An Investigation on the Rating Tendencies of Japanese English Teachers

Abstract

Adams (1980) shows that as raters language teachers have a common tendency; they count fluency, comprehension and vocabulary when assessing less proficient learners, whereas they take grammar and pronunciation more into account when assessing more proficient learners. This present paper first reviews Adams (1980) and points out some problems in the study. After that, this paper attempts to triangulate the results of Adams (1980) by using different subjects (Japanese teachers of English), different types of data (four-step subjective assessment on 12 items without rater training), and a different statistical method (structural equation modeling). The conclusion of the paper is that the similar rating tendency depicted in Adams (1980) is also found with Japanese teachers of English.