THE EFFECTS OF USING RUBRICS AND FACE TO FACE FEEDBACK IN TEACHING WRITING SKILL IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Abstract

The use of rubrics in assessing the writing performance is very popular. In general, educators in universities use rubrics for more accurate assessment of students writing performance. The first aim of this study is to investigate how using of rubrics in teaching writing skill can affect writing performance of students. The second aim is to investigate how giving of face to face feedback by teachers can have influence on students writing performance. To this end, ESL Writing Grading Rubric was used in teaching of writing skill to the preparatory school students (n=36) to help them understand the targets for their learning and the standards of quality for writing skill in order to improve their writing performance. Also, face to face feedback were given to the writing assignments of students to promote the students’ awareness about their writing drawbacks. The qualitative analysis of the findings based on open-ended questionnaire and focused group interview showed that using rubrics in teaching writing skill and also giving face to face feedback improved the students writing performance. Students reported that by gaining awareness about the rubric, they could check their writing work, give feedback to their peers’ work, produce high quality writings, and got better grades.

Keywords: writing skill, writing rubrics, preparatory school students, face to face feedback