Assessment as feedback, not verdict
In Hong Kong's exam-heavy culture, students experience assessment as judgement. English teachers can rebalance this by making feedback the centre of assessment practice: every piece of marked work should tell the student one thing to keep and one thing to change.
Two stars and a wish
The classic formula still works. Two genuine strengths, one focused improvement point. Resist the urge to correct every error — a page of red ink teaches students that mistakes are shameful, not informative.
Making marking loadable
- Mark in class. Live marking during writing tasks gives instant feedback and takes nothing home.
- Use codes, not comments. Teach students your marking codes in September; by October they self-correct.
- Peer feedback with sentence stems. "The strongest part of your writing is..." models useful critique and halves your workload.
The growth mindset, concretely
Don't tell students "you can improve" — show them the previous draft next to the current one. Progress made visible is the most powerful motivator in the English classroom.