Professor's Ratings of Language Use and Rhetorical Organizations in ESL Compositions

Abstract

To what extent do the qualities of language use and rhetorical organization in compositions written by adult ESL students affect judgements of the overall effectiveness of their compositions? Do university faculty who regularly teach ESL students attribute greater value to language use or rhetorical organization in the writing of such students? Are judgements made by ESL instructors about the value of these qualities of writing consistent with those of professors of, say, Engineering or English literature? These questions were studied empirically by asking 26 professors - of Engineering, English literature, and ESL - at a Canadian university to rank order, at 8-month intervals, 2similar sets of compositions written by ESL students. These 8 compositions were modified by the researchers (cf. Freedman 1979) to possess, in a 2 by 2 factorial design, distinct combinations of effective and ineffective language use and rhetorical organization. After making the ratings, the professors were interviewed about the criteria they had used, and the difficulties they had experienced in assessing the compositions.