.

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I

am very disappointed and frustrated because the hospital, the

nursery staff and the doctor did not provide us a satisfactory service.

The General practitioner did not assist him,

the nurse was apathetic, cynical and lazy.

They recommend him to take paracetamol pills and

an ointment he would use to diminish the pain.

To resolve the problem I would like a compensation, an apology and

a fully explain why the above happened, I really want a resolution and

concrete evidence that the failures that occurred

will not recur to other patients.

I look forward to hearing from you and to a resolution of this problem.

Please contact me at the above address or by phone.

Yours sincerely.

ROMMINA O

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Appendix 3: Student A – Annotated Version

Dear Romina,

Thank you for letting me know, in advance, that the letter above is fake,

otherwise I would have been terrified.

Your letter shows great improvements in your expresiveness and accuracy.

Narrowing the feedback down,

I’d like to praise your commitment and continuous efforts.

The comments that I added to your original text are mostly in regards to appropriacy

since I know that such is of your finest interest.

I recommend you to continue working with

Michael Swan's book "Practical English Usage;"

please find enclosed the pages 57 to 60 from the section for

“definite articles” Vs. “indefinite articles”

I hope this would be of some help.

Best Regards.

Sergio

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Appendix 4: Student B – Original Work

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Appendix 5: Student B – Corrected Version

On the first day of my job in

Barcelona Spain, I decided to have

a coffee before my work day, after

long and boring hours of work I return to

my house when I notice that everything

was in disorder.

After thinking about it for a long time,

I decided to sleep. The next morning I was

confused by the door and the hot cakes,

analyze the situation

and arrive at the conclusion

of putting some to find out.

I ignore it ,

as I remember, I barely moved yesterday

so, I started to lift everything thrown

after an hour, all raised and settled

I decided to rest a little,

later I decided to go to the super market.

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Without thinking more,

I decided to look for the hot cakes

to look inside but I did not find anything

then, I despaired thinking

that it had provoked both, the open door

and the hotcakes disappeared.

The next day, I had hotcakes with the ingredients that I bought the night before,

while I was having breakfast

I thought about what happened yesterday,

on the door I decided to forget it,

later in the afternoon I decided to watch the television , after a while I fell asleep

when I woke up it was 6:30 , I went to the kitchen to have dinner with the hotcakes that I kept

but they were not there.

Then I became very strange because I remember closing it,

then after entering and leaving things on the table

I decided to check what happened,

then take a flashlight and check but unfortunately

I did not find anything.

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Already in the supermarket decided to buy milk, eggs, flour and mantequilla

because as tomorrow would be Saturday

would rest and be alone at home, when I get to my house

I discovered that the door of my house was half open.

At night, when I set the cameras

I decided to put a bait to catch any creature, after two hours, sleep something

and so I met an animal that was a simple raccoon.

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Appendix 6: Student B – Annotated Version

Dear Oswaldo,

I really enjoyed your story,

every scene on cardboard with pictures seemed as part of the story board for a
movie.

Congratulations, your narrative skills are wonderful.

At some point I got lost in the sequence of events, I wonder if I got the slides in the
wrong order or if I missed anyone of them. Could you please check it out for me?

By the way I got good news for you, your spelling has improved very much,
on your story I only marked one word in green: “raccoon.”

on the other hand I would like to tell you that in English every verb should go along
with a noun or pronoun, for instance in one of your sentnces you wrote:

“would rest and be alone at home”

it should be “I would rest and be alone at home.”

In our further lesson we’ll be working out with some rules that will clarify why when
an action happened and finished before another one in the past we use expressions
like “I thought about what had seen the day before”

In the meanwhile, take care.

Sergio

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