Conceptualising and measuring writing in English as a Foreign Language at primary school

This article discusses the role and nature of writing in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) at primary school and highlights the importance of conceptualising writing as a meaningful communicative activity in both teaching and research. From the outset, teaching and assessing EFL writing should not only focus on linguistic features but also, and primarily, on the communicative effectiveness of a text. This approach is well established within communicative approaches to language teaching, yet equally important in the context of measuring and researching EFL writing competence. The way in which EFL writing is measured in research can have a considerable washback effect on how it is taught and assessed in schools. By taking the example of the research project «An Empirical Study of EFL Writing at Primary School», the article illustrates the implications of such a construct definition for measuring EFL writing, in particular with regard to rating scale and task development. It also discusses its implications for teaching and assessing EFL writing in the primary English classroom.