225 / 2018-08-27 15:28:08

Diagnostic assessment of discourse competence in Chinese tertiary students’ English argumentative writing

Diagnostic assessment; discourse competence; English argumentative writing

全体主题 > 面向教学的语言测试与评价

At the tertiary level education in China, many students have accumulated certain knowledge of vocabulary and grammar in English, but results in their proficiency tests frequently suggest that their writing in English seems somewhat stuck despite the persistent efforts from both students and their teachers. Diagnostic assessment, i.e., the act of precisely analyzing a problem and identifying its causes for the purpose of effective treatment, arises as a helpful strategy to cope with this situation. The recently released China’s Standards of English Language Ability conceive English ability along nine scales, providing a concrete reference point for evaluating students’ writing ability. Of the nine scales, scales of 5 and 6 match the expectations on undergraduate writing. At these two scales, both the organizational competence and the writing ability emphasize clarity of expression, logical semantic relation, and full development of ideas. These features are typical of discourse competence. However, these scales, along with the descriptions at each scale, still present some ambiguity on systematic understanding of discourse features and related assessment criteria. For identifying students’ specific weaknesses and strengths, a more fine-grained assessment instrument is necessary. In view of the significant role yet often elusive nature of discourse competence, the present study first examined related literature to achieve an appropriate understanding of discourse competence in L2 writing; it then continued to search existing studies to identify frequent and typical discourse problems Chinese tertiary students made in their English argumentative writing. Following these two steps, the study proposed a set of assessment instruments to help diagnose Chinese undergraduate students’ discourse competence in their English argumentative writing. This set of instruments is further trialed on a group of undergraduate students to test its validity, reliability, and practicality. The present paper reported the process and results on development of this set of diagnostic assessment instruments.