Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Modern Research in Education, Teaching and Learning
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Fostering English Writing Skills through Self-Development of Thai EFL Graduate Students
Kasma Suwanarak
ABSTRACT:
This research aims to investigate how the Thai EFL graduate students self-assess their English writing performance in relation to the teacher’s evaluation and what the students and the teacher experience from the assessment practice. The participants are 32 Thai graduate students and a Thai English language teacher of an EFL writing course. The data were collected through student’s self-assessment and teacher’s assessment forms, writing tasks, and individual interviews. The qualitative data were considered together with the quantitative data in order to obtain the whole picture of the issue under investigation. The findings showed that the graduate students (or adult learners) were able to self-assess their writing performance. The goals set out in the course syllabus, concerning the students’ participation in writing process and evaluating their writing, were practical and the students were well aware of what their performance levels were. Having access to students’ self-assessments also provided the teacher more useful information for judging their learning achievement. This research highlights the importance of students’ self-assessment as an actual and valid source of information for developing teaching and learning EFL writing, and promoting the students to be autonomous and lifelong learners. Implications are drawn regarding the independent learning goals and recommendations for future studies.
keywords: students’ self-assessment; teacher’s assessment; adult learners; EFL writing; autonomous and lifelong learners