The Essay That Answers a Different Question
The writing task asks: 'Some people think children should start learning a foreign language at age six; others think it should begin at age eleven. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.' A student's 220-word essay opens with two sentences on the general importance of languages, then spends 150 words arguing that learning languages is good for careers and travel, and closes with 'In conclusion, learning a foreign language is very important.' The essay is grammatically accurate with varied sentences. The rubric awards marks for task response, coherence, lexical resource, and grammar. The student is convinced the essay is strong because 'there are almost no mistakes'.
1. Explain why grammatical accuracy does not rescue this essay, and identify precisely what is missing.
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The essay answers a different question. The prompt requires three things: (1) the view for age six, (2) the view for age eleven, (3) the writer's own opinion. The essay delivers none of them - it argues a general case for language learning, which no one in the prompt disputes.
Criterion by criterion:
- Task response: low. The central requirement is unmet, and this criterion caps the overall band regardless of the others.
- Coherence: weakened - the essay is internally logical but logically disconnected from the prompt.
- Lexical resource and grammar: genuinely strong, but they are being used fluently to say the wrong thing.
The key point for the student: accuracy is a multiplier, not a substitute. Fluent irrelevance scores lower than imperfect relevance, because the examiner is assessing whether the candidate communicated a response to this task.
2. Give the student a paragraph-level plan that guarantees all three required elements, and explain how to check the essay before submitting.
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Four-paragraph frame:
- Introduction - one sentence framing the debate, one sentence stating your own position.
- View A (age six) - state the argument and one supporting reason (e.g. pronunciation, natural acquisition).
- View B (age eleven) - state the argument and one supporting reason (e.g. literacy, study skills), then briefly say where you stand relative to it.
- Conclusion - restate your opinion in different words, no new arguments.
Pre-submission check - 'the three-question audit':
- Did I state the age-six view? (point to the sentence)
- Did I state the age-eleven view? (point to the sentence)
- Did I state my own opinion, clearly, twice? (introduction and conclusion)
If any answer is 'no', the essay is not finished, however polished the grammar. This converts an abstract rubric into three yes/no checks the student can run in two minutes.