EL Assessment - Emen, after much debate

For this blog entry, I wish to discuss some of my concerns with EL assessment at the secondary school level.

• Paper 1 Free Writing: Holistic or Arbitrary Marking?
  

1. Is holistic marking fair? As clearly delineated as the band descriptors are, there remains ample room for subjectivity and bias. After all, how many times has Ms Chan chimed that ours is a conservative society? How will you react to a Queer narrative, a liberal stream of expository consciousness, or a simple 'This is' to the question 'What is courage' ? Be it matters of form or content, Free Writing isn't free. There remains a template markers and writers adhere to. And while we convince ourselves that intellectual courage should be rewarded, we stop short of rewarding full marks because we say it is simply 'impossible'.
2. What exactly does holistic marking achieve? If full marks is 'impossible', or for that matter if marks above 18, 21, 24 are impossible, then surely holistic marking is unrealistic, or even unfair? What then does holistic marking achieve? Is holistic marking itself a holistic representation of the writer's ability. Or is it merely an idealistic/idllyic and hence unrealistic, unreliable approach to assessment? And to push the point, does this imply that Free Writing is itself an unrealistic/unfair means of assessment? Ultimately, we need to ask if we are assessing a candidate's ability to write and deliver something in a set period of time, or are we assessing a candidate's ability to use language in the written form to communicate an idea or ideas. Currently, I think the rubric favours the former. 'Meaning', in the context of the rubric, is ironically unclear. Do I understand what the candidate means because the content is strikingly unforgettable, or because the language is clear? The two may be mutually exclusive in some cases - think James Joyce versus Nora Roberts. And while language use may be clear, it need not utilise a variety of sentence types. But does that make it any more hazy or un-readable? We need to re-think what constitutes 'meaning'. This remains a big problem in the rubric.
3. Is Free Writing reflective of a candidate's mastery of the EL? Free Writing masquerades as creative writing; but the band descriptors are thoroughly invested in syntax and lexis (without using the terms). Minimal emphasis is on content/creativity. And if the emphasis is really on language, then shouldn't the rubric reflect text-type specific components? Instead of focusing on sentence structure/types and even vocabulary, shouldn't the rubric include components on an understanding / application of text types. Shouldn't we check if candidates have applied an appropriate text type to the set question; that the candidates have mobilised the specific linguistic features specific to their text type - this would encompasses tone, register, tense, voice etc. Surely this would be more meaningful?
   

• Paper 2 Comprehension: A Language Paper?

1. Candidates are allowed to lift indisciminately for short-answer questions - how does that demonstrate either (a) an enactment of the necessary reading skills or (b) the use of apporpriate language to phrase the answer?
2. In addition, what exactly is achieved by the vocab questions? Does it assess a candidate's range of vocab? Does it test a candidate's ability to infer meaning from the text? Is it a combination of both?
3. If this is a language paper, then why is there NO component allocated for language use besides the 10 miserly marks for summary writing? Surely, holistic marking for language is possible in this context?

Finally, I wish to gripe - is this a language course, or a skills course? Are we teaching grammar, tone, register etc, or are we teaching reading, writing, oral comm., speaking skills? And if the latter is the answer, then - to be brutal - what is stopping you from regressing into compre-compo-oral skills -compre-compo-oral skills?

To answer for our assessment methods, surely we must first answer this mama of all questions - what are we teaching in EL?