A COMPARISON BETWEEN TEACHER’S ASSESSMENT AND STUDENTS’ SELF-ASSESSMENT IN AN IELTS WRITING COURSE

Abstract

The field of language testing and assessment has undergone significant changes due to the far-reaching reforms in education, particularly those relating to the involvement of students in the learning process. Accordingly, there was a significant transition in the position of assessors, which traditionally was reserved for teachers. Students are now encouraged to actively participate in the self-assessment process. Being assessors themselves enables students to become more awareness of their strengths and weaknesses, promotes learner autonomy and develops self-directed learning strategies. This study aims to discover the correlation between students’ self- assessment and teacher’s assessment in English writing skills through an IELTS writing test and IELTS marking rubric by investigating how 30 Vietnamese students at a Hanoi university practiced rubric-based self-assessment skills. The results indicated that the advanced students had higher accuracy of self-assessment than the intermediate ones and closely matched the teacher's evaluations whereas intermediate learners tended to overestimate their performance. Based on the findings of the research, the study suggests several implications to improve students’ self-assessment.