Product Description

Writing is one of the central skills a student must master. Why should they be tested? How should they be tested? What tasks should be used? The answers to these questions are provided by this book, which examines the theory behind the practice of assessing a student's writing abilities.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2624770 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 282 pages

Customer Reviews

Informative & well-written
Another useful book from the Cambridge Language Assessment Series.

"Assessing Writing" can roughly be divided into three parts: Chapters 1 to 4 define the construct of writing and discuss fundamental theoretical considerations in its assessment; this section is followed by a more practical description of how tests are created in Chapters 5 & 6 and illustrative examples in Chapter 7; the last section (Chapters 8 to 10) deals with non-traditional forms of evaluation such as classroom and portfolio assessment.

One of the strengths of the book lies in the succint and highly informative description of the writing process, which should be especially useful to readers who have not kept up with relevant literature. It is a pity that Weigle does fully exploit the potential of this description in the ensuing chapters. The book also provides a very good demonstration of how the criteria set in Bachman & Palmer's "Language Testing in Practice" are operationalised in the design of writing tests. A possible weakness here is that Weigle often fails to offer an unequivocal opinion on controversial issues. Also lacking are clear practical tips, such as the ones given in Buck's "Assessing Listening" of the same series. Lastly, some readers may object to the extensive use of secondary referencing and personal communications throughout the text, which give the (probably undeserved) opinion that the book was underresearched.

These minor points non-withstanding, "Assessing Writing" is a valuable addition to the literature on language assessment and should be useful to a wide audience of language teaching practitioners and students.