The Implementation of Self-Assessment in EFL Writing Classroom: An Experimental Study

Abstract

Writing skill is an essential requirement to lifelong learner success, yet the way teachers provide feedback for their students on writing is quite challenging. One of the new trends in writing skill instruction is Self Assessment. Self-assessment methods in writing instruction present meaningful ways to promote student writing achievement through reflection and meta-cognition during the writing process. This paper describes the findings of an investigation on using self assessment in EFL writing classroom. For the purpose of conducting this research, 48 Iranian upper intermediate students, all male and with age range of 20 to 23, were chosen to participate in this investigation. These participants were divided into two equal groups: an experimental group (N=24) who worked on their writings through self assessment and a control group (N=24) who worked on their writings based on the traditional ways. It was found that participants in the experimental group significantly improved their writing proficiency means score, whereas improvement in the control group was not significant. The results confirm that self assessment is successful with EFL students.

Self-Assessment: The Effect on Students’ Independence and Writing Competence

“…They had clear guidelines what to do and how to improve their writing after reflecting on their work (McMillan & Hearn, 2008;Andrade & Du, 2007). Hence, the result of this current study supports the previous researches by Javaherbakhsh (2010), Birjandi &Siyyari (2011), andMeimahami &Varmaghani (2013), which prove the effect of self-assessment towards students' writing performance. A good writing was produced when they were given opportunity to self-assess their writing product that needed to be revised along the process.…”

“…International Journal of Instruction, July 2018• Vol.11, No.3 (Buyukkarci, 2014Meihami & Varmaghani, 2013). On the contrary, students in the control group they merely submitted the product of their work to be evaluated by the teacher and the students did the revision based on the teacher's comment without the support of checklist and analytical scoring rubric which guided them in the process of revision as well there was no proof-reading assistance from peers.…”

“…They found that self-assessment is more helpful in self-editing and revising than in the composing process of writing. Self-assessment also had an effect on Iranian EFL students' writing skill (Javaherbakhsh, 2010;Birjandi & Siyyari, 2011;Meihami & Varmaghani, 2013). Furthermore, the implementation of self-assessment could improve the the writing of intermediate EFL students at a university in Thailand (Honsa, 2013).…”

“…It proved that the use of scripts enhanced self-regulation more than rubrics did on the control group. Another study conducted by Meihami and Varmaghani (2013) on the use of self-assessment in EFL writing classroom. The result proved that the mean score of experimental group's writing proficiency was significantly different from the control group.…”

Using Alternative Assessment to Assess Undergraduate EFL Students at Yemeni Universities: Challenges from the Perspectives of Faculty

“…Over the last few decades, the concern of researchers, educators, and teachers about AA in EFL/ESL classroom has increased and a lot of studies were conducted to investigate various aspects of AA, including its impact on EFL students' language learning, challenges of using AA, attitudes towards AA, etc. The relevant literature includes a lot of studies that highlighted the positive impact of AA on EFL students language learning (e.g., Ahangari, Rassekh-Alqol, & Hamed, 2013;Baleghizadeh & Zarghami, 2012;Baniabdelrahman, 2010;Ghaslani, 2015;Kalra, Sundrarajun, Komintarachat, 2017;Macari, 2017;Meihami & Varmaghani, 2013;Monib et al, 2020;Shokraie & Tabrizi, 2016).…”