An Experimental Study On The Application Of Rubric-based Assessment In Improving English Writing Instruction In Vocational High School

As one of the four basic English skills,writing is an integrated language ability,which requires learners to express their ideas fluently.The English Syllabus for Vocational High Schools(2009)issued by China's Ministry of Education,in the basic module writing,clearly defines that “Students should be able to write simple practical writings,such as e-mails,notifications and so on”.However,the English writing instruction in vocational high schools is not optimistic.One of the prominent problems is the lack of effective writing assessment,which plays an indispensable role in improving students' English writing competence.As an assessment tool,rubric for assessing writing has gained researchers' attention abroad and at home.However,empirical studies on the use of rubrics for assessing writing in the context of English as a foreign language are inadequate.Therefore,the current study focuses on the rubric-based assessment with the aim to explore its effects on English writing performance of vocational high school students.In this study,three research questions are taken into account.(1)Can the rubric-based assessment effectively enhance the writing performance of students in vocational high school?(2)If the rubric-based assessment can enhance students' writing performance,which dimensions(organization,content,language use,vocabulary and mechanics)of students' writing will be effectively enhanced?(3)What are the students' attitudes to the use of rubric-based assessment in writing?This study conducted a 15-week experiment and got 69 students of two parallel classes involved in a vocational high school in Hangzhou.A pre-test was carried outto ensure there was no significant difference between EC and CC before the experiment.During the experiment,the author used a writing rubric in EC,which covered five dimensions of writing,e.g.content,organization,language use,vocabulary and mechanics.While in CC,the author employed the traditional holistic scoring method.After four rounds of writing tasks,a post-test was conducted,thus studying how the rubric-based assessment exerts its influence on students' writing performance.Moreover,the questionnaires were handed out in EC to investigate students' attitudes to the use of rubric-based assessment in writing.The results of the study demonstrate that(1)The rubric-based assessment can enhance the writing performance of vocational high school students.(2)The students' writing performance in content,organization and mechanics has been effectively enhanced.(3)The students generally hold positive attitudes towards the use of the rubric-based assessment in writing.According to the findings,the author provided some implications for English writing instruction as follows.(1)The rubric-based assessment should be considered as an effective assessment method in writing.(2)When applying the rubric-based assessment,self-assessment and the peer-assessment should be adopted in the process of writing assessment.(3)The assessment practices should be consistent with philosophies of process writing approach.(4)The rubric-based assessment should be employed in some high-stake tests.(5)It is recommended that the training for teachers be put into practice since the majority of English teachers have not been exposed to the rubric-based assessment.