The Effects Of Technique Training On English Writing Self-assessment Ability Of Chinese College Students

Since learner-centered notion and learner autonomy were proposed, self-assessment has gained much more attention. Although there were a large number of researches on students self-assessment, especially on the validity and the reliability, they obtained different results due to some factors such as students'culture background and language proficiency, the technique training and the design of questionnaire. Based on previous study, the present study aims to explore the effects of technique training and English writing proficiency on the writing self-assessment ability of Chinese college students.Ninety participants from Lanzhou University were involved in the present study. They were divided into high writing proficiency group and low writing proficiency group. Before training, they were required to finish two argumentative writing tasks together under similar conditions and make self-assessment of one writing task by employing rating scales which described the benchmarks of five writing aspects:grammar, vocabulary, mechanics, structure and content. After a two-week training on self-assessment, they were asked to assess the other writing task by themselves. During the period, the researcher and another teacher assessed the writing tasks of all participants. At last, the participants filled a questionnaire. No special treatment was given to the two groups; they were only discriminated at the data analysis stage.The data analyzed by SPSS 11.5 package were mainly from the teachers'average rating of the two writing tasks which was set as criteria, students self-assessment of the two writing tasks and the questionnaire. The results showed that:Firstly, inexperienced students could not assess their writing ability validly. Secondly, technique training could improve students writing self-assessment ability in mechanics, content and structure except in grammar and vocabulary. Thirdly, students with high writing proficiency tended to underestimate their writing ability; while students with low writing proficiency displayed an overestimation of their writing ability. Fourthly, high writing proficiency students could assess their writing ability more accurately than low writing proficiency students. Lastly, self-assessment was welcomed by Chinese college students.The results of the present study give much enlightenment to the application of self-assessment under EFL context although it still has some limitations in terms of training period, rating scales, and the subjects. Since learner-centered notion and learner autonomy were proposed, self-assessment has gained much more attention. Although there were a large number of researches on students self-assessment, especially on the validity and the reliability, they obtained different results due to some factors such as students' culture background and language proficiency, the technique training and the design of questionnaire. Based on previous study, the present study aims to explore the effects of technique training and English writing proficiency on the writing self-assessment ability of Chinese college students.Ninety participants from Lanzhou University were involved in the present study. They were divided into high writing proficiency group and low writing proficiency group. Before training, they were required to finish two argumentative writing tasks together under similar conditions and make self-assessment of one writing task by employing rating scales which described the benchmarks of five writing aspects: grammar, vocabulary, mechanics, structure and content. After a two-week training on self-assessment, they were asked to assess the other writing task by themselves. During the period, the researcher and another teacher assessed the writing tasks of all participants. At last, the participants filled a questionnaire. No special treatment was given to the two groups; they were only discriminated at the data analysis stage.The data analyzed by SPSS 11.5 package were mainly from the teachers' average rating of the two writing tasks which was set as criteria, students self-assessment of the two writing tasks and the questionnaire. The results showed that: Firstly, inexperienced students could not assess their writing ability validly. Secondly, technique training could improve students writing self-assessment ability in mechanics, content and structure except in grammar and vocabulary. Thirdly, students with high writing proficiency tended to underestimate their writing ability; while students with low writing proficiency displayed an overestimation of their writing ability. Fourthly, high writing proficiency students could assess their writing ability more accurately than low writing proficiency students. Lastly, self-assessment was welcomed by Chinese college students.The results of the present study give much enlightenment to the application of self-assessment under EFL context although it still has some limitations in terms of training period, rating scales, and the subjects.