Abstract
Senior ESL professors are expected to have vast experience in their field and be able to provide readily answers for most problems befalling their students. The years of practice grant them hands-on expertise which allows them to predict areas of difficulty and error in their pupils’ second language acquisition. The classroom is a bubble where learning is happening at different rates, sometimes effortlessly and smoothly, sometimes uneasily and painfully. A teacher’s expertise dictates when to be sympathetic, when to be thorough, and even when to be funny or stern. Nonetheless, above all, a teacher is entrusted with the task of being a facilitator in this process. The term facilitate conveys an array of other important concepts but seems to skirt one of the toughest roles a teacher must play, to measure a student’s performance in numbers. In this regard, having well-balanced, well-designed scoring rubrics to assess learners is paramount, especially when the purpose is to provide accurate and objective feedback. This study analyzes the scoring rubrics currently used in the assessment of learners’ pronunciation in a two-year ESL program taught at Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica. To evaluate the effectiveness of these instruments, this paper analyzes the opinion of the students in this program, the views of other ESL teachers about the aspects that integrate the rubrics, and the literature on the topic. The results indicate the need to constantly adjust the instruments according to several factors which include learners’ prior knowledge, comprehensible input, and goal of the oral activity.
Presenters
Karla María Fonseca SánchezProfesor, Foreign Language Department, Universidad Nacional, San José, Costa Rica Jacqueline Araya Ríos
Professor, Foreign Language Department, Universidad Nacional, San José, Costa Rica
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Communications and Linguistic Studies
KEYWORDS
ENGLISH TEACHING, ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION, ESL ASSESSMENT, SCORING RUBRIC DESIGN
