Submitted by: Submitted by sundus9040
Views: 352
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Pages: 34
Category: Literature
Date Submitted: 12/13/2012 09:09 PM
Difference Of Writing Skills Between a Native and a Non Native
Native- and nonnative-speaking EFL
teachers’ evaluation of Chinese
students’ English writing
Ling Shi University of British Columbia
This study examined differences between native and nonnative EFL (English as
a Foreign Language) teachers’ ratings of the English writing of Chinese university
students. I explored whether two groups of teachers – expatriates who typically
speak English as their first language and ethnic Chinese with proficiency in
English – gave similar scores to the same writing task and used the same criteria
in their judgements. Forty-six teachers – 23 Chinese and 23 English-background –
rated 10 expository essays using a 10-point scale, then wrote and ranked three
reasons for their ratings. I coded their reported reasons as positive or negative
criteria under five major categories: general, content, organization, language and
length. MANOVA showed no significant differences between the two groups in
their scores for the 10 essays. Chi-square tests, however, showed that the Englishbackground teachers attended more positively in their criteria to the content and
language, whereas the Chinese teachers attended more negatively to the organization and length of the essays. The Chinese teachers were also more concerned
with content and organization in their first criteria, whereas English-background
teachers focused more on language in their third criteria. The results raise questions about the validity of holistic ratings as well as the underlying differences
between native and nonnative EFL teachers in their instructional goals for second
language (L2) writing.
I Introduction
The fairness and construct validity of the ratings of different groups
of raters using the same scale in assessing ESL/EFL (English as a
Second/Foreign Language) writing is a major concern in second
language (L2) writing instruction and testing (Hamp-Lyons, 1991a;
Connor-Linton, 1995a;...