15.3 Marking and dealing with errors in EL (Angeline Ng)

Throughout Teaching Practice, there were many markings to be done. They include situational writing, descriptive essays and even comprehension exercises. My criterion for marking will differ for the different types of exercises based on their objectives.

I remembered the tutor from the Grammar upgrading course in the first semester in NIE. He shared with us the way he assesses and marks students’ work. He told us that he will look out for what he expects the students to accomplish in that exercise. For example, if he were to mark an exercise for prepositions, he will look out for preposition-related errors and overlook most of the other errors. He explained that this is to help the students focus on learning the intended content. After that session, I am a firm believer in what he shared with us. Therefore, I will always make the effort to mark only the intended content rather than pin-pointing each and every error – which will result in the students’ work to be filled with red ink.

There was a week in my Teaching Practice when I was teaching Formal Letter to prepare the students for the upcoming class test. When I was marking that particular exercise, I placed the focus of marking on the format of the letter, the tone of the letter, as well as the choice of word. In the process, I overlooked some other grammatical errors that did not affect the tone and formality of the letter. For example, I overlook some of the spelling errors. I did not penalize spelling errors that did not alter the overall meaning of the content. Also, I did not circle and point out errors in punctuation that did not affect the main sentence structures. I will point out serious spelling mistakes and problems with sentence structure that affect the tone of the letter.

However, this is not the same for marking examination scripts. In examination context, I will be marking out the different kinds of grammatical mistakes, spelling errors and usage of words, and the awarding of language marks will be based on the overall impression and the rubric given.