Abstracts – Session Three

2:00 – 3:00 – 6EN – 514

Chair:  Evelyn Christina

Maria Guapacha: Are handwritten and word-processed texts scored similarly?

Writing assessment is a difficult task for language teachers as raters. While computers have drastically changed written communication, writing for academic purposes is experiencing a tension between pen and paper being widely used in classroom assessment and computer-based standardised tests. Arguably, both writing assessment modes play an important role in writers’ performance; yet, for assessment purposes, both writing modalities seem to be assumed as equivalent. Furthermore, little research has been conducted to investigate the decisions made by teachers as raters in the language classroom. The raters’ role is pivotal in this endeavour since the scorings raters assign to a text might impact people’s lives. This raises the question: Does the writing medium matter for teachers as raters?
Drawing on data from a broader mixed-methods comparative study examining writers, texts and raters across writing media, I will report the findings of EFL raters’ scorings of handwritten and typed texts. Three raters scored a total of 152 texts, which comprised original samples of paper-based and computer-based texts and their corresponding transcribed versions. The raters’ perceptions were also collected. The findings revealed that raters’ scorings and perceptions were influenced by the writing media, thus bringing implications for writing assessment practices and changes.

Junita Duwi Purwandari: Oral feedback when learning English as a foreign language: Perceptions of Grade 11 students in Indonesia

Feedback can take several forms having both positive and negative impact on learning. Within the educational context, there has been a considerable amount of research investigating written feedback, however, few studies have examined oral feedback in the context of classroom. Also lacking are studies that focus on teachers’ and students’ perceptions about and include the student voice regarding the role and nature of such feedback.

This case study aimed to generate an in-depth understanding about students’ perceptions of oral feedback in the context of learning English as a foreign language. More specifically, this study uncovered students’ perceptions about the purpose and the nature of oral feedback, how students engaged and responded to oral feedback, and how students perceived their role and the teacher’s role in the feedback process. Data were collected from two semi-structured interviews with eighteen Grade 11 students from three different schools in Indonesia (six students per school). Findings from data analysis revealed five salient themes: purpose of feedback, what the feedback is about, source of feedback, response to feedback, and what makes good feedback. These findings add to our understanding of oral feedback from the perspective of students.

Orlando Chaves: Changing lives through EFL writing

In this presentation, I will describe how writing in English as a foreign language (EFL) changed the life of one of the participants in the qualitative phase of my PhD mixed methods research. The initial phase of the wider study used a survey and an analytic rubric to examine the writing development of three groups of pre-service EFL teachers (N= 100) at a major Colombian university. In the second stage, texts and interviews were used to track the writing development of six participants.
The study originated in the pedagogical need to understand how learners of English as an additional language develop their writing skills. While most second language writing research has favoured quantitative studies of either linguistic aspects of academic texts or cognitive processes of writers, the present study is innovative in taking a holistic view of writing that includes the writer and reader’s views alongside the customary focus on the text. This wider definition of writing resulted in a teacher-and-learner-friendly writing assessment rubric, which was first validated and then used in a non-testing situation (writing letters about cultural and personal topics to a friend abroad, with ample time and availability of resources for writing).
Magda, the participant who is the focus of this presentation, achieved high scores in the rubric measures. She wrote a letter every other week during the 16-week semester of the study and her interviews revealed unexpected aspects in writing development unseen in usual text-centred studies of writing.