Reflections upon the Writing Activities in the ELT Textbook

Assessment covers all sorts of activities that teachers engage in to evaluate their pupils' progress and learning needs. Though it is an integral component of teaching it is regrettable that many programs in EFL teaching do not require assessment courses. Thus several teachers enter the classroom without a thorough grounding in assessment issues. Yet courses on teaching writing often devote a limited amount of time to the discussion of assessment. Therefore it is too complex to choose rating scales and delineate criteria for valid and reliable essay evaluation. Furthermore teachers need to determine an effective and formal method of assessing writing ability and specify an appropriate rating scale to serve in the teaching-learning assessment process in the writing classroom. The present study is an attempt to investigate the pedagogical tools for improving our pupils' writing ability through an effective assessing system. Specifically the study's problematic statement endeavors to evaluate 3rd-year Literature and Philosophy pupils' writing skills as qualified to be vague and weak. In terms of the general layout the work comprises four chapters.