The Malaysian Education Act in 1996 states that the national language which is the Malay language becomes the main medium of instruction in educational institutions and English is accorded the status of a second language. In Malaysian schools, teachers are given the freedom to use their own teaching and assessment methods in assessing their…

Written assessment--in both its senses as assessment of student writing and as written feedback on the task--is an essential part of the learning journey in foreign language learning; and at our distance-learning institution it is one of the main teaching strategies in the communication between tutors and students. In this research project, we…

Despite the current potential to use computers to automatically generate a large range of text-based indices, many issues remain unresolved about how to apply these data in established language teaching and assessment contexts. One way to resolve these issues is to explore the degree to which automatically generated indices, which are reflective…

The purpose of the report is to explore some of the mechanisms involved in the writing process. In particular, we examine students' process data (keystroke log analysis) to uncover how students approach a knowledge-telling task using 2 different task types. In the first task, students were asked to list as many words as possible related to a…

The assessment of writing proficiency generally includes analyses of the specific linguistic and rhetorical features contained in the singular essays produced by students. However, researchers have recently proposed that an individual's ability to flexibly adapt the linguistic properties of their writing might more closely capture writing skill.…

The present study attempts to provide empirical and qualitative evidence to support the feasibility of rubric-referenced self-assessment to promote learning in a Korean high school EFL context. Over four rubric-referenced self-assessment lessons, with the help of a teacher's instructions, students wrote a first draft and assessed it using a…

Teachers routinely report that they feel pressured to teach to standardized assessments. Narrowing the curriculum may help students succeed on standardized assessments, but it rarely leads to long-lasting academic success. Authentic, relevant, and rigorous instruction in newcomer English learner (EL) classrooms, however, can create long-term…

The present study investigates the interaction between vocabulary breadth and depth on the one hand and assessments of L2 learners' descriptive writing on the other. The predictive role of these two dimensions of vocabulary knowledge in relation to the vocabulary component of the assessment was also examined. The extent to which vocabulary…

In teaching writing to foreign or second language learners, one of the issues concerning teachers is the amount and types of errors students make in their writings. This paper aims to obtain a clear understanding of types of errors in the writings of Turkish EFL learners by comparing freshman and sophomore students' writing performance. To this…

Researchers have found numerous differences in the approaches raters take to the complex task of essay rating including differences when rating native (L1) and non-native (L2) English writing. Yet less is known about raters' reading practices while scoring those essays. This small-scale study uses eye-tracking technology and reflective protocols…

Writing allows access to venues often limited by poverty, disabilities, and geography. Promoting writing skills can create bridges to overcome the isolation that often keeps communities from engaging with one another. However, most of the students in the nation's schools are not capable writers and find the persuasive genres challenging. In this…

We examined the effects of a professional development (PD) system designed to support teachers' use of data-based instruction (DBI) to improve early writing outcomes for children with intensive needs. The PD system, called DBI-TLC, provided "tools" for early writing assessment and intervention, "learning modules" including…

Learning the writing skill is a challenging task for second or foreign language learners. This difficulty stems from the fact that students required multiple skills and knowledge while writing. They need, for example, enough vocabulary inventory, grammar knowledge, and other discourse strategies to organize the text. Students are also in need for…

In many educational contexts, L2 writing assessment tends to emphasize its summative functions (i.e., assessment of learning--AoL) more than its formative potential (i.e., assessment for--AfL). While the teacher plays a dominant role in AoL, central to AfL is the role of the students, alongside that of the teacher and peers. A student-centred…

Drawing from a large qualitative study, we examine how students experience writing in college, focusing on the conditions that allow students to develop their authorship and those that encourage students to experience writing as a process of following rules and regulations. We situate students' perceptions, and the assignments and practices that…