ASSESSING

WRITING SKILLS
LESSON 14
TSL3107
TEACHING WRITING SKILLS IN
THE PRIMARY ESL CLASSROOM
Mohd Iskandar Daud
IPG Kampus Kota Bharu
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Mohd Iskandar TSL3107 Lesson 14
Content
Assessment of Writing
Giving Feedback to students writing

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Mohd Iskandar TSL3107 Lesson 14
Assessment of Writing
Integral part of teaching-learning process
The main objectives of writing assessments:
to encourage students to continue making the effort to write
better by showing them what kind of progress they have made
and showing appreciation of the good points in their writing
to point out the areas they need to improve on if they want to
improve the effectiveness of their writing and helping them to
make these improvements
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Mohd Iskandar TSL3107 Lesson 14
Issues in evaluation
Important consideration who is the learner? What
kind of evaluation is likely to bring about the best
returns for him/her?
To determine best return, consider these issues:
1. Should all work be assessed?
2. Who should evaluate and what should each evaluators role
be?
3. What criteria should we use in evaluating the written
product?
4. What devices can be used for making evaluation effective?
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Should all work be assessed?
Two factors determine the answer:
1. Pedagogical usefulness
Will the assessment help students to produce better / more
work?
Eg: If you want learners to include personal voice in writing,
should you encourage them to keep journal and check their
journal periodically? If so, what about authenticity of work? It
becomes artificial. If its true reflection, then how about
confidential matters?
2. Practicality
Big classes? Time factor? Can you respond to every single piece
of writing?
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The evaluators and their roles
1. Teacher evaluation 3 roles to play
The reader read and tell students what you like / do not like / disagree with /
do not understand
The advisor give suggestions for improvement make sure suggestions are
within the capability of learners
The resource person tell words they dont know, show how to get info, give time
for consultation, etc
2. Peer evaluation functions:
Provide writers with real readers, provide ideas, learn compositional strategies
from one another, minimizing work of teacher, etc
3. Student self-evaluation
Teacher / peers may help clarifying the qualities needed to create good writing
Self-evaluation can be done once the learner is aware of the different criteria
needed to come up with a good piece of work.
Thus, the learner takes greater responsibility for his/her own writing

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Criteria in evaluating written product
In testing, usually a fixed set of criteria in the form of
performance bands is used - helps assessor to evaluate the degree
of success each student has achieved in fulfilling the objectives of
the course
Evaluation in the form of a test - uses attributes of writing that
are measurable by examining the product of a single
performance aim is to compare performance of one student
against his peers done by subject teacher / school / education
council / ministry
Classroom evaluation an on-going process functions as an
aid to individual progress, to compare current performance and
previous one, to let writer see his/her own potential done by
subject teacher
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Criteria for evaluation in testing vs in teaching
EVALUATION IN TESTING
1. A single set of criteria which
reflects the terminal
objectives of the course
2. Only criteria that can be
applied effectively for
examining a single
performance can be used
(product oriented)
3. Criteria applied objectively,
regardless of who is being
evaluated
EVALUATION IN TEACHING
1. Diff. criteria for diff. topic,
Should consider the writers
developmental stage, skills and
values the writer is expected to
achieve at the stage of learning
and the type of writing s/he is
learning
2. Other relevant criteria to
consider effort, degree of
progress, etc (person and process
oriented)
3. Application of criteria should be
customized. Weightage given
should cater for the
developmental need of the
student writer.

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Devices for effective evaluation
Marking is very time consuming each script takes time
(10 20 mins), multiply that to 40 more or less (number of
students per class) and each teacher teaches 3 4 classes.
Why such devotion to marking?
Reasons for marking:
To provide assistance to students to revise and improve their writing
To be the questioning reader/audience to help students evaluate
what they have written
To help students to improve the quality of their ideas
To motivate students to become more effective writers
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Devices for effective evaluation (cont)
How can we evaluate?
3 commonly used ways:
Holistic marking
Selective marking
Dual focus marking
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Holistic marking
Takes top-down view of writing
Scan pupils writing quickly to form an overall
impression
Then read the composition carefully the second time
to find evidence justifying your first impression
Give the child your comments, starting with the
overall impression and with a focus on the childs
ideas.
Later, suggest how can the learner improve the
writing to build on his/her strengths
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Selective marking
Inform learners of the criteria you want to focus on
(eg: sentence connectors, paragraphing, etc);
normally the skills/items you have just taught
Then when evaluating, ignore other errors and just
concentrate on the target skill(s)
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Dual focus marking
Sometimes writers get discourage because of their
poor command of language even though their ideas
are very good and original
You can show your appreciation by giving them dual
grades, one for idea and originality, the other for
language skills. Eg: Letter grade for idea and
originality and number grade for language skills
A7 = means ideas are good but language is poor
At least there is something for him/her to be proud
of and later motivate them

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Writing Tests
Hyperlink
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Giving Feedback To Students Writing
Part of process of teaching, just as important as lesson
planning or devising materials, not a chore
Common writing process in classroom (process 1):
1. Select topic
2. Prepare writing & prewriting activities
3. Writing activity
4. Rewriting, editing, proofreading
5. Teachers marking of paper
Marking the end product allows the teacher to only:
Giving the paper a grade (A, B, C, D, E / 70%, 80%, 43%, etc)
Writing comments (good, needs improvement, or other general
comments, etc)
Correcting errors marking, underlining, suggesting words, etc
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Mohd Iskandar TSL3107 Lesson 14
Giving Feedback To Students Writing
How would the students feel? Try put ourselves in their shoes.
Whats the alternative way? Teacher may intervene at certain
intervals. For example (process 2):
1. Select topic
2. Prepare writing and prewriting activities
3. Teacher reads notes, lists, outlines, etc and makes suggestions
4. Students makes outline of draft 1
5. Student writes draft 1
6. Teacher reads draft 1, add comments, give suggestions
7. Student writes draft 2
8. Teacher reads draft 2, indicate good points / areas to improve
9. Student writes draft 3, edits and proof reads
10. Teacher evaluates progress from drafts 1 to 3
11. Teacher assigns follow-up tasks to help weak areas

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Giving Feedback To Students Writing
The process transforms a writing task to an interaction
between writer and reader, an ongoing process of discovery,
more than just a language exercise marked right/wrong
View paper as the raw language material that is in the
process of shaping by the pupils, not as the final product
Therefore, comments, suggestions, praises are just as
important as the correction for the writer
Asking students to do correction alone may be damaging to
the motivation
How can teachers respond?

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Basic Principles For All Types of Responses
er1. Read through the writing first before you write anything
2. Look for strengths as well as weaknesses, let the students
know what the strengths are
3. If symbols are used, make sure students are familiar with the
symbols (eg: sp (spelling), t (tense), wc (wrong choice of words),
etc)
4. Work out the strategy for handling errors (eg: will you correct
or just indicate, will you deal with all errors or just the ones
discussed in class or only certain types of erros, etc) again let
students know
5. Do not pass judgement on quality of work (unless you are an
examiner, not a teacher). Your task is to help writer improve, so
give suggestions, comments, etc
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Techniques to respond to students writing
Some techniques that can be applied
1. Written comments
2. Talking about the paper
3. Checklists
4. Students responses to student writing
5. Self-editing
6. Ways of Dealing With Errors
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1. Written comments
Paraphrasing of ideas, praising, questioning or giving
suggestions are more effective than an end comment like Only
fair, Good, Needs more work, etc.
Noticing and praising whatever a student does well improves
writing more than any kind or amount of correction of what he
does badly
So read through, take note of what the writer has done well
from major to minor points, let them know.
Only then move to what the writer needs to do to improve the
writing be specific. Eg:
Give directions step by step
Questions can be useful too if we want to lead without necessarily suggesting
those options ourselves
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1. Written comments (examples)
Praising and suggesting technique (detailed version):
You have written this very clearly. The punctuation of the list is
correct. Try combining sentences 2 and 3 to avoid repetition of the
word breakfast. Look at two forms you have used: eated and ate. Can
they both be right?
OR
Praising and suggesting technique (brief version)
Very clear. Good punctuation. Now combine S2 and S3. Check eated
and ate.
OR
Questioning technique:
You have made me very interested in Harry Houdini. What did he do
that was so great? What mysteries do you want to be answered? What
exactly were the secrets that were buried with him? Id like to know.
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2. Talking about the paper
Discussing about the paper is the best way to help the
student
However, it can be time-consuming, not practical
Nonetheless, short one-to-one conferences (a few minutes)
can be so productive can be done before, during or after
writing activity while others are writing
In one-one conference, teacher may ask writer to read
aloud a section, very often the writer may spot errors like
unfinished sentences, confused sentences, omitted words,
etc
Teacher makes notes during discussion so that it can be the
basis for further prewriting activities / ideas to improve, etc
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3. Checklists
Teacher can prepare editing checklists and students can use
these as a guide- eg: grammar list, words, content,
organization, etc
May grow into syllabus to cover for writing
Eg:
1. Main idea
2. Supporting details
3. Verb tense
4. Verb form, etc
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4. Students responses to student writing
Teachers may not be able to mark huge quantities of work,
so students can check each others work
Specific checklists are valuable tools that can be used as
guidelines for students to asses other students work
Ways to do:
1. In small groups (4/5)/individually, read aloud essays, often errors can
be noticed
2. In small groups, exchange drafts and check the outline like main
idea/supporting points, etc. Then, compare with each other.
3. Essay can be shared (through projection, photocopy, etc) and analysed
together as a group give students the guidelines for them to work on

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5. Self-editing
The ability to read critically and improve own work is a very
important for a writer
Knowing the right techniques is important for critical analysis of
writing. Eg:
When writing draft, concentrate on getting ideas down on paper, do not worry
about grammar/spelling (this can be checked later), get the flow of ideas,
accuracy can be refined from draft to draft
Urge learners to write a draft and put it away for a day or so before looking at it
again, makes the analysing process better, start from fresh, no pre-formed ideas
Read line by line, cover lines other than the one they are reading, point each word
with pencil
Familiarise learners with dictionary and grammar reference books they can
refer to these when in doubt
Give enough time to learners to do all the above editing processes
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6. Ways of Dealing With Errors
Errors constitute one of the biggest problem in writing.
How to deal with them?
Correct all errors? You might end up rewriting whole essay
Correct some errors? Which one?
Do not correct, just indicate where and let students correct by
themselves. But what if the students dont know? If they knew,
they wouldnt make the errors in the first place
Ignore grammatical errors, just concentrate on content and
organization, but wouldnt that make learners feel their
grammar is correct, reinforcing the errors or may be fossilizing
them?
How?
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Techniques in dealing with errors
1. With each set of papers, decide which errors you want to
deal with. Normally the errors you have just taught in the
class let the students know this.
2. Only deal with global (major) errors (eg: word order),
ignore the local (minor) ones if meaning is conveyed let
the students know.
3. Try to determine the cause of errors (eg:
overgeneralisation of ed for past tense) knowing the root
of errors may help us to help the students know certain
rules and this reduces errors from learners
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Techniques in dealing with errors
4. Look for what the student has done correctly, often a
piece of writing contains both forms, correct and incorrect.
Teacher needs to point out that the learner actually knows
the grammatical feature, only lack awareness in applying
them (eg: The lens must be adjusted otherwise the picture
could be ruin.)
5. Duplicate students wrong sentences and assign them to
different groups to correct and present to the whole class.
The owner of sentences would be there to see their
sentences corrected and this might register in their mind.
6. Establish a set of symbols indicating errors and these
must be known by the students (eg; sp, cap, SS, gr, etc)
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Techniques in dealing with errors
7. Provide reasons for careful/strict editing and
elimination of errors. It can be a very good
motivating device (eg: class/school magazine,
bulletin boards, classroom walls, prizes, etc)
8. Treat errors with seriousness and care and make
sure your students do too BUT dont let concern for
errors dominate writing lessons and make them lose
sight of the fact that we use sentences in sequence to
express meaning expression of meaning is the
ultimate aim in language teaching and learning.
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Tutorial
Study a sample piece of writing.
Discuss ways to provide feedback and justify the
feedback given.

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Mohd Iskandar TSL3107 Lesson 14
ISL
Read Raimes, A. Techniques in Teaching
Writing.(1983). Cambridge University Press (p139)
Read Nesamalar Chitravelu, Saratha Sithamparan
and Teh Soo Choon. (2005). ELT Methodology:
Principles and Practice 2
nd
edition, Oxford Fajar
Bakti Sdn. Bhd: Selangor (pgs 335-336, 367-375)
Read other materials relevant to the topics discussed
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Mohd Iskandar TSL3107 Lesson 14
References
1. Ann Raimes. (1983). Techniques In Teaching
Writing. Oxford University Press. Oxford.
2. Nesamalar Chitravelu, Saratha Sithamparan and
Teh Soo Choon. (2005). ELT Methodology:
Principles and Practice 2
nd
edition, Oxford Fajar
Bakti Sdn. Bhd: Selangor
3.
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