Enhancing Writing Skills through Formative Assessment and Feedback Strategies

1. Simon Bradbury – ELT, Cambridge UniversityPress

2. Feedback on writing • Formative assessment • Rubrics • Focussedactivities, focussed feedback

3. Types of assessment • Placement • Formative • Summative

4. Summativeassessment • Receptive • Active

5. Active assessment • Lexis • Content • Task-based

6. Pairworkactivity Pleasetake 3 minutes to talk to yourpartner about how summativeassessment impacts on how youteach. How mighttask-based, productive assessment affect the types of activitiesyou do in class? How mightreceptiveassessment (e.g. multiple choice) affect the types of activitiesyou do in class?

7. A definition • “Feedback is the information that learners get on their performance which fuels further development” • Scott Thornbury

8. Formative assessment • Constructive • Meaningful • Individualized

9. Types of feedback

10. WhatisCoCoLOrg? • Content • Communicative achievement • Language • Organisation

15. CoCo checklist • Reader fullyinformed? • All content relevant? • Easy to read? (necessary to re-read?) • Communicative conventions?

16. LOrg checklist • Coherent and organised? • Ideas/information linkedtogether (flow)? • Grammatical control? • Lexical variety? • Somecomplex structures?

29. Focussedactivities, focussed feedback • Exercise templates • General advice • Online help, resources and tools

30. Exercise template 1 – taskachievement • Focus on « CoCo » • Work in groups or individually • Work withticks and underlining • Checklist

31. Write an email to yourteachercolleague, Bob, outlining the importance of « Content » in writingexercises. Include the following points: • How to get « 5 » points • Advantage for weakerstudents • Avoiding « off-topic » language

32. CoCo checklist • Reader fullyinformed? • All content relevant? • Easy to read? (necessary to re-read?) • Communicative conventions?

33. Focus on LOrg Exercise template 2 – lexical conversion / an approach to grammar

34. Student/teacher focus on grammar.Rank the frequency (for your classes): A: Correct & explainduring oral work B: Correctingwritten work C: Exercise in the book D: Embedded in the content presented (text/audio) E: Activity to work on a grammar point [discussion point: What are the respective advantages/disadvantages to Reactive, Proactive and Embedded Grammar?]

35. I love this story. I think about it when things are difficult. It is a true story. The beginning of the film Good Will Hunting is based on it. The story is about a young math student, George Danztig. He studied at the University of California, Berkeley, in the USA. One day Dantzig arrived late for a class and copied down two math problems from the board. He thought these were for homework. The problems took him longer than usual to solve. Dantzig found both of them difficult. A few weeks later he was woken early by someone at the front door. Dantzig had forgotten all the homework now. He opened the door to find his teacher with the homework in his hand. His teacher was very excited. The homework had in fact been two examples of famous unsolved math problems and Dantzig had just solved them! Dantzig believed this was an example of positive thinking. Dantzig’s father was a mathematician. If he had known these were unsolved problems, he would never have been able to do them!

36. I love this story, which I think about when things are difficult. It is a true story, which the beginning of Good Will Hunting is based on. The story is about a young math student, George Dantzig, who studied at the University of California, Berkeley, in the USA. One day Dantzig arrived late for a class and copied down two math problems from the board, which he thought were for homework. The problems, both of which Dantzig found difficult, took him longer than usual to solve. A few weeks later, when Dantzig had forgotten all about the homework, he was woken early by someone at the front door. He opened the door to find his teacher, who was very excited, with the homework in his hand. The homework had in fact been two examples of famous unsolved math problems and Dantzig had just solved them! Dantzig, whose father was a mathematician, believed this was an example of positive thinking. If he’d known they were unsolved problems, he would never have been able to do them!

37. What are the question words? • Whatistheir « day job »? • Are theyalwaysfollowed by a question?

38. When do they « moonlight »? • What do theyfollow?

39. Where • Which • Who • When

40. Boise is a city in Idaho. I grew up there. • Gardeningkeeps me fit. I alsoreallyenjoyit. • Bob nearlykilled me once. He’smy best friend. • The TwinCitieswerecovered in snow. I waswatching a gamethere.

41. Boise, whereI grew up, is a city in Idaho. • Gardening, whichI reallyenjoy, keeps me fit. • Bob, whoismy best friend, nearlykilled me once. • The TwinCities, whenI waswatching a gamethere, werecovered in snow.

42. A friend: (e.g. Charlie lives in mystreet. He works for Alphabet.) Whereyou work (or go to school): (e.g. Cambridge UniversityPressis the world’soldestpublishing house. It has about 2000 employees.) Yourfavouritepersonal item: One of your hobbies: Somewhereyouwent on holiday:

43. Suggested topics: elementaryintermediadeadvanced – • Linkingwords: and, but, or, so, because • Time and sequenceadverbs: first, then, afterwards • Comparatives & superlatives • Affixes (verbs, adjectives, nouns) • Multi-wordverbs (prepositional & phrasalverbs) • Prepositions of place, time & movement. • Infinitives & -ingforms • Conditional clauses • Prepositionsafter adjectives & nouns

44. Recap on feedback • Familiarisation w/rubrics • Positive focus • Active grammar & lexis • Groupwork & peer2peer

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46. For extra support on resources: sybradbury.com Simon Bradbury – ELT, Cambridge UniversityPress