The Assessment of L2 Written English across the MENA Region A Synthesis of Practice Edited by Lee McCallum · Christine Coombe The Assessment of L2 Written English across the MENA Region · Lee McCallum Christine Coombe Editors The Assessment of L2 Written English across the MENA Region A Synthesis of Practice Editors Lee McCallum Christine Coombe Social Sciences and International Studies Dubai Men’s College University of Exeter Higher Colleges ofTechnology Exeter, UK Dubai, United Arab Emirates ISBN 978-3-030-53253-6 ISBN 978-3-030-53254-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53254-3 ©The Editor(s) (if applicable) andThe Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whetherthewholeorpartofthematerialisconcerned,specificallytherightsoftranslation,reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way,andtransmissionorinformationstorageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publicationdoesnot imply,evenintheabsenceof aspecific statement,thatsuch namesareexempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Thepublisher,theauthorsandtheeditorsaresafetoassumethattheadviceandinformationinthis book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Maram_shutterstock.com ThisPalgraveMacmillanimprintispublishedbytheregisteredcompanySpringerNatureSwitzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland …To our parents… Acknowledgments Wewouldliketothankallcontributorsfortheirhardworkinproducing thisvolume.Theirdedicationandtimelyresponsetofeedbackandguid- ance helped ensure the volume contained high quality engaging research that writing assessment stakeholders can benefit from. We would also like to thank the team at Palgrave Macmillan especially Cathy Scott, Alice Green, Preetha Kuttiappan and Hemapriya Eswanth and the two reviewers who provided helpful feedback on our original book proposal. vii Contents Test Design and Administration: Connections to Curriculum andTeacher Understandings of Assessment Introduction 3 Lee McCallum and Christine Coombe Language Assessment Literacy: Task Analysis in Saudi Universities 13 Mubina Rauf and Lee McCallum Creational Reverse Engineering: A Project to Enhance English PlacementTest Security,Validity, and Reliability 43 Hadeel El Rahal and Huda Dimashkie Rebuilding theTower of Babel? Promises and Problems ofWorld Englishes forWriting Assessment 69 Esmat Babaii ix x Contents Grading and Feedback Connections: Exploring Grading Criteria, Practices and the Provision of Feedback CAF Profiles of Iranian Writers: What We Learn fromThem andTheir Limitations 93 Niloufar Shahmirzadi Exploring the Essay Rating Judgements of English Instructors in the Middle East 113 Analynn P. Bustamante and SelahattinYilmaz HowWritingTeachers’ Beliefs Influence Grading Practices 143 Najoua Ben Hedia Designing Scoring Rubrics for Different Writing Tasks: The Case of ResumeWriting in Iran 171 Mojtaba Mohammadi and Jaber Kamali PrimaryTrait Rubric:The Case of MENA Countries 195 RezaVahdani-Sanavi Teaching and Assessment Connections: Exploring Learner Performance and the Impact of Instruction Assessing L2 Argumentation in the UAE Context 225 Jingjing Qin Integrated Summarizing Read-to-Write Tasks: Patterns ofTextual Borrowing and the Role of theWritten Genre 241 Katayoun Rezaei and Elaheh Sotoudehnama Changing Practices to Overcome Writing Difficulties in EFL Courses at University: A Lebanese Case Study 269 Tamara Al Khalili Contents xi Integrating Computer- and Teacher-Provided Feedback in an EFL AcademicWriting Context 297 Mojtaba Heydari and Fahimeh Marefat Research on Feedback in EFL Classes in the MENA Region: State of the Art 325 Moez Athimni, SafaYaakoubi, and Hanin Bouzaiene UsingResearchMethodstoCapturetheNatureofWriting Proficiency and its Assessment Spelling Errors in the Preliminary English B1 Exam: Corpus-Informed Evaluation of Examination Criteria for MENA Contexts 359 Niall Curry andTony Clark Learning What Works in Improving Writing: A Meta-Analysis ofTechnology—Oriented Studies Across Saudi Universities 393 Lee McCallum and Mubina Rauf Index 429 Notes on Contributors Tamara Al Khalili isaPh.D.candidateattheUniversityofExeterand a part-time English instructor. Tamara has been teaching English as a foreign language for several years in the MENA region. Her research interests include writing instruction and assessment, foreign language challenges at the tertiary level in Lebanon, equality in education and blended learning in higher education. Moez Athimni isanAssistantProfessorofEnglishlanguageandlinguis- tics at the Higher Institute of Languages ofTunis (ISLT). He is also the coordinator of the Applied Research Center for LanguageTeaching and EvaluationandthelocalchairofLanguageTestingResearchColloquium (LTRC) 2021. He has participated in several national and international conferences and has published two book chapters on assessment literacy andfeedbackpracticesinTunisia.Hisresearchinterestsincludetheareas of language teaching, testing, and evaluation. Esmat Babaii is Professor of applied linguistics at Kharazmi Univer- sity, Iran, where she teaches research methods, language assessment and discourse analysis to graduate students. She has published articles and xiii