Enhancing Writing Skills for Fourth Grade Students in the College of Education
Explore the importance of testing writing skills for fourth grade English students in the College of Education. Understand the factors affecting writing reliability and the stages of testing writing, from basic mechanics to more complex tasks. Discover how to evaluate student writing effectively for real-life communication.
Download Presentation
Please find below an Image/Link to download the presentation.
The content on the website is provided AS IS for your information and personal use only. It may not be sold, licensed, or shared on other websites without obtaining consent from the author. If you encounter any issues during the download, it is possible that the publisher has removed the file from their server.
You are allowed to download the files provided on this website for personal or commercial use, subject to the condition that they are used lawfully. All files are the property of their respective owners.
The content on the website is provided AS IS for your information and personal use only. It may not be sold, licensed, or shared on other websites without obtaining consent from the author.
E N D
Presentation Transcript
TESTING WRITING SKILLS Fourth grade English department College of Education ((for hum sciences)) Lecture 8 Asst.prof.Dr.Zainab Al-sadi
10 TESTING WRITING SKILLS Introduction The writing test aims at measuring students' writing skill their ability to organize information and express it in their words in a clear and coherent manner, a skill essential for real-life communication. The writing test is considered a valid, direct and integrative test; however, the reliability of such a test tends to be limited to several factors discussed in the next point.
10.1 FACTORS AFFECTING WRITING RELIABILTY 1. Command of the target language Writing tests in the target language unfortunately have the effect of favouring those students who possess fluency in the language, i.e., students whose command of the language presents no barrier either to understanding or to expression. 2. Length of test Within limited time only a certain amount can be written by hand, and students may be unable to finish the test. The teachers can avoid this problem by choosing appropriate topics e that can be covered within the allotted time. 3. Vagueness of subject The subject is sometimes poorly defined, for example: Write 100 words on 'My family'. Since each student must decide the material which he will write about, there will be little common ground on which to base the scoring. It is, then, essential to a for specific information that will outline a more reliable scoring scheme.
4- Subjective scoring The chief objection to extended writing questions is lack of scores. Besides, scoring has often the effect of reinforcing the teacher's prior judgments of his students. An effective method of scoring is to read all the answers and place each in one of three or four piles according to the merit of the specific writing. The teacher, then, reads one pile at a time, and assigns marks accordingly. 5. Limited samples The writing test of one task provides a limited sample of the material tested and hence, one single question does not provide an acceptable measure of the testee's ability. It is preferable, then, to ask for two writing tasks of differing types.
10.2 STAGES OF TESTING WRITING Testing the writing skill at earlier levels includes two main stages: the basic one which concerns the mechanics of writing, and the more complex one which deals with more direct and extended writing tasks of various types. The following diagram illustrates the two stages and their major types of testing. Testing Writing Testing mechanics of writing Testing Extended writing Handwriting . Spelling & dictation . Punctuation & Capitalization . Editing . Guided writing Free writing Diagram 4: Stages of testing writing
