The Teaching and Assessment of English Essay Writing in Zimbabwe: The Case of Sanyati Government High School

Abstract

This paper examines the teaching and assessment of Zimbabwe‟s Ordinary Level („O‟ Level) English essay writing. Spurred by poor performance of „O‟ Level pupils in the essay paper (English Language Examination Paper 1), the paper analyzes the mismatches between the curriculum and the external assessment methods employed by the Ministry of Education. It also analyzes the types of material used in the teaching of essay writing, the recruitment system employed by the ministry and the time allocated to the teaching of essay writing in the classroom. We argue that these aspects largely contribute to the poor performance of pupils and, as such, improvement in these aspects is envisaged to result in great performance improvement. The paper is a case study of Form Four pupils‟ essays. Supplementary data were collected from some of the national „O‟ Level English Language examiners and from the Sanyati High School‟s Form Four English Language teachers.