Evaluating the Assessment Dimension of the Writing Component of a Preparatory English Program at a Public University: A Case Study *

IntroductionWriting is a productive skill enabling us to express thoughts in our mother tongue, to enhance our thinking skills and to become productive members of society (Grabe & Kaplan, 1997). Similarly, writing has an important place in learning a foreign language. Believing that writing is a vital skill both in first language and foreign language learning, Raimes (1983) emphasizes that writing aims to produce a connected text for a purpose and to a specific audience by means of the constant use of eyes, hands and the brain. For Raimes, there are three reasons why writing is an important skill in learning a foreign language. Firstly, while writing, students' grammatical structures and vocabulary are practiced and thus reinforced. Secondly, students learn to produce new ideas using the language and to take risks. Thirdly, students become engaged in the new language as they spend a lot of effort in the writing process.As also suggested by Grami (2010, p. 8), ". based on the natural order hypothesis, writing is generally considered to be the language skill obtained last, but nevertheless it is as important as the rest. " Regarding the importance of writing skills in English Language Teaching (ELT), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) with 60,000 institutional and individual members published a report indicating that the writing skill is considered the key to achievement in both school and in the workplace (NCTE, 2004). It is also emphasized that language learners' academic achievement in content areas is generally dependent upon their ability to express themselves by means of writing (Mason, Benedek-Wood, & Valasa, 2009). Despite the importance attached to EFL writing, it has been a historically neglected part of language programs (Badger & White, 2000). Due to the historical dominance of the audio-lingual approach in ELT (Matsuda, 2001, cited in Matsuda, 2003), studies carried out regarding EFL writing are profoundly insufficient. Furthermore, the concentration on writing instruction in EFL countries, such as Turkey has received little attention even though there have been a great number of studies about teaching English writing in English as a Second Language (ESL) contexts (Leki, 2001). As pointed out by Fujieda (2006), the number of studies dealing with writing in EFL contexts is limited; consequently, the field of L2 writing is still underdeveloped in the field of applied linguistics.Because the assessment of this important skill influences the effectiveness of writing programs in local contexts (Hamp-Lyons, 1991; Messick, 1996), it is suggested that assessing EFL writing skills, a multi-faceted process, should be studied in different contexts (Coombe, 2010). Offering some useful and practical guiding principles concerning writing assessment, the report prepared by the Committee on Assessment (2006) indicates that the best writing assessment practices should be informed by curricular goals, and that they are undertaken in response to local goals. Therefore, this evaluation case study aims to investigate the assessment dimension of a preparatory English writing program in a large Englishmedium state university from the perspectives of students and instructors. Such case studies carried out for evaluation purposes around the world have revealed areas for the improvement of English programs in different contexts (Beretta & Davies, 1985; Spada, 1987; Snow & Brinton, 1988; Sharp, 1990; Lynch, 1990; Murphy, 2000; Nam, 2005; Norris & Watanabe, 2007). Likewise, there have been many program evaluation studies contributing to the quality of EFL programs of different universities in Turkey (Topcu, 2005; Guntek, 2005; Gerede, 2005; Ors, 2006; Karata? , 2007; Gullu, 2007; Tunc, 2010; Ozkanal & Hakan, 2010). The evaluation studies carried out in Turkey dealt with various dimensions of specific EFL programs. However, to the author's best knowledge, no studies have particularly focused on the writing components of these programs or the assessment of the writing ability. …