FRENCH ESSAY WRITING PAPER, HOW IS IT MARKED AT WAEC?

     Most of French teachers and French learners have been asking how is the French essay writing or French composition during exams are been marked. Even in internal test or exams both teachers and students must know how it is being marked. Recently a French teacher asks me of how to mark a French essay.

Essay writing is a piece of writing on particular subject. Example: Describe your father; narrate a story an accident you have witnessed. Most in French, at the Western Africa Examination, the essay writing or composition follows four (4) criteria which are very essential.                                  

These are:

1. GRAMMAR......................

CONTENT.............................................C

3. CLARITY............. ....................................CL

4. OVERALL EXPRESSIVENESS ..............OE

PRORATA

Most often each candidate is expected to write an essay of 50- 80 words long. In case a candidate or students write his/ her essay less than 50, the teacher or the examiner would have to mark his/ her on Prorata. For example, a candidate who writes his /her essay only half the expected length that is may be 34 words will have his or her grammar marked over half of the total mark.

NB: a candidate loses a 1/4 mark for every grammatical mistake made.

Let us say that the total mark of the essay is 40, the prorata table will be as follows.

NUMBER OF WORDS	GRAMMAR MARK	MISTAKES TO SCORE ZERO
50 and above	10	40
40 - 49	9	36
30 -  39	5	20
20 - 29	4	16

For example, if a candidate write 30 words and commits 16 mistakes, the calculation of his or her grammar mark should be:    16 x 1/4 = 4, this means that has lose 4 marks in grammar. He/ she will have 5 – 4 = 1 in grammar.

Let us bear in mind the paper marked based on the following:

GRAMMAR                =                                    10 MARKS

CONTENT                   =                                    20 MARKS

CLARITY                    =                                    05 MARKS

OVERALL EXPRESSIVENESS           =        05 MARKS

TOTAL                                  =                          40 MARKS

At times too, candidates that have essays below the required number of words are marked on comprehension only.

A student can have zero in essay base on these:

1. DEVIATION

A. Usually children who deviate completely from the subject are awarded a maximum mark as agreed by the examiners.

B. If there is a partial deviation in an essay, the examiners usually circle the deviation part and not been counted as part of the essay.

2. MEANINGLESS ESSAY

This refers to an essay that doesn't make sense. For example a candidate that does a compilation of both French and English words. That essay attracts zero.

A. A children or candidate scores zero (0) if he /she:

1. Write in English

2. Copies the comprehension passage

3. Copies the question guidelines only

B. Any answer written in English doesn't attract a mark for content but circled only.

Example: Je vois (a dog).      Daniel mange (yam)

INDICATION OF MARKS

Each grammar mistake is underlined and a stroke is put in the left-hand margin to represent the error made. Each stroke represents a quarter (1/4) mark. Note that every consequential error and repeated error is ringed.

The final mark written as follows:

Example

Question 1or 2 = 30

Total= 30/40

Now let us look into the details

a. CONTENT

This refers to a correct logical or appropriate response to an item or question. For a student to score a file mark he / she must answer correctly in a full complete sentence. If the answer is incomplete then half of the mark is awarded.

b. GRAMMAR

Grammar mistakes involve:

Wrong tense( simple tenses, passe compose, future simple, participe passé, imparfait ...)

 wrong articles ( le, la , Les, l' des, un, une,...)

 Wrong prepositions ( a, au, a, près de, Sur sous, devant, avant ...)

 Wrong gender(feminine and masculine)

 Wrong pronouns( le, la, l' , mes, leur, il, Elle, lui...)

 Omitted words; wrong person, adverb, expressions and other grammatical aspects.

NB: Accents, misapplications and wrong capitalizations are warned by ringing but not penalized.

Not that the accents for past participle is penalized.

c. SUPERFLUITY

A superfluous word is a grammatical mistake where it touches on a point of grammar is penalized.

Example: Ama est parti de bonne heure tôt le matin. Tôt and bonne heure are called superfluous words.

How WAEC mark the French essays

Hence the Student is penalized by losing 1/4 MARKS for grammar.

d. OVERALL EXPRESSIVENESS

This is for the examiner to assess the whole composition: here he/she takes in consideration:

The presentation

The range of vocabulary

Grammatical or idiomatic expressions...

e. CLARITY

This point at question "does the examiner understand what the child has written?

Guidelines for scoring overall expressiveness and clarity are:

Excellent …………………………………..5 marks.

Very good ………………………………... 4 marks.

Good ……………………………………… 3 marks.

Average …………………………………….21/2 marks.

Below Average …………………………….. 2 marks

Poor …………………………………………1mark.