Assessing the 4 Skill of the English Language

"Writing" is the process of using symbols (letters of the alphabet, punctuation and spaces) to communicate thoughts and ideas in a readable form.  Writing skills are an important part of communication. Good writing skills allow you to communicate your message with clarity and ease to a far larger audience than through face-to-face or telephone conversations

ACADEMIC WRITING   • Paper and general subject reports, Essays, composition, academically focused journal  • Short-answer test responses, technical reports, theses, dissertation.  JOB-RELATED WRITING   • Messages, letters/e-mails, memos, reports, schedules, advertisement, announcements, manuals  PERSONAL WRITING   • Letters, e-mails, greeting cards, invitations, messages, notes, diaries  • Calendar entries, shopping lists, reminders, financial documents,  • Forms, questionnaires, medical report, immigration documents, fiction

  1. IMITIATIVE  Includes the ability to spell correctly and to perceive phoneme-grapheme to correspondences in the english spelling system. It is a level at which learners are trying to master the mechanics of writing.  2. INTENSIVE   Skills in producing appropriate vocabulary within the context, collocations and idioms, and correct grammatical features up to the length of the sentence.  3. RESPONSIVE  Tasks relate to pedagogical directives, lists of criteria, outlines, and other guidelines. Genres of writing include brief narrative and descriptions, short reports, lab reports, summaries, brief responses to reading, and interpretations of charts and graphs.  4. EXTENSIVE  Focus on achieving a purpose, organizing and developing ideas logically, using details to support or illustrate ideas, demonstrating syntactic and lexical variety, and in many cases, engaging in the process of multiple drafts to achieve a final product.

MICROSKILLS  • Produce graphemes and orthographic patterns of English.  • Produce writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose.  • Produce an acceptable grammatical systems • Express a particular meaning in different grammatical form. • Use cohesive devices in written discourse. MACROSKILLS  • Use the rhetorical forms and conventions of written discourse.  • Appropriately accomplish the communicative functions of written texts according to form and purpose  • Convey links and connections between the events and communicate such relations a main idea, supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization, and exemplification.  • Distinguish between literal and implied meaning when writing.  • Correctly convey culturally specific references in the context of the written text.

TASKS IN [HAND-] WRITING LETTERS, WORDS, AND PUNCTUATION  • COPYING, a test takers copy letters or words.  • LISTENING CLOZE SELECTION TASKS, combination of dictation with a written script that has relatively frequent deletion ratio.  • PICTURE-CUED TASKS, familiar pictures are displayed, and test-takers are told to write the word that the pictured represents.  • FORM COMPLETION TASKS, use a simple form (registration, application, etc.) that asks for name, address, phone number, and other data.  • CONVERTING NUMBERS AND ABBREVIATIONS TO WORDS, a section of numbers and abbreviations are written, and the test-takers are directed to write out the numbers or abbreviations SPELLING TASKS AND DETECTING PHONEME-GRAPHEME CORRESPONDENCES • SPELLING TESTS, the teacher dictates a simple list of words, one word at a time, followed by the word in a sentence, repeated again, with a pause for test-takers to write the word.  • PICTURE-CUED TASKS, pictured are displayed wit...

DICTATION AND DICTO-COMP  • A form of controlled writing related to dictation is dicto-comp. Here, a paragraph is read at normal speed, usually two or three times, then the teacher asks the students to rewrite the paragraph from the best of their recollection.  GRAMMATICAL TRANSFORMATION TASKS   • Numerous version of the tasks are possible: change the tenses in paragraph, change full forms of verbs to reduce forms (contractions), change statements to yes/no or wh- questions, change questions into statements, combine two sentences into one using a relative pronoun, change direct speech into indirect speech, and change from active to passive voice. PICTURE-CUED TASKS   • SHORT SENTENCES, a drawing of some simple action is shown; the test-takers write a brief sentence.  • PICTURE DESCRIPTION, test-takers are asked to describe the picture using four of the following proposition: on, over, under, next to, around, etc.  • PICTURE SEQUENCE DESCRIPTION, a sequence ...

Responsive writing creates the opportunity for test-takers to offer an array of possible creative responses within a pedagogical or assessment framework.  The genres of the text are typically addressed here are: • Short report (with structured formats and conventions)  • Response and summaries to a reading of an article or story  • Brief narratives or descriptions  • Interpretations of graphs, tables, and charts  In extensive writing, however, the writer has been given even more freedom to choose: topics, length, style, and so on. AUTHENTICITY  SCORING TIME  FOUR MAJOR TOPICS WILL BE ADDRESSED:  • A few fundamental task types at the lower (responsive) end of the continuum of writing at this level.  • A description and analysis of the Test of Written English (TWE test) as a typical timed impromptu test of writing,  • A survey of method of scoring and evaluating writing production, and  • A discussion of the assessment qualities of ed...

1. PARAPHRASING  2. GUIDED QUESTION AND ANSWER  3. PARAGRAPH CONSTRUCTION TASKS  -Topic sentence writing  -Topic development within a paragraph -Development of the main and supporting ideas across paragraph  4. STRATEGIC OPTION -Attending to tasks  -Attending to genre

HOLISTIC SCORING , A single score is assigned to an essay, which represents a reader’s general overall assessment. For example, rubric for scoring oral production.  The advantages:  • Fast evaluation and relatively high inter-rater reliability  • The fact that scores represent “standards’ that are easily interpreted by layperson  • The fact that scores tend to emphasize the writer’s strength  • Applicability to writing across many different disciplines Disadvantages: • One score make difference across the subskills within each score  • No diagnostic information is available  • The scale may not apply equally well to all genres of writing  • Raters need to be extensively trained to use the scale accurately

ASSESSING INITIAL STAGES OF THE PROCESS OF COMPOSING  • Focus you effort primarily on meaning, main idea, and organization.  • Comment on introductory paragraph  • Make general comments about the clarify of the main idea and logic or appropriateness of the organization. • Ignore minor grammatical and lexical error, etc.  ASSESSING LATER STAGES OF THE PROCESS OF COMPOSING  • Comment on the specific clarify and strength of all main ideas and supporting ideas and on argument and logic.  • Call attention to minor grammatical and mechanical errors but direct the writer to self- correction.  • Comment n any further word choices and expression that may not be awkward but are not as clear or direct as they could be.