Revisiting the Writing Assessment Process at a Saudi English Language Institute: Problems and Solutions

Over the past several decades, writing assessment has evolved in an ever-growing attempt to provide contextual fairness to a student while maintaining standards across a larger community. This study analyzed writing assessment at a Saudi English Language Institute (ELI) by first discussing teaching and learning in an EFL context before examining the shortcomings of current Saudi methods in assessment. A universal rubric created by the Saudi ELI allows for consistency across the program and cross-grading between teachers ensures honesty in assessment, but this rigidity leads to a lack of trust between teachers and coordinators and disallows contextual-based learning. First-hand research and literature analysis show that an analytic, rather than holistic, rubric will allow greater contextual-based learning, and that elimination of cross-grading will empower a teacher to become more directly involved with each student. These changes ultimately benefit the students, teachers, and coordinators of the program.