15.3 Marking and dealing with errors in EL (Karen Chua)

I would like to share on marking essays (free-writing portion). The main problem marking essays is the extent which I would want to point out all errors in the piece of work.

For tests, I would mark out all errors (especially grammatical errors) – and mark out the type of mistakes (using abbreviations) in the left margin of the paper. I thought this may be useful to students so that they can notice the types of errors they are prone too. By marking out the frequency of these mistakes on the script, I could also get an overview of the weakness of the class and plan my lessons accordingly. In addition, I would also generally re-write a sentence with incorrect structure or make recommendations to improve on word-usage in the test script. The exception is scripts which are totally incomprehensible (especially from foreign students), where hardly any corrections could be marked out for the student, as this would amount to rewriting the entire script for him/her. This resulted in a student asking me why she had so little corrections on her script yet scored lower than a classmate with more corrections – something that had to be explained to her verbally as the marking would not be reflective of her shortcomings.

As such a marking process is extremely time-consuming, I have marked other pieces of essay based on certain criteria (made known to the student prior to the exercise) – for instance, use of connectors or grammar.

Even for comprehension passages, grammar is always an important criterion for me, as I personally feel that good grammar is an important factor for writing. However, when giving a grade to the essay, I may exercise some subjective judgment based on the effort put in by the student for motivational purpose.