Editing a Formal Letter: Concord, Borrowing and Register
During moderation of a Grade 11 language-in-use test, a teacher finds a 220-word formal letter to the Regional Councillor about a road. The letter is comprehensible and has relevant content, but the marker has ringed eight errors: three subject-verb agreement slips involving class 9/10 nouns, two possessive concords that do not match the head noun, one English loan verb used without its infinitive prefix, one contracted form that belongs in speech, and one misspelling of 'scheduled'. The mark scheme gives 10 marks for content, 6 for language and 4 for format. The teacher deducted one mark per ringed error, giving language 0/6. The HOD thinks this is double-penalising because the same agreement rule is broken three times and because two rings are matters of register rather than grammar. The learner is a strong reader but avoids writing in Rukwangali.
1. Categorise the eight ringed items by mark-scheme category and decide which should carry a deduction.
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Classify by function, not by ink. The three agreement slips are one systematic error: the learner does not control concord with class 9/10 heads. Under a 6-mark language criterion, that is a recurring accuracy issue and should cost 1-2 marks, not 3. The two possessive mismatches are the same underlying rule (concord), so they should be folded into the same deduction unless the mark scheme separates 'agreement' from 'possession'. The loan verb without the infinitive prefix is a vocabulary/word-formation issue; if the meaning is clear, it is a minor error, not a language failure. The contraction is register, not grammar; in a formal letter it belongs under format/register, not language. The misspelling is a single mechanical slip.
Deducting one mark per ring is double-penalising because it prices the same rule three times and because it treats register as grammar. The eight rings are not eight independent failures.
2. Propose a defensible language mark out of 6 and explain how you avoid double-penalising.
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Defensible language mark: 4/6. Rationale: the letter is comprehensible and the errors do not obscure meaning; one systematic concord weakness (2 marks off), one lexical/word-formation slip (0.5-1), one register slip handled elsewhere, one spelling slip (0.5). That totals roughly 2 marks off, leaving 4/6. If the mark scheme has a 'frequent error' band, 3/6 is also defensible, but 0/6 is not: it treats an intelligible script as if it were unintelligible.
The HOD should require the marker to annotate 'systematic concord' once in the margin and count it once. The register slip should be moved to the format/register column to avoid double penalty. This preserves the distinction between accuracy, range and appropriateness.
3. What single follow-up task would you set, and why that one first?
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First task: a 10-sentence concord drill using the learner's own road letter as the text. Why first? It is the only error that recurs and therefore the only one likely to distort future writing. The loan verb and spelling can be handled in the margin; the contraction can be handled by a models exercise.
A single follow-up should not try to fix everything. Success criterion: in a 100-word rewrite, no more than one concord slip with class 9/10 heads. This is measurable and directly tied to the systematic error, not to surface noise.