INTRODUCTION

This paper will discuss new options open to the language teacher in assessing and responding to student writing, and in promoting learner autonomy in the process.

The following questions are useful to start a discussion of nontraditional forms of assessment and response to student writing:

1. What direction should nontraditional forms of assessment for writing take?

2. Should they be samples of daily work such as journal entries or portfolio assessment?

3. Or, is the notion of general assessment completely out of synchronization with the megatrends in education where assessment and response to writing have become revolutionary?

Based on this writer's experience as teacher trainer, she has observed that the teaching and subsequent assessment of writing leave much to be desired. Not much change has been undertaken in terms of approaches and classroom procedures. Might this be owing to the fact that some of the teachers teach the way they were taught, or that some of us still cling to age-old beliefs and practices in evaluating, grading and teaching, assessing and responding to student writing?

Some of the practices that many language teachers find difficult to do away with are the following:

• Teacher gives exercises and model paragraphs and essays for students to imitate. If this is all that a teacher does, then she hampers or impedes creativity on the part of the students.

• Teacher lists a number of topics on the chalkboard, then asks students to choose one and write about it. This is done without so much as a preliminary activity to the actual writing exercise.

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