Native- and nonnative-speaking EFL teachers’ evaluation of Chinese students’ English writing

Abstract

This study examined differences between native and nonnative EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers’ ratings of the English writing of Chinese university students. I explored whether two groups of teachers -expatriates who typically speak English as their first language and ethnic Chinese with proficiency in English -gave similar scores to the same writing task and used the same criteria in their judgements. Forty-six teachers -23 Chinese and 23 English-background -rated 10 expository essays using a 10-point scale, then wrote and ranked three reasons for their ratings. I coded their reported reasons as positive or negative criteria under five major categories: general, content, organization, language and length. MANOVA showed no significant differences between the two groups in their scores for the 10 essays. Chi-square tests, however, showed that the English-background teachers attended more positively in their criteria to the content and language, whereas the Chinese teachers attended more negatively to the organization and length of the essays. The Chinese teachers were also more concerned with content and organization in their first criteria, whereas English-background teachers focused more on language in their third criteria. The results raise questions about the validity of holistic ratings as well as the underlying differences between native and nonnative EFL teachers in their instructional goals for second language (L2) writing.