Writing Assessment

Casanave’s chapter on assessment leaves me with a question to which I still have no answer. If critics of traditional psychometric versions of assessment such as Elbow, Hout, and Williamson, who have extensively studied assessment in L1 contexts, are right about the need to localize assessment, that each educational context or setting has the kind of assessment that is unique to it, then would localized assessment ever be possible in L2 writing? When assessment in L2 writing is dictated by criteria set by test centers from foreign countries, what chance do L2 settings have to be able to improvise?

Localized assessment can greatly restore fairness to many EFL educational settings. In countries where everything is centralized or standardized, localization is perhaps the last thing that comes to mind. Students from various linguistic, economic, and social backgrounds are eventually faced with standardized national tests regardless of their learning contexts. On the one hand, there will always be advantaged students who happen to be coming from good and rich schools, and on the other, there are those who are mainly from remote schools. However, despite huge gaps, students from poor schools are often treated the same by central government policy makers who live thousands of miles away. These poor students, like their counterparts from rich schools, are often expected to produce the same outcome and are assessed using the same standardized tests despite unequal learning opportunities and different circumstances.

Since psychometric principles are often blind to such differences in contexts and settings, localized assessment seems to be a good strategy in dealing with circumstantial differences. How much we are willing to turn away from standardized assessments is a question worth thinking and exploring.

On Speaking-Writing Connection

Although the relationship between writing and speaking is reciprocal, we ought to be reminded that the existing of, first, oral language, then its representation in a written form tells us that writing by itself cannot train us to always express our meanings appropriately. However, the role that writing plays in second language learning is perhaps a unique one, allowing learners to sometimes reverse the truthfulness of this historical fact of human liteacry development.

Williams is quite right to suggest that at the stage when learners are not really sure about how to frame their thoughts into a partiuclar form, they tend to model the genres exposed to us through reading, then use them when they speak. I still remember how people looked at me when I used the formal Arabic forms for the first time during my stay in one of the Arab countries. Many said I sounded more like a TV presented or a preacher when I used those formal written forms. So, it is true that writing may support the development of proficiency but not necessarily the spoken genres.

The writing influence overall is more common in L2 than it is in L1 environemnt. This is because L1 users in fact tend to use their spoken form in their writing more than writing forms in their speaking. This is perhaps what makes speaking-writing connection even more meaningful to second language learners.

Reading to Write (Hirvella, Ch. 4)

Discussion Questions:

1. Hirvella maintains that the reason for choosing the direct or indirect model of reading could be determined by the distinction between conscious learning and subconscious acquisition. Can you think of other situations/reasons that can help writing teachers make such a decision? Can class time constrain possibly be of their concerns?

2. The direct and indirect models of reading elaborated in the chapter are often associated with Krashen’s notion of learning and acquisition. Do you agree that it can also be assumed that they are associated with accuracy and fluency? Can we suggest that the direct model with all its variety is closely linked to accuracy-oriented teaching in the sense that accurate or appropriate forms are learned explicitly? If not, in what ways are they different?

3. The direct model of reading in general refers to transforming our habit of reading for information (mainly an unconscious process) into reading for structures, forms, genres, etc. What are some potential difficulties, if any, that may be encountered by L2 readers that are different from those encountered by L1 readers during this process? How would they overcome such difficulties? Can you think of other strategies not outlined in the chapter that could help teachers implement these two models of reading in their classroom?

4. Do you think the concept of mining is helpful? Doesn’t it suggest that all the things students need from a text are readily there to be harnessed? Discuss this in light of Stuart Greene’s (1993) notion of “spectator role” and “participant’s role”.

Linking Reading and Writing through Reader-Response Theory

(Hirvella, Chapter 3)

Preliminary Discussion Questions (subject to minor changes)

1. To understand this reader-response theory better, based on your experience describe scenarios in which the author or text is the main focus of reading. Do you agree that negotiation of meaning and transactional elements are missing when we try to guess what an author intends to say or when we try to extract meaning purely from a text? Give real-life examples of how reader-response theory includes processes and elements different from those found in the author or text-oriented reading.

2. Hirvella places his reader-response theory within the realm of social constructivism, that reading is a socially constructed practice among readers, text, and author on the one hand, and between readers and the communities to which they belong on the other. Through the lens of reader-response theory, explain how learners’ background knowledge or reading skill gained in their L1 contexts is taken into account when learning to read and write in L2. Discuss how their L1 background knowledge and practices are really valued by the theory if, at the end of the day, their literacy development is still dictated by, dependent upon, or must conform to particular L2 conventions and discourses (p.54). Will there be any room for accepting the already established forms of L1 literacy practices as unique conventions in and of themselves?

3. L1 composition studies have already begun discussions on ideologies and injustices and as part of their commitment to developing post-process and post-modernist pedagogies, they have made radical changes to L1 writing instruction. Based on the assumption that reading parallels writing in many ways, discuss ways in which the L2 reading concerns voiced by the reader-response theory can also be expanded or modified to parallel the concerns developing in L1 context such as viewing reading as a practice fraught with ideologies and hidden agendas, more than simply cognitive-like activities (e.g., gap-filling, problem-solving, hypothesis testing, etc).

What talking about improvement requires

I agree with Casanave that any talk about improvement inevitably leads to making decisions about their teaching philosophies, assessment, and measurement. Due to the complexity of the criteria governing these decisions, many teachers choose to base their version of improvement on an easy and simple method, counting errors. In many non-US L2 writing contexts, as implied by Matsuda (2003), it is not that teachers blindly value error count; it is simply because they are not on the same page with teachers who follow the discussion in the field. Because of this disconnect, their students too become so used to this environment that they cannot imagine improvement without having their errors pointed out to them.

There are a number of possible solutions to this controversy. First, any attempt to change teachers’ beliefs, practices, and philosophies, requires a radical revision to the system under which these teachers teach (e.g., types of assignment given, criteria for assessment, etc). This can go as far as making changes to international test systems such as TOEFL and IELTS, the systems that have helped maintain the status quo and determine the way teachers teach especially in EFL countries. Second, establishing new strategies for gate-keeping (if this is important) that will be influenced by this radical change in the system should follow. We know that tests such as the ones mentioned above are there for gate-keeping purposes, unless schools and colleges walk hand in hand and change their policies in relation to their admission requirements, little can be said about bringing changes to teacher’s practices. Teachers and students will keep counting errors and will always be trapped in explicit grammar instruction.

Bilingualism & Literacy

In many of our readings today, there is a portrayal of how the so called standard English has been used in various K-12 educational settings to assess actions appropriate for ESL students. These students’ conformity to this vaguely held belief (standard) often forces researchers to find what they believe are practical solutions to the ‘ever-lasting system’ that is resistant to any challenge. This often results in limited recommendations such as those dealing with strategies ought to be employed during transitional processes or finding supportive educational elements of survival in the face of the mainstream student community. Rarely does it lead to forcible changes to the system itself under which the notion of standard is preserved.

I see that it is imperative that bilingual studies direct their research more toward attacking the status quo or the staying power of tacitly viewed literacy. As there is a tendency that each individual is affected by the dominant form of literacy, he or she would tend to adhere to what they think is an unchallenged or given view of intellectuality, sense of academic, and standardization and which prevents them from venturing outside this box of thinking. Therefore, emphasizing on the relationship between bilingualism and literacy development from a postmodernist or poststructuralist perspective to educators and decision makers may save some efforts of needing to fix every bit and piece of the breakdown.

So much as we want to fix some problems residing ‘in’ students as portrayed in the labeling of Spanish speaking students, teachers should not receive any less of our attention. We should emphasize the need for more research into teachers’, educators’, and decision makers’ interpretations of literacy and bilingualism as frequently as how researchers emphasize the need for more research into bilingual students’ experiences. The research that looks into the representation of ESL students’ identity is a good example of this kind of effort that directly links between educators’ role in forming this representation and its repercussion in ESL the students community. Although research into students’ performance is important, perhaps when paralleled with research into educators’ intellectual repertoire, more insight and, in turn, more effective actions may be revealed that can smoothly and justly position ELS students in relation to their native speaking peers.

First Year Composition of L2 Students

Mike rose (1985) in his language of exclusion points out that the problem with first year college composition or with composition classes in general is that there is a serious misconception among academics who often perceive writing as a set of quantified rules that can be dealt with by assigning students to certain remedial classes. To Rose, writing does not develop in isolation and to master it, students need to situate it in its natural environment and not in writing classes.

What we see happening to L2 writers as described by Leki is just another layer of this misconception. To bring some objectivity into the argument involves a number of urgent actions. First, there should be a shift in consensus among instructors or professors that each class whatever class it is, if it requires students to write, then each piece of writing students produce should be seen as a step toward the full or acceptable level of mastery of writing, not an end product. Second, instructors need to deconstruct their well-established view of what literacy or academic discourse means to them as professional educators. Third, the instructors need to realize that writing competence cannot be and will never be acquired by any temporary writing class. Forth, any implication for this perception shift should be dealt with accordingly.

If what I have said above applies to first year composition in general, resolving first year L2 composition problems requires even a higher level of reflection. The right question perhaps for composition instructors, teachers, and professors to answer is whether or not they are ready to lose partly or wholly what has been so precious for their department: their solitary and remedial composition classes.