BLOG POST A genre theory informed dynamic assessment approach offers higher education students individualised support with academic writing and conceptual development. by Dr Prithvi Shrestha Academic writing is the main mode of meaning making and student assessment in higher education. Although many students may join higher education with required academic writing expertise, others seem to find it challenging. National student satisfaction (Office for Students, 2020) in the UK higher education is quite low regarding assessment and feedback. A theory driven assessment approach may help address the issue. Drawing on my research reported in my recent book (Shrestha, 2020), in this blog, I share how a theory-based assessment approach combined with a genre theory can be used to support our first year students with their disciplinary writing, and thus have an impact on student satisfaction across higher education.* *continue reading by clicking on 'Read More' below *continue reading below Why do we need an assessment theory? As EAP practitioners, we have conducted our students’ academic writing assessment many, many times. But, how often have we wondered whether our assessment practices are informed by any particular theories? I’m sure we tend to follow the tradition in our field and what is practised in our institutions. And possibly, we also build our assessment approach on our own personal experience of being assessed in our formal studies and professional development. Our assessment practices may be full of tensions, conflicts, uncertainties and multiple interpretations depending on our sociocultural contexts (Davison, 2004). If we want our assessment practices to be systematic, credible and context-sensitive serving our student needs, I argue that we need to adopt a theory-informed assessment approach to academic writing (cf. Davison & Leung, 2009). Obviously, our teaching of academic writing is informed by pedagogical theories such as task-based teaching, online learning and communicative language teaching. There is no reason in principle why the same theories could not inform our assessment practices. Among many learning theories, Vygotsky-inspired sociocultural theories (SCT) of learning (Vygotsky, 1978)have been influential in language and academic literacy education (Coffin & Donohue, 2014; Prior, 2008). Within these SCT theories, an assessment approach called dynamic assessment (DA) has been developed and DA is the focus in my research. DA blends instruction with assessment by targeting and further developing students’ Zones of Proximal Development (ZPD, learning potential) (Lantolf & Poehner, 2004). The focus of DA is on students’ future academic writing potential rather than their past performance. It promotes dialogic feedback between the teacher and the student on academic writing assessment. To put it crudely, the teacher-assessor in DA intentionally promotes learning by targeting their support at the student’s ZPD and it is thus a learning-oriented assessment approach unlike standardised tests. As a theory of assessment and learning, however, it lacks a systematic language theory to teach and assess academic writing. What view of language and genre? In order to fill the gap in DA, I draw on Hallidayan Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) theory (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) to provide teaching support, assess academic writing and analyse my data. SFL views language as a choice-based meaning making semiotic resource that is socio-culturally shaped in a particular discourse community. It has been influential in EAP teaching and assessing academic writing (Gardner & Donohue, 2020). In my work, I also deploy the genre theory/ pedagogy developed within SFL (Martin & Rose, 2007) to design academic writing assessment and provide dialogic feedback to students. In SFL, Genre is defined as ‘a staged, goal-oriented social process. Social because we participate in genres with other people; goal-oriented because we use genres to reach our goals’ (Martin & Rose, 2007, p. 8). It is well-established in our field that genre awareness is crucial for students to become members of a discourse community such as physical sciences and business management. How does a theory driven assessment approach support students with academic writing? As DA has no explicit linguistic theory, an SFL-based genre theory comes in handy when adopting DA to teach and assess academic writing. I use the genre theory to teach key generic features of a business case study analysis genre (e.g., Orientation, Application of business frameworks, Recommendations) through DA. My focus was on aspects like macro-Theme (introduction to text), hyper-Theme (also known as topic sentence) and technicality (use of subject relevant lexis). In my research, I used SFL to provide linguistic evidence for student academic writing development (ZPD) systematically while applying DA to assessing academic writing in distance education. I have developed a set of DA procedures for academic writing teachers and demonstrated the application of SFL to track undergraduate business management students’ development of Textual (i.e., organisation of message) and Ideational (i.e., subject matter) meanings as construed in their written assignments. My study provides insights into students’ maturing academic writing abilities in a discipline. The analysis of tutor-student interaction (i.e., dialogic feedback) enables us to track writing development over time. My research shows that focused tutor mediation (face-to-face or online) provides effective support for academic writing development. Another important result of my study was the potential of DA for learning transfer (transfer of learning to another new context). Learning transfer is crucial in any academic writing programme because we want our students to transfer what they learn to their disciplinary writing. My study showed that SFL genre theory informed DA helped first year students to transfer case study analysis genre features and conceptual knowledge to second and third year business studies modules. To theorise or not to theorise our assessment practices? Whether to theorise or not to theorise may still be a question facing many of us who are under enormous pressure to complete student assessment to meet institutional requirements in the ongoing pandemic situation. But are we doing justice to our students (and ourselves) by simply adhering to institutional requirements? Probably not, because a theory-informed assessment approach like SFL genre theory informed DA helps us to make our assessment approach more sensitive to our own distinct sociocultural, political and institutional contexts to respond to ever changing academic writing needs of the diverse body of our students. In fact, I have applied the findings of my study to a large-population (about 2,000 students a year) first year business communication online course at The Open University. It was not possible to adopt DA strictly as in my research but a flexible DA approach informed by SFL was worth applying. Taking this approach, students in this course complete their first assignment making notes on a case study. They get tutor feedback on these notes which they use to write their second assignment (case study analysis) applying a business framework. Additionally, they have one formative assignment writing week each in preparation for third and fourth assignments when their tutors provide formative feedback on their drafts before they submit their final versions. This promotes dialogic feedback. There are benefits to adopting an SFL informed DA approach in our assessment practices. A theory informed assessment approach like this one comes with challenges too. But we EAP practitioners need to rise to them by being more dynamic, creative and flexible looking beyond existing EAP pedagogies and assessment practices! References Coffin, C., & Donohue, J. (2014). A Language as Social Semiotic Based Approach to Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. John Wiley & Sons Inc. Davison, C. (2004). The contradictory culture of teacher-based assessment: ESL teacher assessment practices in Australian and Hong Kong secondary schools. Language Testing, 21(3), 305-334. https://doi.org/10.1191/0265532204lt286oa Davison, C., & Leung, C. (2009). Current Issues in English Language Teacher-Based Assessment. TESOL Quarterly, 43(3), 393-415. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1545-7249.2009.tb00242.x Gardner, S., & Donohue, J. (2020). Introduction to the special collection: Halliday’s influence on EAP practice. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 44, 100831. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2019.100831 Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2014). Halliday's introduction to functional grammar (Fourth Edition. ed.). Routledge. Lantolf, J. P., & Poehner, M. E. (2004). Dynamic assessment of L2 development: bringing the past into the future. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1(1), 49-72. http://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=14488498&site=ehost-live&scope=site Martin, J. R., & Rose, D. (2007). Working with Discourse: Meaning beyond the Clause. Continuum. Office for Students. (2020). National Student Survey Results 2020 https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/student-information-and-data/national-student-survey-nss/get-the-nss-data/ Prior, P. (2008). A sociocultural theory of writing. In C. A. MacArthur, S. Graham, & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of Writing Research (pp. 54-66). The Guildford Press. Shrestha, P. N. (2020). Dynamic Assessment of Students’ Academic Writing: Vygotskian and Systemic Functional Linguistic Perspectives. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55845-1 Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Harvard University Press. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr Prithvi N. Shrestha, an award-winning author (British Council ELTons finalist 2019), is Senior Lecturer in English Language at The Open University, UK. He has led or co-led a number of funded international research projects. He has published over 40 research outputs, including one research monograph (Dynamic Assessment of Students’ Academic Writing (Springer, 2020)) and an edited volume, covering academic writing assessment in distance education, language assessment, English language education in developing countries, English medium instruction and mobile learning. His research is informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics and sociocultural theory. For more information about him, please visit: http://www.open.ac.uk/people/pns52 Twitter: https://twitter.com/pnshrestha LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prithvi-shrestha-69b34912/ ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4971-8051 1/8/2022 10:57:36
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