Length Length Comments on Whether the • About 250 Words. Writer Has Fulfilled the • Too Short. Word Limit. Note: *Negative Comments Are in Italic

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;...