Self-Assessment and its Impact on Writing Skills

Abstract

Writing is a skill EFL students in high school must develop, especially since it is a prerequisite in most undergraduate degree programs both locally and internationally. The English programs in private and public high schools in Ecuador follow the Ministerio de Educación EFL National Curriculum standards, oriented to develop the four skills based on the Common European Framework of Reference. However, writing does not always receive the time and attention it requires within a lesson. As a result, students do not get enough practice (Heidarian, 2016). Moreover, they do not get to reflect, think, make mistakes, and learn from them (Taufik & Cahyono, 2019). Hence, teachers focus on the time-consuming nature of assessing and evaluating the student products without considering that students could assess their own work. They decide to cover mostly informative text types without getting to more work on complex text types such as argumentative essays. A group of students, from sections A and B in 11th grade, has issues with writing. This is evidenced by not applying the vocabulary required for the subject and task, writing with little sentence variety, the limited mastery of the various conjugations of verbs in the simple and past tense, and the lack of organization and structure essays require. Hence, a study will be conducted to analyze the impact of self-assessment on students’ writing skills. The group is formed by 15 high school students ages 15 to 18 in eleventh grade in a private German school in Samborondón, Ecuador. These participants have never studied English according to their levels, and their school implements an integrated skills-based English program. Also, according to the FCE mock test results, their proficiency ranges from B1 to C1. This study focused a specific kind of product, written essays, which according to the Council of Europe (2018), entail complex topics, distinguishing one’s viewpoints from those in the sources, and expositions with effective logical structures. A level B2 learner can “Write an essay or report that develops an argument systematically with appropriate highlighting of significant points and relevant supporting detail” (p. 77). However, it cannot be paralleled with the Ecuadorian English Standards of written production since “the highestlevel students are expected to reach when they finish high school is B1” (Ministerio de Educación, 2012, p. 9).