Assessment focus on essay of university students: the case between language- and non-language based courses in two private universities

摘要

Assessing students’ written output has always been a daunting task for Language teachers in the higher education. They do not only need to provide feedback on grammar and mechanics but also on content. Similarly, discipline-based or non-Language teachers face a host of challenges but are generally more disposed to providing feedbacks which are more focused on content rather than on form. However, it may not be the case for these two groups of teachers. The preference and style in giving of feedback by twenty professors in two private universities in the Philippines were investigated by examining the actual essay of their students after comparing the result against their self-report. The data had shown that contrary to what was revealed in their self-report, most Language teachers focus more on form while non-Language teachers gave unclear feedback if not none at all. Moreover, the teachers from two universities differ in the amount and focus of feedback and the type of required essay primarily due to syllabus content. Despite the difficulty of assessing students’ literacy using writing task as a tool, teachers ought to provide feedback based on a prior discussed rating scale without compromising form and/or content in order to raise the level of writing proficiency of university students.