Writing Assessment

Today, I have taught a professional development course on the New Senior Curriculum. When the participants and I talked about how to motivate students to write English, we had different answers such as using e-Forum to help students to express their opinions on some current issues, writing blogs, writing journals and so on. Then I asked some of the participants how many pieces of writing they need to mark in a year. Some said their marking load was up to 12 full-length essays plus bi-weekly reading logs. I felt very shocked. It seemed that the more essays students can write, the more progress they will make in English writing. Of course, this is the belief most Hong Kong writing teachers possess. I don't think so. In the first place, we should focus on the quality of writing rather the quantity. Second, overmarking is another issue we shouldn't overlook. How much do students understand our comments? Do they respond to our feedback? How do they act upon our feedback? These last two questions seem to be neglected as principals and panel chairpersons are too carried away with the number of essays students need to write. But other than asking students to produce a large number of 'low' quality essays in order to fulfill the quota set by English departments in each school, do school administrators think about how to work out some effective strategies to enhance students' writing development? The answer is no.

Why do panel chairpersons consider adopting genre-based pedagogy, process approach, portfolio-based approach, peer response groups and so forth? These methods or approaches are effective to help students both affectively and cognitively in one way or another. Though some argue these strategies are only effective in the L1 context, a number of research studies conducted in Hong Kong has proved that some of these approaches could also benefit students writing (e.g. Lee, 2004; Lee, 2008; Lee, in press). Do Hong Kong writing teachers have to burn the midnight oil to mark students' compositions? Why don't panel chairpersons adopt focused marking? We do it not because we are lazy, but we believe that focused marking does play a role in helping students to build up awareness towards their own mistakes over time. Also, we may implement focused marking piecemeal. There is no need to change our current practice overnight. I think it is the high time to reflect upon the current marking practice in the local context.