UNIVERSIDAD

AUTONOMOUSAUTÓNOMA
UNIVERSITY DE
OF BAJA
BAJA CALIFORNIA
CALIFORNIA
FACULTAD
LANGUAGEDE SCHOOL
IDIOMAS

BACHELOR’S DEGREE
LICENCIATURA IN LANGUAGE
EN ENSEÑANZA TEACHING
DE LENGUAS
Evaluation Techniques

Assessing Writing

Teacher: Icela López Gaspar

Presenters:
Andrea Esquivias Siqueiros
María Alejandra Magaña Terrazas
Ángel Huante Ruiz

April 2nd, 2019

TREY
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 Introduction

In this presentation, we are going to talk about the

different genres of writing, writing performances, how
we can assess them, and the issues that we can find.

Andrea Esquivias Siqueiros Ángel Huante Ruiz María Alejandra Magaña Terrazas TREY
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 Genres of writing
Andrea Esquivias Siqueiros Ángel Huante Ruiz María Alejandra Magaña Terr

1. Academic writing 2. Job-related writing 3.Personal writing

Essays

Messages Mails Messages Mails

Academic
Schedules
journals
Notes

Advertisements/ Fiction
Reports Signs/
Announcements

Brown, H.D. (2004). Language assessment: principles and classroom practices, Longman TREY
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 Types of writing performance

Imitative Intensive (controlled)

The learner must attain skills in the Producing appropriate vocabulary
basic tasks of writing letters, words, within context, collocations, and
punctuation, and brief sentences. idioms.

Ability to spell correctly and to Meaning and context are very

perceive phoneme-grapheme important.
correspondences in the English spelling
system.

Brown, H.D. (2004). Language assessment: principles and classroom practices, Longman TREY
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 Types of writing performance

Responsive Extensive
Learners must perform at a limited Writers focus on achieving a purpose,
discourse level, creating a logically organizing and developing ideas
connected sequence of two or three logically.
paragraphs
Engaging in the process of

multiple drafts to achieve a

final product

Brown, H.D. (2004). Language assessment: principles and classroom practices, Longman TREY
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 Issues in assessing
responsive and extensive
writing

Brown, H.D. (2004). Language assessment: principles and classroom practices, Longman TREY
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 Brown, H.D. (2004). Language assessment: principles and classroom practices, Longman

Issues in assessing responsive and extensive writing

• Authenticity • Scoring • Time
The writer should be With so many options Time implies the freedom
ready to assume his or available to a learner, to process multiple drafts
her own voice and forget each evaluation by a test before the text becomes
about writing only inside administrator needs to a finished product.
the classroom. be finely adjusted.
Offering that freedom to How do you assess
learners requires the How will you score such
writing ability within the
setting of authentic real- creative production?
traditional, formal
world contexts in which assessment procedures
to write. that are always timed?
Therefore, assessment
is typically formative,
not summative.

Brown, H.D. (2004). Language assessment: principles and classroom practices, Longman TREY
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 Writing tests
In writing tests there are a great number of factors that can be evaluated such as:

Mechanics which include spelling and punctuation

Vocabulary
Grammar
Appropriate content
Diction, cohesion, unity
Logic and style.

Madsen, H. S. (1983). Techniques in Testing. Oxford. TREY

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 Evaluating pre-writing
1. Sentence combining:
Combining sentences by adding a connector (and, moreover, but, however).
Provide simple completion contexts.
• He likes ice cream but he won't eat any.
• She didn't feel well today so she didn't go to school.
2. Sentence expansion:
Adding words such as adjectives and adverbs
The ( ) man hurried ( ) to the ( ) horse
(A: The old man hurried out to the frightened horse)

Madsen, H. S. (1983). Techniques in Testing. Oxford. TREY

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 3. Copying:

Can make students aware of

extended discourse and also
mechanics.

The substitution table

Madsen, H. S. (1983). Techniques in Testing. Oxford. TREY

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 Evaluating guided-writing
1. Changing a passage

2. Building from a paragraph outline

Madsen, H. S. (1983). Techniques in Testing. Oxford. TREY

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3. Dictation

Preparing:
• Choose an article that isn't too difficult for your students
• Students must understand the meaning of the text

Administering:
• Be sure that students know how to take a dictation
• Explain how the procedure of the dictation will be like

Scoring the dictation test:

• The best way is to deduct one point for each error

Madsen, H. S. (1983). Techniques in Testing. Oxford. TREY

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Free Writing
Guidelines:
• At upper-intermediate and advanced levels, we need to
evaluate the effectiveness of the total composition
(accuracy, unity, coherence, cohesion, and organization)
• The aim is not to control grammar, but we need to keep in
mind that the subject can influence grammatical content.
Advantages:
• We can evaluate the student’s overall writing ability.
• Students will be more motivated to write in and out of class.
• There is no chance of getting a passing grade by cheating.
Disadvantages:
• Free writing is time consuming to grade.

Madsen, H. S. (1983). Techniques in Testing. Oxford. TREY

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Conclusion

Finally, we can say that writing assessment is a good

way to evaluate students’ language abilities. There are
many types of testing that we can use in order to
assess students’ writing development.

Andrea Esquivias Siqueiros

andrea.esquivias@uabc.edu.mx

Ángel Huante Ruiz

huante.angel@uabc.edu.mx

María Alejandra Magaña Terrazas

amagana61@uabc.edu.mx
TREY
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 References
Brown, H.D. (2004). Language assessment: principles and classroom practices.
White plains, NY: Longman.

Madsen, H. S. (1983). Techniques in Testing. Oxford University Press.

Andrea Esquivias Siqueiros Ángel Huante Ruiz María Alejandra Magaña Terrazas TREY
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