um so hi everyone my name is sharon pierce i am an assessment manager at michigan

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language assessment and in today's webinar i will be unpacking for you
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the brand new ecpe writing section that is launching in may 2021
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um before we jump in we do have a poll that's going live um
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it's going to ask you a little bit about who we have tuning in today so you should see that
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pop up on your screen you can check all of the responses that apply to you
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and we'll we'll close that poll in a few here just to kind of see who we have joining us so
welcome
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so before we get started just a couple of things as far as zoom logistics go so um you've
probably
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noticed everybody is muted and has their cameras off with the exception of myself
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and my two colleagues that are joining me today but you can interact via the chat i know a lot
of you have done that
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already said hello or shared something with us so that is available to you
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you also have available to you the q a function so for the q a you will only see your
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own submissions there but that's where you can send in questions that you have about the
new
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ecpe writing section as i'm going through the presentation and at the end of the webinar
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we'll have a q a session and we'll try to answer as many of those questions as we're able to we
are recording
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today's session as well so we'll let you know when the recording becomes available
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some of you may have tuned in last week when my colleague rachelle sucker hosted a
webinar all about all of
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the changes to the new ecpe and ecce that recording is now up on our
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youtube channel so if you missed it you can still go and check that out
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in today's session we are going to look at the new task types that we have in ecpe writing
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so the article proposal and essay task we'll also look at the new feature of
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the source information that's provided to the test takers and then we'll dig into the new acpe
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writing rating scale the criteria that are used to evaluate responses
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and finally we'll take a look at some sample responses from test takers to see how the rating
scale
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is applied to them okay so i'm going to go ahead and
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end our poll here thank you so much for all of you that responded
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and i'm going to share the results with you you should be able to see that on your screen so it
looks like we have lots of
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teachers joining us today welcome we have some language school owners some
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professors test center administrators we even have
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some students materials developers so all all kinds joining us today and thank
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you so much for being here with us today
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okay so let's talk about new ecpe writing
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section so the writing section assesses a test taker's written production in english
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at the c2 level before we look at the tasks and the scale and all of those details
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i wanted to spend a moment just talking about what the cefr says about writing at c2
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so what i'd like you to do now is share some ideas using the chat function on what features
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of writing what skills or what abilities you would expect a c2 level writer to demonstrate in
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other words what can a c2 level writer do so take a moment share some ideas in the
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chat when you think about c2 what do you think
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a c2 level writer can do
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i see some ideas coming in already complex language
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use advanced grammar comfortable using a variety of structures
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accurately okay expressing ideas clearly
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organize their essay complex structures idiomatic expressions
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use vocab and grammar competently
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coherence okay
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communicate effectively using different structures advanced vocabulary clear structure
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complexity lots of great ideas coming in in the chat thank you for participating
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subtle shades of meaning yes
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okay so i'm going to share some kind of key
descriptors at c2 with you so when we think about what a c2 level writer can do
some of the the key concepts that i'd like to point out and and all of you pointed out a lot of
these things as well
but they can produce clear smoothly flowing complex reports articles or essays which

present a case they can write engaging descriptions of experience in a style that's appropriate
to the genre they can provide an effective an
appropriate and effective logical structure which helps the reader find significant points
they can set out multiple perspectives on complex academic or professional topics
and clearly distinguish their own ideas and opinions from those in the sources
and have a good command of a very broad lexical repertoire including idiomatic expressions
and
colloquialisms and showing awareness of connotative levels of meaning
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so in developing the new ecpe writing tasks and the rating skill
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we test developers here at michigan language assessment use descriptors from the cefr like
these
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as building blocks to ensure that this new test would be a robust measure of
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written production at this level so we're going to kind of come back to some of these
statements as
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we continue talking but keep these concepts in mind this idea of c2 in mind and we're going
to take a look at the new tasks now and then the evaluation criteria in the rating
scale
okay so the new acpe writing section is going to be assessing a test taker's
ability to compose a clear and complex c2 level piece of writing
that evaluates multiple viewpoints on a topic and includes the test taker's own
opinion about the issue the test taker is presented with two tasks they choose one of the two
tasks
provided and those tasks can be in the form of an essay an article or a proposal and the test
takers will have 45 minutes to compose their response
there are also three sources that are provided with visual support such as a

chart a graph a speech bubble and the test taker will need to incorporate at least
one of these sources into their response so let's take a closer look at each of
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the possible task formats that i've just described
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let's take a look at the essay task first so here on screen i have an example of
an essay task in this task the test taker is presented with a claim about a conceptual or abstract
idea
and then they're asked to consider the positive and negative impacts or effects of this idea
as well as their own opinion so let's take a look at this prompt social media has allowed
people to
connect from around the world what positive and negative impact might this have
write an essay addressing this topic and explain what you think about it include at least one
piece of information given above to support your response

so what i want to show you is that every

essay task follows the same sort of basic structure or format

so let's break it down in the essay task we're always going to start with a claim so this really
sets the theme
it gives context it lets the test taker know what topic will need to be considered so
in this case it's this idea of social media allowing people to connect from all over the
the next element here is the question so this is always going to address multiple sides of an
issue we want test
takers to consider multiple viewpoints in their responses so in this particular task it's what
positive and negative impact might this have you might see the question phrased slightly
differently but it's always
going to get at this idea of multiple viewpoints the
next part is the task instruction so this tells test takers to write an essay and
to address that claim and that question that were presented above but also to include their
own opinion
about it so addressing multiple perspectives as well as their own
and the last element is always going to be the source instruction we'll go over the sources in
more detail
in just a bit but this is standard text that's included in every task so it's instructing them to
include at
least one piece of information given above to support your response so in the prompt as we'll
see in a little bit we have the three sources above the tax and we're instructing the test taker to
incorporate at least one of those into their response
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let's look at one more example of an essay task so a different one here some people
believe that an employee's wellness is connected to their working conditions what positive
and negative effects do
you think that a company's working conditions might have on employees write an essay
addressing this topic and discuss what you think about it include at least one piece of
information given above to support your response so again we're starting with that claim
it's followed by a question that gets at the idea of multiple perspectives
the task instruction that's telling the test taker to consider that claim and that question and
also their own
opinion and finally that source instruction incorporating that external information
into the response so that's the essay task but we do have two other formats that
the task can be presented in so let's take a look at those
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we will look at the article task next so here is an example of an article task
in the article task the test taker is presented with a situation that impacts a large group of
people and then
they're asked to discuss multiple viewpoints on it as well as their own opinion
so this prompt teachers in your school plan to use a popular social media platform for class
activities some teachers and students are excited about this idea but others are not write an
article for the school
newspaper on the effects of forcing students and teachers to use social media for class
work and your opinion about it include at least one piece of information given above
to support your response so just like the essay task the article task
follows a a standard kind of structure so let's look at that

first we have the situation so in the article task the test taker is provided with a
description of a concrete situation that impacts a large group of people so
in this case it's teachers in the school that are planning to use social media for their classes
next we have viewpoints so a sentence here that summarizes some of the viewpoints
on the issue from those who are impacted so some of the teachers and the students are excited
about this idea of social
media in class others are not next is the task instruction so this
piece indicates to the test taker the audience that they're writing to so in this case
they're writing for a school newspaper it also indicates that they should discuss
different or opposing sides of the issue in their response and it instructs them to give their
own
opinion as well and finally again we have that source
instruction that standard text so that's the article task
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and the last one is a proposal so in the proposal the test taker is
asked to evaluate multiple viewpoints on an issue this should start to sound familiar
um but what's different here is that they're also asked to persuade the reader to take a
particular
course of action but you'll notice the structure is really similar to that of the article task so
here's a proposal
task a local company wants to allow its employees to make decisions about their
working hours and create their own schedules for coming into the office some people at the
company think that
this is not a good idea write a proposal to the president of the company evaluating the
different
options and explain what you think should be done include at least one piece of information
given above to support your
response okay so let's break down the proposal
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again we're starting with a situation so the test taker is provided with a description of a
concrete situation that impacts a large group of people
next viewpoints a sentence that summarizes some of the viewpoints on the issue from those
that are impacted
the task instructions so again indicating who the audience is in this case it's the president of
the
company that the proposal is going to be directed to it also indicates that they should
discuss the different and opposing sides of the issue in the response and then again instructs
them to give
their own opinion on what should be done or what actions should be taken
and then finally that standard source instruction
so as we've seen these new tasks can present themselves in three different formats the test
taker will always have the essay as one of the two options so as i mentioned the test taker will
always be presented
with two different tasks and they choose which one to respond to one of those will always be
the essay
the other option will be either the article or the proposal but never both
all three task types though they have the same overall objective as you probably have
picked up on

each task seeks to elicit a response from the test taker that includes
a discussion of multiple viewpoints on the topic as well as the task taker's own opinion
so those are sort of the key similarities each task also asks a test
taker to use at least one of the provided sources
as far as the differences between the task types they are different genres with different
audiences so the essay is more of the traditional response type with an academic focus
whereas the
article and proposal task they give the test taker a specific audience or context to write within
so for the article usually that audience is going to be a group who's impacted by the situation
that's provided
for the proposal the test taker is to write directly to someone with decision making power
over the
situation and that information will always be in that task instruction component
of the task the only other difference between the task types is that the essay
topic will typically be something more abstract while the article or proposal topics will be
more concrete
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so for example we have a prompt in which the article task is about robots delivering packages
to
homes and businesses and the paired essay task is about the
impacts of online shopping making products more accessible so the two tasks that are
presented together
will always be in the same general topic area and then the sources that are provided
will apply to both task options so let's go ahead and take a closer look
at sources next

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okay i have an example on screen for you now
for each prompt so again which includes an essay task and then either an article or a proposal
task the test
taker will be provided with three sources that are relevant to the overall topic
so the two tasks are on different specific topics but overall they're in the same topic area
the sources can be presented in the form of charts graphs figures speech bubbles
they include some concise text as well as a reference to where the information came from so
for example in these we have a 2019 study a recent news report or a quote will be
attributed to a specific person so the tech taker will need to
incorporate at least one of these sources into their response now they can choose to include
more than
one but that's not required that's that's at their discretion what we want to see
here is how the test taker uses the information to support the ideas in their response
and also that they can acknowledge that this information has come from some external source
and
not just from their own brain so remember that cefr descriptor that i
showed you that was about multiple perspectives and distinguishing one's own ideas
and own opinions from those in sources that's really the main focus here with these sources
the test takers might choose to quote the sources directly they might choose to paraphrase
them
it's really up to them how they want to incorporate it depending on how they're using it they
don't need to follow any particular conventions in terms of citation or anything like
that so we're not looking for you know apa formatting or anything of that sort
we want to see how they use them to support their ideas and some sort of acknowledgement
that
the information came from somewhere else

so when we look at some sample responses

in a little bit you'll be able to see what that might look like but before we get to that i want to
talk
a bit about the ecpe writing rating scale which is also brand new
so the ecpe writing section has the
following new scoring criteria we have task completion development language and authorial
voice
so i want to go through each one of these in more detail
let's start with task completion this criteria looks at whether the task taker's
response addresses the specific topic provided in the task that they chose
it looks at if they evaluated multiple viewpoints on the issue as well as included their own
opinion
and how they have integrated at least one of those provided sources into their response
to support their ideas so if we think back to those cefr descriptors
some of the key points here is this idea of multiple perspectives that at c2 writers should be
able to
incorporate that and also as i just mentioned this idea of distinguishing one's own ideas
from external ones

the next criteria is development so

development considers the extent of support or the depth of support provided for the points
made in
the response as well as how clearly and logically the writing is organized so the connection to
the cefr
here is this idea of complexity that getting at that idea of depth as
well as the organization appropriate and effective logical structure

next criteria is language the language covers control of grammatical features as well
as the range and usage of vocabulary in the writing so here we have this idea
of smoothly flowing so control of grammar and a very broad lexical repertoire
referencing that vocabulary range

the final criteria is authorial voice this criteria covers the originality of
the response and how the test taker uses rhetorical devices such as
appeals to shared knowledge appeals to emotion could be rhetorical questions personal
examples specific details something to engage the reader
so in the cefr we see that word engaging appear at c2 so that's what we're looking for
with authorial voice

___________________________________________________________________________
______

so at this point i'd like us to take a

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look at some sample responses so that you can see how this all comes together
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how the criteria we just went over are applied to responses so a few things before we
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jump into that the new ecpe writing rating skill as well as the sample responses we're going
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to look at today and then some are all available on our website so you can download the
entire revised
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ecpe sample test it's a zip file with quite a few pdfs there's a lot of resources there
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we're going to take a look at just some of the writing samples but just know there is a lot
more on our
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website so michiganassessment.org after the webinar you can go check it out and
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and download those resources okay so what we're going to do with the
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sample responses i'm going to read through for you several sample responses from test
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takers and i'll put the text on the screen as well and as i read each one i want you to
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think about how the response meets the evaluation or the rating criteria
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so keep these four things in mind you might want to write them down you might want to take
a screenshot but
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we're thinking about task completion development language and authorial voice so i'll read
through
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some responses and then after each one i'll talk about these four criteria
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and how the test taker performed and so if you'd like to follow along in this way you can take
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some notes while i'm reading and then you can compare your notes with mine to help you
better
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understand this new test section so just make sure that you remember the four criteria
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that's what we're going to focus on as we look at these responses
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okay the first sample we're going to look at was written in response to the article task that you
see on screen now
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it's one of the task examples that we broke down into its different components earlier about
social media being used in
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class you can see here the three sources that the test takers were
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presented with so um we have some charts and graphs a direct quote
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and then again in this particular task we're asking the test taker to write an article
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for the school newspaper about the effects of forcing teachers and students to use
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social media for class and what the task taker's opinion about it is
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okay so let's take a look at the response remember the criteria as you follow
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along make a few notes if you need to and we'll talk about how this response
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meets them at the end okay social media in the classroom
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can this provide that extra oomph students need for better or worse the internet has
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really changed the way we communicate with others tom withers professor for better or
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worse in this age as we look towards the social movement online
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we find that social media isn't a perfect place as it is portrayed in advertisements
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there is always place for comments that detract from the innocence and beauty of everyday
things
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we constantly see an avalanche of gossip and bad vibes around posts and videos how can we
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bring this into the classroom going around the school i managed to get some very different
opinions on the
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subject ranging from oh that would be awesome to oh my god no when asked about their
responses i
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met with both joy and fear but why were this emotion so extreme i
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went to social media to find out the reason for these feelings and what i found wasn't pretty
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the first account i researched belonged to the excited side there i could see thousands of
pictures
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and posts that could make any social media personality jealous perfect pictures and perfect
lives that
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people enjoyed i could see why more videos and pics for their feed would be attractive and
would
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point to a positive look towards social media in a class then i switched accounts to the
opposite
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side of the discussion i watched as more 20 pictures appeared in the feed
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ranging from 0 to 8 likes including parents and or extended family this page was
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desolate there was one post that appeared after a few minutes and not long from that a
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comment appeared to my dismay one of the known popular kids from the school
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shut down the photo with a rather nasty comment after a few seconds i refreshed the feed
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and found that the post was no more it had been deleted after all of the
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interviews and research both online and offline i came to several findings
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my first finding was that the amount of users of social media has gone up one third this is
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important because we can see that we are more exposed to the world than ever before
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the most important finding was that over 50 percent of users think that they can truly express
their opinions freely
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meaning that both good and bad opinions are able to reach millions this got me thinking
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how can a school protect their students from their own and even outside opinions how can we
share a classroom with 3
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billion users and expect good results i just can't fathom that authorities can
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merely control acts bullying inside their ground and now we are expected to share what we
do
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with the world as many students and teachers that are excited and accepting social media in
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their classrooms there is a quiet audience who fears what might happen if we let the world
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inside the class schools should first manage their current problems
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before jumping into the social media world as it is right now to end this i will leave my own
comment
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to this post but what if take it as you may
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okay so as i said now you can compare any notes that you made um to mine i'll
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go through each of the four criteria and see how this performance measures up
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so as far as task completion um the writer really fulfills all of the task requirements so they've
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written an article they've discussed the impact of social media use in the classroom
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and they've also incorporated provided their own opinion
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as far as the sources they did include that direct quote at the beginning of their response
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um there is also information from the other two sources included in paragraph five however
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the information isn't really explicitly attributed to the provided sources and it could be
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misinterpreted as some of the writers own findings so they kind of made it sound like this
was their own
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research so what we would have liked to have seen here was some acknowledgement that this
information came
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from an external source
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as far as development goes this response is a well thought out article the writer's ideas
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are clearly described they're organized in a logical way and each paragraph moves forward
the
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writer's argument all the way to the conclusion
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in terms of language the writer uses quite precise and sophisticated vocabulary that is
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appropriate for this article so for example use of words and phrases
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like detract the avalanche of gossip or dismay
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the language that's used is somewhat informal but it's fitting for this kind of writing prompt
the
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writer demonstrates control of simple and of most complex sentences
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there are some errors in complex sentences that might have been distracting for you as the
reader so in paragraph
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one there is always place for comments um and in paragraph seven school
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should first manage um but overall these don't take away or detract from
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the meaning they're quite minor
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finally for authorial voice this writer's response is highly engaging and original
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the writer uses some rhetorical questions really successfully in both paragraph one and again
in
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paragraph six so using this type of strategy to reach out to the person who's reading
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and get them to think about the ideas that are being presented so overall for this first example
this
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test taker um we would say is well prepared to take the ecpe writing section
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okay so i want to show you a few more examples so you can just get a sense of
32:32
the variety of responses let's take a look at that same prompt but instead of the article i want
to
32:38
look at the essay task so you see we have the same sources the essay task is also one we
32:46
looked at earlier it's about social media allowing people to connect from around the world
32:52
and what are the positive and negative impacts okay so again i will read through the
32:59
response from the test taker as i do so make some notes about those four criteria
33:05
and then we'll talk through each one in detail
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okay example number two social media is now used in every corner
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of the world and that has a big impact in all of our lives first of all nowadays the internet and
33:27
especially social media has made our lives much more easier although it has got many
advantages and
33:33
disadvantages by using social media people can connect with whoever they want or need
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all around the world this is surely one of the most important things social media can offer
33:46
if someone wants to communicate with his friends even if they are abroad they just have to
text or facetime also
33:53
if someone goes for studies in a university abroad communication will not be a problem now
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social media users have risen dramatically from 2016 until now moreover the use of social
34:06
media has given us the opportunity to connect and talk with people from all around the world
and this
34:13
is definitely a great opportunity for teenagers and especially students
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by communicating with others that live far away from us people can learn a lot teenagers can
34:24
create friendship bonds and can learn about the culture and the lifestyle in remoted areas in
our world but also
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they can find out what is going on worldwide therefore social media might has a
34:38
negative impact in our lives too by communicating with others globally
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can make people and especially in younger ages get distracted from their homework or
34:49
their other activities which can lead to other more serious diseases physically and mentally
34:55
also internet has unfortunately got many dangers too everyone should know with whom they
are
35:02
talking and which is the other side's purpose as a professor have said for better or
35:08
worse the internet has really changed the way we communicate with others
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to conclude social media has one main role in our lives and undoubtedly in communication
but
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none of us have to get off limits okay let's go through those four
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criteria starting with task completion so this writer addresses the task
35:34
quite fully they've crafted an essay that discusses the impact of social media and given their
35:39
own opinion they have integrated one of the provided sources which was the quotation
35:47
and then they also have included some information from a second source here about social
media users the number
35:54
increasing but again the the source itself isn't referenced
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so what we'd like to see is some acknowledgement for example like in a 2019 study
36:06
blah blah blah some kind of connecting um phrase to show that the information
36:12
being presented is coming from some external source they did that successfully with the
quote
36:18
but not so much with the second one in terms of development the writers
36:25
ideas are generally well supported there is a section um when they're talking about the
dangers of
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social media this could have really been more developed there was a lot of potential here that
just wasn't fully
36:39
realized so the test taker is mentioning that distractions can lead to diseases but
36:45
they don't really explore the connection between those ideas very fully so that would have
been an
36:51
opportunity to further develop the ideas and get at that depth and complexity that we want to
see
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at this level for language the writer demonstrates
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control of simple and some complex syntactic structures
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there are some morphological breakdowns throughout in some longer sentences
37:15
so in remoted areas for example there's some subject verb agreement
37:21
issues when they're using more complex tenses like in paragraph three social media might has
um
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but again these are not major errors they're not too distracting where you can't get at
37:34
the meaning and they do attempt quite a few complex structures
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in terms of vocabulary the vocabulary used in this response is generally successful
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it matches the context
37:51
for authoritative voice this this response's content is somewhat original
37:57
especially some of the ideas about connecting with others while studying abroad
38:02
learning about other cultures but apart from those ideas the response is fairly straightforward
and predictable
38:09
we don't see appeals to emotion or you know personal specific examples that help kind of
38:15
bring some life to the response but but generally it's it's somewhat original
38:21
so overall for example to we would say this test taker is well prepared to take
38:28
the ecpe writing section as well
38:35
okay let me see how we're doing on time i think we have time to look at one more example
38:40
i do want to leave us a little bit of time at the end for questions but let's look at example three
this is
38:47
in response to a proposal task so i wanted to show you um sort of one of each so you could
get
38:53
a sense of the different variety of responses as i said
38:58
on our website you can see many more examples in addition to the ones i'm showing you now
39:04
um so this is a different prompt than the the two that we just looked at previously
39:09
um this one is more about a workplace focus so again we have some charts and graphs
39:17
we have a direct quote and this proposal task a local company wants to allow its
39:23
employees to make decisions about their working hours and create their own schedules for
39:29
coming into the office some people at the company think that this is not a good idea
39:35
write a proposal to the president of the company evaluating the different options and explain
what you think should be
39:41
done include at least one piece of information given above to support your response
39:48
so just like the others let's read through this response and then talk through the four criteria
39:58
here's the response madam president while most people would agree that their
40:04
working schedules are very tiring the number of companies that continue making these
decisions for
40:10
their employees it's on the increase clearly it is not reasonable to work for
40:15
hours and hours and not have any time to rest when you want to therefore the aim of my
proposal is to
40:22
present the benefits of allowing employees to make their own schedule
40:27
some people at the company think that this is not a good idea because employees might set a
bad
40:33
schedule maybe it's too difficult for them and they want to change it later that might be messy
for you and other
40:40
bosses but to help with this you can ask people to try a schedule out first
40:45
so they can see how it affects their children and outside lives you can show them that work is
not their
40:52
opponent and they can feel less anxious unhappy and even depressed because they are
listened to
40:58
another benefit of letting employees create their working schedules is they will get to decide
when and how
41:05
much time off that is good for them there is a strong feeling among all concerned
41:11
that having more time off increases employee productivity as are the results of a recent study
in
41:17
2019 more particularly workers that are able to offer the company the most essential
41:24
ideas and generally people who seem to be very clever at work are those who have some
leisure time in
41:30
order to stay with their families their friends and do something to relax
41:36
choosing their schedules will help them be less anxious and also be more productive at work
41:42
therefore it would be advantageous to your company in the long run because employees will
contribute more
41:47
to their work they will also arrive on time because they chose when to begin working
41:53
and they will have more fun what i mean is that when people have time to relax they
comprehend that their work is not
41:59
only something that gives them money but also a benefit for their life doing a job
42:05
that you like makes you feel happy and also gives you the chance to gain new experiences
and knowledge meet people with different
42:12
beliefs cooperate with them and also past your everyday time
42:18
if all the above suggestions are implemented allowing your people to create their own
schedules will be very
42:23
productive for your workplace people will have to cooperate to figure out new schedules and
both
42:29
you and the workers will achieve success i am sure everything i said will help
42:34
you and your employees make the most beneficial decision all right let's take a look at the
42:42
criteria for this one so this writer addresses the topic and
42:47
they fulfill all of the task requirements so their proposal to the company president
42:53
really really clearly indicates the suggestions that they have um they're looking at the
different
43:00
sides of things they're giving their own opinion about what should be done in paragraph three
the writer fully
43:07
integrates one of the provided sources and uses it to support their ideas about
43:12
employee cleverness and relaxation so this is a great example of really
43:19
integrating a source into a response
43:24
in terms of development um the ideas in this response are well supported and developed in
43:31
paragraph two the writer addresses the feelings of some people at the company and provides
43:36
a suggestion to help ease their concerns in paragraphs three and four
43:42
oops let me go back here in paragraphs three and four the writer
43:47
describes the effects of employees creating their own schedule by addressing the impact on
their
43:53
personal and professional lives and then finally in the conclusion they summarize the
proposal's main point
44:00
the benefits so the organization is really clear and they use a lot of connectors to help
44:06
with the flow of their ideas
44:15
in terms of language this writer demonstrates control of complex syntactic structures
44:22
in paragraph three and also in paragraph four lots of
44:28
examples of that the vocabulary used in the response really adequately matches the context of
44:35
the writing so it's a proposal to the president they exhibit some sophistication with
44:41
the vocabulary so words like benefit advantageous clever leisure time
44:46
opponent implemented um lots lots of good examples there
44:54
for authorial voice um this writer's response is convincing and it has some originality to it as
45:01
well um the writer expands beyond the prompts premise and considers the personal aspects of
45:08
the employees lives so talking about leisure time raising children i would say the most
45:14
engaging parts of this response are when the writer is directly addressing the president of the
company
45:20
so like in paragraph 4 it would be advantageous to your company so
45:25
that that direct address also in paragraph 5 allowing your people
45:32
to create their own schedules so again this this particular response
45:40
this writer is also quite well prepared to take the ecpe writing section
45:45
i chose to show you some of the successful responses but again if you download those sample
test
45:51
materials from our website you'll be able to review quite a few more
45:57
so i hope that these have given you a good idea of what you can expect with this new
46:02
test at this point i do want to move on just to make sure that we have time for
46:09
some questions so i see that you've been putting some questions into the q
46:15
a here on zoom so thank you for that um i'm going to ask my colleagues who are
46:20
on the call from michigan um to help moderate the q a
46:26
we'll get to as many questions as we can um if there are common or repeated questions we'll
try to make sure that we
46:31
get those um so rachelle if you are able to unmute yourself on what
46:38
questions do we have um well we have several questions um i see some both in the chat
46:44
and in the the q a tool i'll try to get to some from both of them one question that i've seen pop
up
46:50
several times was a question about required length of responses
46:56
many attendees are asking you know how many words are required is there a minimum is
there a limit um
47:03
could you talk a bit more about that yeah sure um so we actually don't have
47:09
a hard rule on this um we're not looking for a particular length i would say
47:16
to look back at the the rating criteria what we really want to see is development so we want to
see ideas
47:23
that are fully fleshed out and supported and that's more important than the number of words
or pages so
47:30
if you're a teacher preparing students i would advise you to really focus on that idea of
development and not
47:37
worry as much about you know counting words or number of pages that being said i think it's
safe to say
47:45
that most ecpe test takers write between one and two pages in their response but
47:51
again i would just really encourage you to focus on that development aspect okay
47:56
thanks um some other people also commented on the length of the sample responses
48:02
that were shown um i'm guessing that perhaps these are longer than the
48:07
responses that we have seen on the current ecpe maybe because of the
48:12
length of time that we know we now allow test takers for their response could you talk a bit
about that
48:19
yeah so the the length of the test has been extended to 45 minutes
48:24
um because this is a more complex level of writing than you know for example the ecce um
48:31
it it's warranted to have that additional time so yeah it's possible that test takers may be able
to produce
48:38
um somewhat longer responses because they have that additional time but i'll just reiterate
that the you
48:45
know the length is not really the key thing that we'll be looking at with the responses it's
going to be
48:51
those criteria that we went over great i also see a lot of questions
48:57
about the use of headings titles subheaders and things like that
49:03
um could you talk about whether or not those are required or allowed in any of the
49:09
response types yeah for sure so we we have seen that
49:15
task takers sometimes are including things like this and their responses especially for things
like the article
49:22
task you know creating a title for it like the example that we looked at together
49:28
so that's something at the test taker's discretion um we're not being prescriptive in any
49:33
way about the format of things um so when we talked about the different rating criteria
49:39
um in terms of the task completion aspect we're more focused on those core
49:44
components of the multiple perspectives the task taker's opinion
49:49
incorporating one of those sources acknowledging that it came from somewhere else
49:55
being on topic addressing the audience so if it's you know the school newspaper
50:00
the president of the company making sure that that comes across um so if the test taker feels
that
50:06
including things like headings or titles is useful or helpful in in
50:11
organizing their response they're welcome to do that but we don't have any explicit
requirements around that
50:19
that being part of the response another attendee asked if it's
50:26
possible for the test taker to respond citing all three of the sources that
50:32
they are given yes so um we only require that
50:38
one of the three sources be incorporated into the response but we have seen
50:43
that sometimes test takers find ways to use all three of them um i if you're a teacher preparing
50:50
students i would maybe just focus on starting with one because that is what the requirement is
50:57
if they want to use more than that that's great um as long as it's helping them to
51:02
support their ideas that's the key thing so i would say it would be better
51:07
to use one source and have it really make a strong point than to use all three um but just
51:14
kind of have them stuck in there without being explained or fully integrated so the key thing
with the sources
51:20
is how they're being used to support the ideas whether it's one meeting those
51:25
requirements fully or whether they want to include more that's really at their discretion
51:31
great um one of the attendees has asked if all four of the criteria
51:39
um in the rating scale are weighted equally so i don't want to get too much into
51:46
rating details since you know this is in a raider training scoring type of session
51:51
if you look at the rating scale you will see that the the different values in terms of numbers
51:57
for scores that are assigned are different across the different criteria and the reason for that is
that we're
52:04
there's different ranges of ability that we're looking at especially with a category like
language
52:10
we have a wide range of different abilities that we want the skill to be able to capture
52:15
whereas with something like authorial voice it's something that's sort of there or not so that
explains that the
52:23
differences in the different criteria on the scale okay thanks many people are asking
52:32
about um the type of response um are they only are we only expecting
52:40
positive versus negative sort of responses or some people have asked
52:46
would there also be instances in which test takers are asked to discuss a problem and a
solution or a
52:53
cause and an effect or some other structure like that yeah so regardless of of the the genre
53:02
or the task type we're always going to ask the test taker to consider multiple perspectives or
53:07
viewpoints so oftentimes that that could take the shape of positive and negative but not
53:13
necessarily um it's it's just going to be looking at a particular issue
53:18
and what are the different perspectives that may exist on it so acknowledging that there are
53:24
more than one points of view on a particular topic um
53:30
we we would see in the proposal task this idea of problem solution that's sort of the way
53:36
that it's set up where we have the situation that's being proposed we have that
53:42
viewpoint sentence explaining you know how those impacted are feeling about it generally
53:47
and then the test taker is asked to explain you know what are the possible solutions out there
and which one do you
53:55
think is the one that should be taken forward so in that sense it is a bit different than just
looking at positives and
54:01
negatives um but i would just highlight again that the sort of overarching connecting point is
that
54:08
regardless of the task type it's going to be asking the test taker to look at multiple points of
view
54:16
okay um someone else has asked if we are moving away from the
54:22
expectation of a four or five paragraph
54:27
length response she said that she had you know typically taught her students that the five
54:34
paragraph essay structure is what uh was the um ideal for their response
54:41
would you say that this is still the case so i think that the five paragraph
54:47
format is a really handy tool and reference for test takers and students to learn
54:54
because it's a really clear structured way to put ideas together in a response
55:00
now is it the only way that test takers can effectively respond to these tasks
55:05
definitely not as you saw in some of the sample responses we looked at not every
55:11
response is following that format especially if we have you know something like the article or
proposal tax
55:17
there's a bit more freedom in terms of you know how to structure things
55:23
i would say for test takers that are still building their skills you know that sort of standard five
55:29
paragraph essay format is going to be a really helpful tool to ensure that they have order and
logic to the way
55:36
they're presenting their ideas but again i think there are many other ways that
55:41
that one could effectively organize a response so i wouldn't say that you know that's the
55:46
only way to write a successful response okay and following on from that um
55:52
someone has asked if single sentence paragraphs are discouraged she said that she
55:59
noticed that there were some in the responses that you discussed she had always thought that
56:08
students should be taught not to write single sentence paragraphs but but she noticed some is
this an
56:14
issue so again i think it goes back to the the genre or the purpose for writing so
56:21
in the essay task it's a bit more academic a bit more formal but something like the article
56:28
task is a different animal it's a bit more informal um the format doesn't necessarily need
56:34
to look like that you know structured paragraph format so i would say yeah
56:39
it's it really depends on the the task itself and you know having a one a one sentence
56:46
paragraph if you will um could be effective as we saw in some of the examples
56:51
so um i don't think that necessarily we have to be bound to to those sort of rules okay i think
the
56:59
response you just gave uh leads really well into this next question and probably okay
57:05
um but several people commented on the informal nature of some of the
57:10
the responses that you showed yeah and they said that they were surprised
57:15
because they found them to be more informal than the style of writing that they have been
teaching
57:21
their students um and they want to know if they should perhaps you know incorporate more
informal
57:28
writing uh tasks and exercises in their teaching
57:33
what would you recommend i mean i would say yes at this level at c2 if you look at the
57:40
cefr it's all about variety and complexity and ease regardless of genre and so
57:48
being able to be flexible as a writer in those different formats
57:53
is an important skill so my advice would be yes have your students try writing in
57:58
different styles and formats at this level they have the building blocks and the foundation
58:03
of skills of language of structures to do that um and so yeah have some fun with it and
58:10
get them to try out these different styles because that's part of what what we want to get at
with
58:15
these tasks um is to allow for that flexibility um in writing okay
58:24
and there are some more questions um revisiting the two sides to an issue
58:31
somebody is asking is it possible for there to be a topic which just asks for the test taker's
opinion and to justify
58:38
it without talking about the other side should the test takers always acknowledge the other
side of the issue
58:45
or can they only just advocate for their opinion in their response yeah so
58:52
the one of the key things about this new ecpe writing task is that regardless of
58:59
you know whether it's an essay an article or a proposal something that we want to see in
every response
59:06
is discussion of multiple points of view so opposing sides of the issue so if the
59:11
test taker were to only focus on their own opinion they wouldn't be fulfilling
59:17
the criteria for task completion because the tasks are all asking the test taker to consider the
59:24
impact on multiple sides or multiple perspectives so that's something really key that we
59:30
want to make sure is clear and that is included is this discussion of more than one
59:36
point of view but also discussion of the test taker's own point of view
59:41
so i would say both are equally important and if they were to only discuss their own opinion
they would not be successfully
59:48
completing the task great thank you um several people have
59:53
also asked about materials for preparation and i just want to say that someone from
59:59
our educational materials department has sent me a message um letting me know
1:00:05
that we can tell everyone that we are working on a revised version of the ecpe writing
1:00:12
resource pack that will get these new samples and new version into account
1:00:17
so later this fall you can um expect to find that available and i also want
1:00:24
to mention that those of us in the assessment division have given similar webinars for
publishers
1:00:31
we know that several publishing companies are currently working on additional materials to
uh to have ready
1:00:39
for students for their preparations for next year so there are materials coming for all of
1:00:44
uh for all of you who are asking uh for that in the chat
1:00:50
um there will be more available by the time your students are really um you know kicking
into high gear to
1:00:56
prepare for this test um it is yeah thank you for mentioning that sure um yeah there are a lot
of
1:01:02
people asking about materials and you know that they were much needed and much
appreciated
1:01:09
we are already over time so i think we will stop here um if there is
1:01:15
anyone whose question i did not get to in the chat or q a um please feel free to send it to us
1:01:22
at info michiganassessment.org yes um here's here's our website
1:01:30
here's the email address that richelle just mentioned so as i said if you haven't already you
1:01:36
can go to our website check out all of the new sample test materials for both ecpe and
1:01:42
acce um take a look at those writing sample responses
1:01:47
the commentaries and again you can always contact us at this email address with any
1:01:53
questions we didn't get to i just want to say it's been a real pleasure working through the
details
1:01:59
of the new ecpe writing section with all of you today thank you so much for taking the time
to
1:02:05
join us and i hope you have a great rest of your day we will let you know
1:02:10
when the recording of this session is available thank you so much
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