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[kazpat]

Hello,

I work at a secondary school in Kazakhstan. We recently had an IELTS exam for English teachers which saw some very low writing scores come back. For example, one teacher who studied for a year at a US high school through the FLEX program got an 8.5 in speaking, 7.5 in both reading and listening but a 6 in writing. Another had scores of 6.5 and 7 for other areas but a 5 in writing. The same pattern held true for a few others. Additionally, the test for students a few months ago had some kids come back with 6-7 in writing who don't appear to be on par with the aforementioned teachers.

Has anyone else experienced this? I've helped some of these teachers with writing and at least according to the public rubric they seemed poised to perform well on the test. The student scores along with the varied results cause me to think this might be a rater reliability issue. I am not an examiner and don't have access to the actual rubric and don't know anything about the marking process so am hesitant to point that finger. As an organization we know writing is an area for concern but the scores are really surprising given the training, background, preparation and international teaching staff opinion of some of the teachers.

I think a few are going to request a remark, I don't have any experience with that either. I assume a different rater checks the test without knowing the original mark.

Any experience or comments?

[adaruby]

[spiral78]

[nomad soul]

[adaruby]

[Sashadroogie]

[nomad soul]

[johnslat]

Dear nomad soul,

Glad to see that Sasha's query didn't make you testy.

Regards,
John

[nomad soul]

[kazpat]

Thanks for the replies. I get the whole flowery language - showing off thing. During the speaking exams the kids were trying to use idioms and most often it comes out just awful. The examiner gave us a heads up to tell them to keep it simple.

The teacher with a 5 for example, on a problem / solution essay she will identify causes, present solutions, has excellent grammar control, stays on topic, etc. She actually teaches an A level Cambridge course called Global Perspectives. A good portion of the course deals with proper essay writing. I got a MEd. in Leadership not TESOL but have a CELTA and several years teaching K-12 ESL and the practice essays looked good to me.

Maybe several of them did what has been suggested in this thread.

It will be interesting to see the results of the re-marking.

[spiral78]

Yes, do let us know!

[Dedicated]

I am an IELTS examiner for the writing and this is actually quite a common phenomenon.

Remember the criteria for IELTS writing -
Answering the question
Coherence and cohesion
Vocabulary
Grammar.

Task 1 is quite formulaic, and many students lose marks by writing a list rather than picking out the main trends, differences or stages and using a wide range of comparative structures.

Task 2, the essay, nearly always asks about your opinion/do you agree - you must specifically say this. Students who are studying EAP often forget this and say 'This essay will discuss..' which is incorrect. There must be 4 or 5 clear paragraphs and no less than 250 words or you will not get more than Band 7.0.

An academic essay is different from an IELTS essay.

[Sashadroogie]

Where does it say there must be 4 or 5 paragraphs? Or maximum of band 7 for not meeting the word count? Was I asleep during the last re-cert?

[scot47]

Low scores on Writing in IELTS are very common with students from the Middle East. There is no magic cure, but a good Writing Course geared at IELTS might do the trick.

[MuscatGary]