Assessment for Learning as a Means to Promote Students’ Writing Proficiency

Abstract

The present study, conducted as part of the practicum during my master’s degree in teaching English in the third cycle of basic education and secondary schooling, aimed to enhance students’ writing through formative assessment tools and practices. This entailed the use of rubrics, success criteria checklists, students’ self-assessment using rubrics, and teacher feedback through error correction codes, comments, and the writing of a second draft by students. The study was conducted during a 6 month period, and involved 21 eleventh-graders. As my research methodology, a small scale classroom-based action research study was implemented, which entailed a qualitative and quantitative approach to data collection. The data collection tools consisted of a teaching journal, questionnaires, and teacher and student assessment of the written tasks through the use of rubrics. The written tasks were an opinion essay and a letter of application. Results showed that students felt motivated to use the formative assessment tools implemented in class. They revealed an ability in self-assessing their work through the use of rubrics, and a capacity to correct their mistakes. The practices implemented in class promoted students’ writing proficiency of specific written tasks.