Formative assessment for learning to write

In GBA, assessment is deemed “an integral aspect of the teaching-learning process and central to students’ progress towards increasing control of their writing” (Hyland, 2007, p. 161). In order for that to happen successfully, Hyland (2007, p. 161) suggests “a competency based procedure ... [which] utilises an analytic approach based on the primary traits of the particular genre, ensuring that key features of these texts are clearly specified, taught and used to describe a standard of performance”. Alike, Donohue and Erling (2012, p. 211) believe assessment

happens well when there are “diagnostic descriptors” which are discriminatory enough to pinpoint areas of strengths and weaknesses in language use. Airasian (1997) believes assessment should not be restricted to teachers only but should rather involve the learners as well. To that he says “when students are using a performance criterion to review their own or another pupil’s productions or products, they are neither solely assessing nor solely learning; they are using assessment as a means of learning” (Airasian, 1997, p. 236).

The opposite, however, is happening in the current practices to assessment in ESL teaching in Namibian schools. Such can be attributed to the nature of the marking rubrics used to assess written works and the provision of feedback for written works by teachers (as discussed below). Kepner (1991) defines feedback as “any procedures used to inform a learner whether an instructional response is right or wrong” (p. 141). Ur (1996) defines it as “information that is given to the learner about his/her performance of the learning task, usually with the objective of improving performance” (p. 242). Feedback can be categorised as form feedback (also known as grammar or surface level feedback) and content feedback (Grami, 2005). He defines form feedback as “the type of feedback that looks into issues like spelling, grammar, punctuation”; whereas content feedback, refers to “matters like organisation, choice of vocabularies, rhetoric use of the language, cohesion and coherence, and other more abstract and notional matters of writing” (Grami, 2005, unpaged). Furthermore, he indicates that the terms ‘feedback, comments and correction’ are used interchangeably (Grami, 2005), and the same applies for this study.

Srichanyachon (2012) indicates that, in the context of English language writing courses, feedback is “an essential component” (p. 8). Practically, in Namibian ESL teaching, feedback happens, but mostly with form feedback receiving prominence than content feedback. That manifests itself in most of the learners’ marked works whereby most of the grammatical errors are ‘reddened4_{’and pinpointed, while little to no comments are made on content. Ur (1996)}

urges the need for teachers to put into consideration the importance of assessing and providing feedback. He however warns that, although students deserve to know the mistakes they make, “if teachers correct everything then there is a risk that they fail in their role as supportive mentors” (Ur, 1996, p. 242).

On content feedback, and from my experience, most comments or remarks teachers give are mostly vague. For example ‘Good work, keep it up!’ or ‘Too limited content’ or ‘Too many grammatical errors’ or ‘A good command of English, but you did not address all the given prompts’. Such comments (feedback) may not paint a picture of the aspects that learners addressed satisfactorily, partially or not at all. Hyland (2007) calls such remarks “vague descriptors”, and cites examples as “adequate knowledge of syntax” or “a limited variety of mostly correct sentences” (p. 162). Wingate (2012) indicates that vague feedback provided by teachers may implicitly reflect tutors’ own uncertainty over the aspect being taught; while Jacobs (2005) posits that “it may also reflect a broader uncertainty over the requirements of the essay [text] of which teachers tend to have only ‘tacit’ knowledge” (p. 477).

In Namibia, particularly at Grade 11-12, vague feedback happens, and it may be promoted by the ministerial marking rubric (Appendix 4a). Such rubric has general statements that are not neither descriptive enough nor genre specific. Instead, teachers are expected to read learners’ works (written texts) and indicate “C” for content and “L” for language, and the number of the corresponding column in which the teacher believes the learner’s content and language levels respectively fall. Example C3 and L3 is given for a learners’ work that is average. Such rubric is not genre specific, but is rather used to mark all the text-types. It is also not descriptive enough to show learners’ their strengths and weaknesses. Similarly, the representation of categories for learners as C3 and L3 while learners do not neither have the rubrics with them nor have an explanation given prior to marking is counterproductive. That matches Donohue and Elring (2012) views that most of learners’ works are marked without employing ‘diagnostic descriptors’ which are discriminatory enough to pinpoint areas of strengths and weaknesses. As a contrast, and drawing from Donohue and Elring (2012), in this study, the feedback I provided to my learners was content feedback (explained above). To do that, I designed marking rubrics with ‘diagnostic descriptors’ in terms of explanation texts’ structural, linguistic and the general organisational features (See Appendix 4b). Such rubrics were descriptive enough and a tick had to be put in a box to indicate feedback on what is done well, averagely or not at all. That may offer learners an opportunity to master the features that were explained to them, and receive feedback with a greater confidence (Hyland, 2007). For this study, I did all that because it is through provision of feedback that learners will be able to navigate what they can do on their own and what they can do with MKO, and inform me on the pedagogic choices and the learners’ academic English proficiency development.