Composition Correctness Scores

Abstract

A simple teacher-scored method can be used to determine the proportion of correct usage in freshman ESL compositions. The method correlated highly with impressionistic rankings of overall writing quality and discriminated among four very narrow-range levels of proficiency: intensive English, minimally accepted freshman ESL, lower-level ESL, and a parallel lowerlevel freshman English class (remedial) for native speakers. Within this narrow range of skills, the scoring method provided reliable discrimination for purposes of class assignment and measurement of in-class progress. Six teachers of varying experience in ESL and freshman composition achieved high correlations both as a group and individually among numerical and impressionistic rankings of 20 selected essays, all on expository themes. All scoring was individually determined without group consultation or group grading practice. The two career freshman composition teachers showed slightly lower correlations among all data than the four career ESL teachers, indicating that discussions of criteria might have improved consistency between these two professional groups. Correctness scores are easy to compute and appear to be psychologically convincing to those teachers who prefer an exact numerical score to impressionistic rating as a measure of 1) the seriousness of a given usage error, 2) progress in usage improvement, and 3) readiness to pass into a higher level class. One year's trial and theoretical implications for composition research are discussed. A Practical ProblemThis study was the result of attempted solutions to problems encountered administering a university program in English as a Second Language. We needed a simple and quantitative measure of achievement level and progress in writing skill: a measure which would allow us to place students in classes along a continuum from Intensive English through two to three subsequent semesters of freshman English classes geared to both foreign and remedial American students. Intensive English is a full-time course of study five hours a day, five days a week, during which students are not permitted to enroll in any other university classes. Upon graduation from Intensive English, students attend a series of freshman composition classes each of which meets for 16 weeks (one semester) five hours a week, which carry university credit, and which permit simultaneous enrollment in other university classes. In general,

The effects of oral conferencing and written comments on the writing and revisions of ESL students

“…The instructions given to the raters were taken and adapted from Brodkey and Young (1981) and are as follows:…”

“…A score of 1 was used for an error that did not interfere with meaning. A score of 2 was used for an error that did interfere with meaning.The error ratio score was based upon the Composition Correctness Score developed by Brodkey and Young (1981 To assertain reliability in this study, sixteen student essays were scored by two raters. Both raters were very familiar with Brodkey and Young's Composition Correctness Score.…”

Syntactic complexity, error and the holistic evaluation of ESL student essays

“…Brodkey and Young (1981) also devised a threepoint scale, the "Correctness Score," which correlated highly with holistic ratings of ESL student essays and differentiated among different levels of proficiency. In the design of their scoring method, Brodkey and Young took into consideration the following features:…”

“…A measure of error, the "Correctness Score," devised by Brodkey and Young (1981), was adapted for the purposes of this study.The essay corpus analyzed in this study consisted of thirty ESL student compositions written for a practice Test …”

“…A measure of error, the "Correctness Score," devised by Brodkey and Young (1981), was adapted for the purposes of this study.…”