Ministry of higher and secondary special educaion of the republic of uzbekistan

Chapter I Essential purposes of writing assessment
1.1 Assessing language learners’ writing skills in terms of supporting them to improve their writing comprehension
On of the major reasons and purposes of assessing writing skills is to support the language learners to improve their writing skill. In this view, we will discuss some aspects of assessing wriitng skills to help language learner to be more successful in their language learning process. First of all, the ability to write something in a productive way is an indicator of success during the learning process (Geiser & Studly, 2001). Academic achievement is considered as a token of a good indicator in language learning process (Benjamin & Chun, 2003). The productive writing skill is considered a cognitive challenge, because it helps to assess language competency, recalling capability and thinking ability. It demands to recall information from long-term memory (Kellogg, Olive, & Pilot, 2001). Moreover, the ability of productive writing requires sound ability of thinking on comprehensible matters (Nickerson, Perkins, & Smith, 1985). Carney (1990) found that 95%high school English teachers opine writing as an important but only 19% assign it as an unimportant task because the process of assessment is time consuming especially for lengthy assignments. At college and university level, marking of students writing is both laborious and too little rewarded and appreciated by the administration. According to Bok (2006), the writing skill of the students has been declining even in American students. The cognitive domain has focused more on reading skill and numeracy than that of writing skill (Levy, & Ransdell, 1995; Hayes & Flower, 1986; Rijlaarsdam et al., 2005). However Garcia (2008)designed Waking Minds Writing (WMW) as web-based supplemental writing program that can assist the English Language Learners in developing their exposure and ability in writing. WMW helps todevise a plan to teach the students well in all genres of writing. This program provides instruction to improve grammatical structure and syntax. It also provides the guidelines for solid assessment and evaluation.
The process of mature writing requires a well organized planning (Hayes & Flower, 1980; Levy & Ransdell, 1995), the writer is involved in content problem and rhetorical problem. Furthermore, an adequate memory helps to accelerate this process (Bereiter & Scardamalia 1987; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1991). The command over handwriting and spelling is also an essential element for writing. It assists the students to make their writing skill more meaningful and communicative (McCutchen, 1996; Graham, Berninger, Abbot, Abbot, & Whitaker, 1997; Graham & Harris, 2000).
Secondly, it should be understood the role of assessing writing skills in order to understan how it helps the language learners to improve their language skills. Assessment plays an important role in the process of learning and motivation. The types of assessment tasks that we ask our students to do determine how students will approach the learning task and what study behaviours they will use. In the words of higher education scholar John Biggs, “What and how students learn depends to a major extent on how they think they will be assessed.” (1999, p. 141).
Given the importance of assessment for student learning, it is important to consider how to best measure the learning that you want your students to achieve. Assessment should integrate grading, learning, and motivation for your students. Well-designed assessment methods provide valuable information about student learning. They tell us what students learned, how well they learned it, and where they struggled. Good assessments allow you to answer the question, assessment then becomes a lens for understanding student learning, identifying invisible barriers, and helping us to improve our teaching approaches.
Effective assessment practices begin with you as an instructor describing what learning looks like in your course. Imagine your students upon completion of the course and complete the following sentence: "By the end of the course, I want my students to be able to …" When defining what learning looks like in your course, try to be as specific as possible. Concrete verbs such as define, argue, solve, and create are more helpful for course planning than vague verbs such as know or understand, or passive verbs such as be exposed to. The questions below are good starting points for describing what learning looks like in your course and for deciding how to assess this type of learning.
Guiding questions to determine which elements of learning to assess:

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  What kinds of content knowledge am I expecting students to demonstrate and at what level?
  
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  What aspects of thinking do I want students to develop in my course and demonstrate through course assessments?
  
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  Are there professional skills or attitudes that I expect students to develop in my course?
  

Keep in mind that a test or an assignment is a valid measurement only if it will elicit from your students the kind of learning you want to measure.

Figure 1. Shows some examples of various kinds of learning that can be assessed in university courses.

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