engleski

Writing assessment in lower elementary school: practices and challenges

Throughout Europe, the starting age for learning a foreign language has been decreasing in the past decade, and the number of young learners, of English in particular, has been increasing. Although this is a positive trend, there are challenges involved. Many countries were not quick to respond and thus have teachers working with young children who are not properly trained in early language learning and teaching. When we add to this writing as a cognitively demanding skill, and assessment as a perennial issue in education, it is clear that assessing writing in young learners of a foreign language is bound to be quite a challenge. The aim of this paper is to examine the practices and challenges of assessing writing in English as a foreign language in lower elementary school based on the research carried out in the Croatian context. The first part of the study was conducted on a sample of 97 English language teachers working with learners from grade 1 to grade 4 of elementary school (children age 6-10), using an online questionnaire. The second part of the study consisted of an analysis of assessment tasks that Croatian English language teachers use in lower elementary school. The results show that there is room for improvement in current practices in view of developmentally appropriate assessment. Therefore, in the last part of the paper, we suggest guidelines for assessing writing in accordance with theoretical foundations and research findings.

writing, assessment, young learners

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