Exploring Appropriate Evaluation Tasks for a Mixed Ability English as a Foreign Language Writing Class in Taiwan

Many English as a Foreign Language (EFL) college students usually do not have sufficient language skills to generate satisfactory performance on their essay compositions. It is also hard for teachers to assess their progress on writing performance. This study attempted to investigate appropriate assessment criteria employed in a mixed ability EFL writing classroom. The participants were English major students from a private technological university, Taiwan. Based on students’ performance at each learning stage and negotiated evaluation tasks agreed by students and the teacher, the assessment items would be revised to correspond to students’ language skill levels. In addition, the students were asked to provide their opinions after conducting writing activities. The findings indicated that many students had their writing skills improved when they followed the guidelines and the use of reasonable assessment criteria. This implies a need for the teacher and student writers to collaboratively develop structured writing activities relating to assessing writing work.

Key words: assessment criteria; EFL writing; mixed ability classroom; negotiated evaluation tasks.