大学英语四六级写作及其写作教学(1)(4)
2015-06-26 01:02
导读：The writing skills are complex and sometimes difficult to teach and to test, requiring mastery not only of grammatical and rhetorical devices, but also of conceptual and judgmental elements. Heaton “
The writing skills are complex and sometimes difficult to teach and to test, requiring mastery not only of grammatical and rhetorical devices, but also of conceptual and judgmental elements. Heaton “grouped the many and varied skills necessary for writing good prose into five general components or main areas:
Language use: the ability to write correct and appropriate sentences;
Mechanical skills: the ability to use correctly those conventions peculiar to the written language – e.g. punctuation, spelling;
Treatment of content: the ability to think creatively and develop thoughts, excluding all irrelevant information;
Stylistic skills: the ability to manipulate sentences and paragraphs, and use language effectively;
Judgmental skills: the ability to write in an appropriate manner for a particular purpose with a particular audience in mind, together with an ability to select, organize and order relevant information [11].
3.2 Different writing tasks and different standards
An attempt should made to determine the types of writing tasks with which the students are in face of every day. Royal Society of Arts explicitly states the kinds of writing tasks its examinations test and the standards of writing expected in performance of those tasks.
A successful candidate will have passed an examination designed to test ability to produce a selection of the following types of writing:
(1)Basic level: letter; postcard; diary entry; forms. It requires no confusing errors of grammar or vocabulary; a piece of writing legible and readily intelligible; able to produce simple unsophisticated sentences.
(2)Intermediate level: as basic level, plus guide; set of instructions. It requires accurate grammar, vocabulary and spelling, though possibly with some mistakes which do not destroy communication; handwriting generally legible; expression clear and appropriate, using a fair range of language; able to link themes and points coherently.
(3)Advanced level: as intermediate level, plus newspaper reports; notes. It requires
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extremely high standards of grammar, vocabulary and spelling; Easily legible handwriting; no obvious limitations on range of language candidate is able to use accurately and appropriately; ability to produce organized, coherent writing, displaying considerable sophistication[12].
3.3 Obtaining reliable scoring of writing
In order to score as reliably as possible, scorers should obtain appropriate and reliable scoring of writing. The process of scoring can be either holistic or analytic.
3.3.1 Holistic scoring
Holistic scoring (often referred to as impressionistic scoring ) involves the assignment of a single to a piece of writing on the basis of an overall impression of it as a whole[17] Each paper is scored using an agreed scale and an examinee’s score is the average of the combined marks. The notion of impression marking specifically excludes any attempt to separate the discrete features of a composition for scoring purposes.
Holistic scoring has two main advantages:1)it is very rappid;2)if well conceived and well organized, holistic scoring in which each student’s work is scored by four different trained scorers can result in high scorer reliability. However, the problem is that it is affected by fatigue, carelessness, prejudice, etc, of the scorers[13]
