A great learning experience continues!
It seems that how we teach writing is a great challenge for almost all the teachers participating in this course, and I believe a good use of technology can solve at least some of the problems. This week, I spent some time exploring the possibility of Automated Writing Evaluation (AWE), which is expected to reduce the heavy load of evaluating students' writing. First of all, I read "Beyond the Design of Automated Writing Evaluation" by Chi-Fen Emily Chen and Wei-Yuan Eugene Cheng, and found that there are some products such as Criterion and MyAccess! But it seems their automated essay scoring function has not yet achieved the sophistication those companies claim to have achieved.
However, I have also learned that some automation is already possible using free web-based resourses. Quizlet and Educaplay, for example, allow you to create vocabulary quizzes and jumbled-sentence quizzes which give immediate feedback to students. I also found an amazing website for Japanese students to practice Japanese-English translation. When you type in the translation of a Japanese sentence (there are 838 questions!) and submit it, you will get automated feedback, such as "You need an indefinite article here," and "With this verb you use the preposition 'to' instead of 'with'." Learners can repeat the process until they reach the correct answer.
Knowing that writing words and sentences (but not essays) can be evaluated automatically, we now need to ask how we can use them in our lessons. Automated Writing Evaluation devices will be of great help especially in a large class, but can make lessons too individualistic. I need to find the right way as I experiment.
Our English debate team is going to have regional competitions a week from today. This is a academic style debate, where the proposition is announced months earlier. The proposition for this year is "Japan should change the university enrollment season from April to September." Hope our students can advance to the nationals.
May our week be filled with blessings,
Sam
Sam,
ReplyDeleteAlready the second time I open your blog and I find out something new.
In my learning I have been following strictly the articles provided in the required reading while you went beyond that and raise a question which sounds like a science fiction proposition for a teacher like me - Automated Writing Evaluation. AWEsome!
It is a very tempting tool and you "woke up" my curiosity. I will most surely check that. It sounds great! Thanks for that.
I hope that your English debate team will present itself well at the regional competition and classify for nationals.
Good luck!
Liliana
HiSam! You've arisen a very interesting point here: automated writing evaluation. I'll check the article and the products you mention. I think it would be great to have something that helps us correct all the writings we get every week, however I find it kind of difficult. Although there are writing structures and rules, it is still language produced by people, it's not a simple fill in the blanks, so it includes feelings, personal opinions and points of view, and I consider that's something difficult to evaluate using a machine. It's just my humble point of view.
ReplyDeleteHi, Liliana and Diana,
ReplyDeleteYes, it sounds like science fiction, but it is true that there are some people out there trying hard to invent functioning AWE. I agree with Diana that humans are always better evaluators, and I hope it stays that way till the end of time. The problem is, teachers never have enough time to evaluate students' writing. And when we evaluate, we do not really want to spend too much time correcting simple grammar errors or spelling mistakes. I would like to pay attention to, like Diana says, feelings, personal opinions and points of view. I am hoping that technology, if used wisely, can take care of the mechanical part, and then we can enjoy the luxury of paying full attention to the human element.
Regards,
Sam