Taller: Different instruments to assess student academic writing in EFL

Córdoba

Congreso; 40 Congreso Anual de Profesores de Inglés: EFL Classrooms in the New Millenium: Local Developments and Global Concerns; 2015

Universidad Nacional de Córdoba/ ACPI

Assessment and evaluation are essential components of the learning process, as they determine the necessary accreditation for students to participate actively and properly in the educational community. Due to this, the impact of evaluation is a problem that continues to be explored, since it is a reality that teachers and researchers should analyse and reflect on in a systematic way. In fact, in many cases, assessment and evaluation processes have a bearing on concrete pedagogical practices. In the case of the process of evaluation of writing in a foreign language, many specialists agree that it is a complex process carried out in a variety of contexts, which tends to generate anxiety among teachers due to its effects and implications. Researchers also stress the multiplicity of external and internal factors that intervene in such process, among which teachers? conception of the writing ability stands out. In this workshop, we will first make reference to current theory and research on writing assessment and to different types of evaluation and different approaches to assessing and grading student writing in academic contexts. We will then continue offering varied activities for teachers to put into practice the following ways of assessing and grading students? texts: holistic scoring rubrics, analytic essay rating profiles, multiple trait scoring guides, portfolio assessment, and grade conversion scales. Finally, we will reflect on the influence of teachers' beliefs, attitudes and practices in the process of evaluation of students' writing and on the importance of developing unified assessment criteria among writing teachers.