1. The Need for Computerized Marking
Twelve or fifteen years ago, the vast majority of written work produced by EFL or ESL students was handwritten; only in very high-level Academic English courses was it normal to expect students to hand in type-written work. The increasing ubiquity of the computer in educational environments, along with the growth in sophistication and ease-of-use of word-processing packages, has changed the situation dramatically, however, and students at many levels and in many types of courses are now encouraged to hand in word-processed work -- indeed, many of us now teach word-processing skills as part of ESL and EFL courses, and the word-processor is beginning to be exploited as an effective tool in developing writing skills.
Teachers now routinely take in word-processed work from their students, but what do we do with it when we get it? Generally speaking, most of us do what we have always done with student work -- we annotate it, correct it or mark it using coloured pens, cryptic abbreviations, circles, arrows and squashed-up paragraphs of comment in minuscule handwriting. The work we return to students is often dauntingly messy, and many students do not have the patience to decipher our responses. It is also, surely, rather ironic that we now demand that our students use computer technology to achieve higher standards of presentation in their written work, while our marking remains as illegible as ever. This article presents one method which I developed for computer-marking the literature essays of my students in the University Admission Preparation Program at the University of Victoria. I have included some screen-shots of the system in action, and links to down-loadable files which will enable you to try out and modify the technique for yourself.
I piloted the system with two student volunteers during the April-July semester this year, and despite a few initial technical problems, it proved successful. Other students in the same group also began to submit their work electronically, some voluntarily and others as a result of my policy of accepting late submissions only in electronic format. Informal feedback from students suggests that most preferred electronic marking, although some of the less computer-literate were sometimes frustrated by technical difficulties, and some preferred to print out their marked work rather than reading it on the screen. I intend to do a larger-scale trial during the coming fall semester.