A Study On The Effect Of Analytic Scoring On English Writing Ability Of Senior High School Students

As one of the four basic skills in English learning,writing is an integrated language competence,requiring learners to express their thoughts and ideas completely and fluently.Good English writing ability calls for the comprehensive development in vocabulary,grammar,organization and logical thinking,etc.Being one of the essential factors that influence EFL writing assessment in senior high school,teachers' scoring method plays an indispensable role in enhancing students' writing ability.The present study focuses on analytic scoring with the aim of further exploring its effect on English writing ability of senior high school students by comparing it to the traditional holistic scoring.This study conducted a ten-week experiment among 80 students in the two parallel classes of senior two in a high school in Nanchang.The author used analytic scoring with some feedback in the experimental class while adopted the traditional holistic scoring in the control class.After three rounds of writing tasks,the post-writing test was carried out in the two classes so as to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of analytic scoring in comparison to holistic scoring,and in which aspect of English writing ability can be influenced most.Meanwhile,the author also handed out the questionnaires to the experimental class before and after the experiment and conducted the post-interviews for students as well as for the two raters in order to see if analytic scoring can produce positive influence on their'interest and attitude in English writing after the experiment.The results of the research demonstrate:(1)Compared to holistic scoring,analytic scoring can be more effective in enhancing senior high school students' English writing ability.Students make great progress in content,organization,vocabulary,language use and mechanics,among which the writing ability in organization has been improved most.(2)After the experiment,students are more interested in EFL writing.They begin to love it and feel more confident during the writing.Besides,students are in favor of analytic scoring,considering this new scoring method is more fair and reasonable than before.Based on the findings,some tentative implications are proposed as follows.First and foremost,analytic scoring should be applied in classroom English writing and be made full use of its positive washwack effect.Furthermore,it is suggested that analytic scoring be adopted in high-stake tests to make sure the fairness of test rating.Last but not least,analytic scoring has not been spread yet in senior high school,for most English teachers have little knowledge about it and there is still no authoritative and standard analytic scoring scale in senior high school.Therefore,the rating training for English teachers in senior high school is proposed so as to make more English teachers learn and use analytic scoring.