Assessing Writing In Accordance With The Descriptors Of The Common European Framework Of Reference For Languages

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the writing tasks of A2 level students in accordance with the CEFR descriptors at Karabuk University, School of Foreign Languages. To that end, the writing tasks of the focus group, which had been appointed as 93 A2 level students before, were studied to find out whether they had been assessed based on a CEFR-based rubric. Two different writing tasks of the focus group students were graded by the instructors. The tasks were graded by the standardization team, too and the consistency between the scores given by the instructors and the standardization team was evaluated. An A2 level “Can Do Statements” questionnaire approved by the Council of Europe was conducted so as to get a better profile of the focus group. The data were analyzed. Moreover, an interview with the instructors of the focus group was carried out to evaluate the CEFR practices they had been carrying out with respect to not just students, but instructors as well. The data was gathered as written documents, and then evaluated. The results indicated that there was not a significant difference between the writing task scores given by the instructors and the standardization team. Likewise, the findings displayed that instructors highly valued the CEFR practices and they also found them helpful. On the other hand, the rubric that was used by the instructors while grading tasks was found to be a little different from the CEFR-based one.