PRACTICE AND CHALLENGES ON AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT OF EFL YOUNG LEARNER’S WRITING SKILLS

Young learners’ English writing skill in EFL classroom setting is as essential to take into consideration as other English skills. For ensuring the progression-making, in term of monitoring the level of achievement, the authentic assessment offers various advantages that should not be taken for granted. This study aimed at investigating, 1) the assessment practice in the classroom, 2) the effectiveness of authentic assessment practice for assessing writing skill, and 3) the challenges of the practice. This study was a descriptive case study. The population of the study encompassed 31 learners in grade-5 elementary school. The instruments used for collecting the data were field notes yielded from classroom observation, transcript interview, and related documents. The result of the study performed that (1) the teacher employs several types of assessment, yet authentic assessment is the most preferrable in the practice, (2) the authentic assessment practice in the classroom is effectively depicting learners’ actual competence, comprising real-world relevance, and encouraging evaluation, and (3) the teacher encounters the challenging experience in designing acceptable assessment for learners with diverse level of English competence and the sufficient time, as well. In summary, this study has torched a light on the practice of authentic assessment in originally realizing the function of assessment. The different school setting, teaching experiences, learners’ language proficiency skills, and classroom environment might bring about a distinct result. Abstrak


INTRODUCTION
Developing writing skills in EFL context is considerably challenging.Learners struggle to share ideas towards such issues when they have no oral production on the second language (Patekar 2021:1).Besides, young learners deal with the enormous distinction of vocabulary and grammatical structure between L1 and L2.As they are in the early stage of L2 understanding, seldom did they use English on their daily basis is the reason.It allows the presence of confusion on using the targeted language.Teacher, on another side, needs to ensure them to perpetually feel motivated in learning and becomes https://journal.banjaresepacific.com/index.php/han18 aware of the real-life advantage when they achieve the demanded level of mastery (Nuangchalerm and Intasena 2022:68-69).Various writing task strategies are attempted to be conducted as to endeavour the enhancement of the skill.
Topic familiarity, for instance, is required to be the essential concern in designing a task.The aspect turns out to be an aid for prompting learners' engagement that can lead them to produce a text with larger in length and diverse their vocabulary.It offers more rooms for activating learners' creativity, as well.Learners' confidence is boosted since their background knowledge is considered fruitful for them in their writing process (Bui and Luo 2021:392).Psychological factor determines the successful learners' achievement in developing their writing skills.Their attitude on the learning process affects whether or not the goal is achieved (Mozaffari 2023:17).
In terms of widening the enhancement, collaborative writing is definitely worth to try.Learners are divided into small group in the classroom.A real-world issues become the main attention to lead text's production.Interaction and decision-making is built unintentionally.They provide and receive feedback one another for guaranteeing the higher quality of writing in the aspect of grammar, spelling, diction, the text organization, and anxiety (Pardede 2024:104).In embodying the practice, teacher is ought to reveal the benefit of accomplishing such task collaboratively in order to ensure that each member possesses positive attitude.Performing active participation and being able to effectively use learning opportunities bring up desired outcome (Mozaffari 2023:17).
In measuring the progress of lesson, assessment is conducted.Assessment provides the information about how well the process of learning undergoes.Assessing writing faces challenges in the way the teacher administer the test.It requires much more times to evaluate the writing production than multiple choice test.In addition, teacher struggle to manage the consistency in scoring (Huot, 1990 ;Sari & Han, 2021, p. 67).Authentic assessment arises to become well-known in education field since it is more able to evaluate learners' competence with the use of holistic approach (Moria, Refnaldi, and Zaim 2017:333).Authentic assessment has several key characteristics.It (1) requires learners to perform, create, produce, or conduct something, (2) utilizes real-world contexts or simulations, (3) is nonintrusive as it extends regular classroom activities, (4) allows learners to be assessed on their daily class activities, (5) employs tasks that represent meaningful instructional activities, (6) concerns on both the process and the product, (7) engages higher-level thinking and problem-solving skills, and (8) provides information about learners' strengths and weaknesses (Brown and Abeywickrama 2004:252).Moria et al., (2017, p. 335) investigate the practice of using authentic assessment in assessing writing for secondary school.Teacher employs the assessment formed in writing prompt, journal, project, process writing, and picture description.The study reveals the urge of selecting feasible assignment with familiarized topic for easing the completion of written product.The mainstream challenge for the practice laid on the inadequate time.Learners perceived the quality of the work relied heavily on the duration (p.336).
Another study conducted by Patekar (2021, p. 20) highlighted the distinction in assessing young learners' writing.As identical as other EFL classroom setting, assignment design on young learners' writing comes up from simple to complex task.Teacher draws upon non authentic assessment as a tool that filling the gaps form of question becomes dominant.None of them possesses communicative purpose and meaningful writing tasks.Teacher requires sufficient support in the form of adequate education and training (pre-service, in-service, and continuing professional development) to understand young learners' developmental characteristics and their impact on teaching and assessment.Without this support, some of them may have negative experiences in their early years of foreign language learning, undermining the purpose of an early start (p.21).
Furthermore, Khamasah & Atibrata (2023, p. 49) expose the investigation on authentic assessment practice in secondary level of learners.There are three kinds of assessment used in the classroom ; Affective (self, peer, and journal assessment), cognitive (written test and assignment), skills assessment (project, product, and portfolio).Corresponding to the prior investigation, the obstacle encountered in this technique of assessment is there is no appropriate amount of time to employ the whole assessment.Teacher struggles to fulfill the demand of explaining the grammar structure, vocabulary enrichment, and genre text characteristic which time-consuming, as well.The discrepancies from the depicted studies above laid on there is no further investigation pertaining to teacher perception how authentic assessment can be successfully monitored and measure the actual young learners' competence.The researchers is eager to dig deeper on how teacher designs the authentic assessment and challenges they encounter in EFL setting.Therefore, this study addresses the practice of authentic assessment, the effectiveness of authentic assessment practice for assessing learners' writing skill in the classroom, and challenges that are encountered by the teacher.

METHOD
This study has been undertaken at a private school in Surakarta.The school obtains attention as it ranks five best school in Surakarta.The school supervisors are scheduled to conduct training for developing teachers' insight, content, and pedagogical knowledge.Supported with various classroom's seat management and technological devices, teachers are able to ensure the accessibility and mobility for each young learner.The selected teacher that participates in this study, definitely, has participated a training connecting to the underlying issue.She has been graduated from English education department and teaching for 6 years in the elementary school, afterwards.The teacher has employed authentic classroom owing to the practice familiarity and interest.Whereas, the 5 th grade young learners are who participate in this study are 31.They distinct in language proficiency skills.The superior learners tend to enrol additional English courses for enhancement outside the classroom.
This research draws upon a descriptive case study.Since, it is mainly used to uncover the sequence for interpersonal events, such as classroom interaction, and figure out certain issues that are barely discussed in the previous studies (Yin 2016:18).It comprehends the phenomena that occurs as the target of study (Al-Maawali 2023).The data is gathered for attaining the problem statements of study; 1) the practice of authentic assessment, 2) the effectiveness of the practice for assessing young learners' writing skills, and 3) the challenges encountered while practicing the akin of assessment in the classroom.

Technique of Data Collection
To yield a compatible result of the study, it used three kinds of techniques in collecting data; document analysis, observation, and interview.1.

Document
The researcher utilized particular documents to support the process of analysis (Al-Maawali 2022).Those documents were, then, being a guideline that had been verified by other techniques of collecting data.The documents included English book used for learning and worksheet completed with scoring rubric.This technique was mainly addressed to investigate the validity and reliability of applied authentic assessment in the classroom.

2.
Observation The observation was a salient technique to collect valid data in this study.It elicits insightful teaching issues and assist to generat questions for interview (Paschal and Gougou 2022).The yielded data was used as fundamental analysis of the problem.In conducting an observation, the researcher highly required to jot down the essential points of the phenomena encountered in the classroom.The researcher also endeavours to take photos which captures the ongoing learning process in the classroom.It was conducted to assist the researcher in transforming the note that had been jotted down previously into more detail and understandable.Notably, this technique could portray the practice of authentic assessment in the classroom and learners' attitude towards the practice.

3.
Interview This technique employed semi-structured open-ended interviews, which involved several open-ended questions based on the topic areas that the researcher desired to cover (Paschal and Gougou 2022).The interview aimed at encountering a more in-depth investigation about the phenomena as the focus of study.In term of digging deeper the inquired data, lecturer and learners had been interviewed based on the questions that had been prepared.The questions were generated in Bahasa Indonesia to comfort the interviewee, which is coded as 'BM', in delivering their thought and idea towards each question.It also alleviated the challenge of exploring the information.While undergoing the interview, the researcher recorded it to ease the process of transcribing the obtained data.This technique has exposed teachers' view point on the effectiveness and challenges of authentic assessment in assessing young learners' writing skills in the school.

Technique of Data Analysis
After undertaking techniques of collecting data and attaining the desired data, the researcher came up to analyze the data.This analyzing data could not be taken for granted due to its importance in serving the finding of the study.Underpinned to Yin's framework, the data is analyzed in 5 cycles; compiling, disassembling, reassembling (and arraying), interpreting and concluding (Yin 2016).Those are explained below.
Compilinng, the first cycle in analyzing data was more likely creating a database.This aimed at organizing the data, including field notes and other evidentiary materials into well-formed as to ease the analysis of the next cycle.After compiling the data in such an appropriate order, it assisted in keeping in a track or putting notes into a consistent form.Falling into disassembling, it leads to go forward and backward about how to disassemble the data and the actual data.This analytic cycle could be practiced either attempted to code the data or not.Making sure the consistency and accuracy of the original data was an essential thing to do.Reassembling, this analytic cycle was taken up by noticing such a broader pattern of the data after being disassembled.Regardless the data was coded or not; the researcher attempted to be skeptical to herself and the data as well regularly.In Interpreting, the researcher attempted to rely on her interpretive skills to grasp a comprehensive understanding of the data.The quality of this process determined how the study was viewed.The last cycle, concluding meant presenting the finding and raising it to the higher conceptual level that was expressed in such statements.This statement encompassed learned a lesson and practical implication.The conclusion was also accompanied by the suggestion and recommendation for future research.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Teaching writing for EFL young learners seem to be challenging task to accomplish for teachers.Brown & Abeywickrama (2019, p. 221) uncover the writing skills that is demanded to master as follows, learners are able to (1) write English letters and spell words correctly, (2) produce writing at a speed that is appropriate for the task or situation, (3) be expert on selecting variety of words in writing and arranging them correctly in sentences, (4) apply grammatical systems (e.g., tense, agreement, pluralization), patterns, and rules, (5) convey the same idea using different sentence structures or grammatical forms, (6) use words and phrases to connect ideas and make the writing flow smoothly, such as using transition words or repeating key words.
Writing involves both creating and understanding written language.It requires planning, drafting, revising, reasoning, decision-making, and extensive knowledge about language (such as vocabulary and grammar), the world, and the specific topic (McNamara and Kendeou 2022:6).Kellogg's (1996Kellogg's ( , 2001) ) model as cited in Bui & Luo's (2021, p. 379) study of working memory (WM) in writing breaks down the writing process into three main stages: formulation, execution, and monitoring.Formulation Stage involves planning and translating.During planning, the writer sets their goal and gathers ideas for their writing.In the translating process, the writer converts their intentions and message into a linguistic blueprint or outline.In execution stage, the writer executes the plan they created during formulation.It includes programming and executing processes.Programming refers to organizing the linguistic plan retrieved from the translating process, while executing involves turning this plan into actual written text, whether by handwriting or typing.The final stage is monitoring, which involves reading and editing the written text.Here, the writer reviews what they have written, checking for errors and making revisions to improve clarity and coherence.
It appears that learners in the early stages of education may encounters obstacle in fluently write their ideas and thought, as the curriculum required, due to the differences between the spoken language that their environment used and the written language that they are demanded to comprehend in the classroom.It can be particularly confusing in a complex L1.Therefore, it is essential to carefully address these issues to assist learners in overcoming these difficulties (Nuangchalerm and Intasena 2022:68).
Writing is productive skills.When it comes to writing skills, learners are genuinely required to read a model text and create a similar piece of writing, often without considering a real audience or purpose.It is considerably essential to concern on grammatical structure and proper vocabularies when learners attempt to produce text (Spanou and Zafiri 2019:3).Whereas, teaching writing as a process rather than a final product.They focus on helping learners uncover their own voices, acknowledging that learners have valuable insights to share, allowing them to select their own topics, providing feedback from teachers and peers, promoting the practice of revision, and utilizing student writing as the main text for the course (Crusan and Matsuda 2018:43).
Through the method of study, it reveals the data regarding to; 1) the assessment practice in the classroom, 2) the effectiveness of authentic assessment practice for assessing writing skill, and 3) the challenges of the practice.The finding and discussion are depicted as follow.

The assessment practice in the classroom
Previously, decisions about assessment tools and processes were typically made by educational authorities at higher levels, such as the Ministry of Education, school districts, or program coordinators.However, with the rise of learner-centered and communicative teaching approaches, there has been a significant change.In many educational settings, control over assessment has moved away from centralized authorities and towards the classrooms where teaching and learning occur frequently (Shaaban 2000:1).There are various techniques and instruments for authentic assessment.For attitude assessment, tools include observation, self-assessment, peer assessment, and journals.Knowledge assessment can be conducted through written tests, oral tests, and assignments.Skill assessment utilizes performance evaluations, product assessments, projects, and portfolios (Majid 2020:163).

a. Types of assessment
This school has implemented Kurikulum Merdeka for Grade-5.From the document analysis, the learning objectives for writing skills in grade 5 is to use vocabularies connecting to their surrounding, such as school and home.Moreover, they use several basic strategies, for instance, copying word or phrase from a book or word lists, using picture, and asking how to write a word.
In more detail, the learning is conducted for achieving the learners' competence in producing written text or simple visual in English that is assisted with examples.Teacher begins https://journal.banjaresepacific.com/index.php/han22 the lesson with giving a picture, learners are required to describe using English related to the picture.The teacher also confesses that the assessment can be vary.For mid semester, final semester, or daily assessment, the form can be objectives, fill in the gaps, matching items, or essay.For fill in the gaps type, learners are instructed to complete the blanks.For example, learners create a text with subject, predicate, and object.There will be missing item that they should complete.In essay, learners need to describe some pictures.
From the akin of types, the teacher claimed translation is preferrable to be applied in the classroom.Learners are provided a sentence or a text, it can be from listening audio or directly spoken by the teacher, then, they should jot it down in English.The practice is quite often realised in the classroom owing to the feasibility.Another type is jumbled word that has been mentioned earlier which learners arrange the words into meaningful sentence concerning on grammar rules.Whilst, the teacher depicts the authentic assessment is practiced by poster assignment.Learners create a poster with the use of a picture and description upon it.

b. Scoring techniques
Underpinning the study conducted by Asbari et al. (2019) uttered understanding the applied curriculum and the spotlight aspects to be assessed influence the effectiveness of the assessment.From document analysis, the scoring rubric technique for objectives and essay are definitely seen.In objectives, the scoring technique is clear and doable, the point will be added for each correct answer and 0 for incorrect one.It is slightly different for fill in the gaps and essay, there is added point for rewarding learners' struggle for answering the question even though there is no correlation for the expected answer.
The scoring technique for poster is quite complex.The aspects are set for ensuring the validity.From the scoring rubric, the aspects are ideas (topic conformity), organization (coherence), voice (attractiveness and eye-catching), word choice (suitable diction), sentence fluency (understandable), and convention (grammatical and spelling correctness).Congruently, the teacher emphasizes the similar aspects, such as originality, coherence, and word choice.Surprisingly, the teacher also observe learners' interaction from one to another while they work on a collaborative project.Echoing the Altay and Bozkurt's study (2018) which declared the criterion is deployed for leading the objectivity in attaining the actual scoring and grading process.

The effectiveness of authentic assessment practice for assessing writing skill
The effectiveness of the authentic assessment practice for assessing learners'writing skills is viewed from how the practice can fullfill these three necessities : a) depicting the learners' actual competence, b) comprising real world relevance, and c) encouraging evaluation.Further explanation as follows.a. Depicting the learners' actual competence Authentic assessment stands as an vital part of professional tool for early childhood educators within the classroom.It exceeds progress tracking, emerging as a important component of effective curriculum planning and instructional strategies for proficient teachers.In authentic assessment, procedures are transparent, minimizing the mismatch between testing and teaching.Instruments of the assessment align closely with lesson content and instructional methods.These adapted assessment methods enable teachers to systematically record student progress through both formative and summative assessment (Bin Abdul Aziz and Yusoff 2016:201).
Authentic assessment is considered effective in stimulating learners' interest and critical thinking, especially in writing.This method enables teachers to thoroughly evaluate learners' writing skills (Moria et al. 2017:336).This assessment allows teachers to understand students' progress and achievements.It helps confirm that students can accurately express, prove, and demonstrate that they have fully mastered the learning objectives, while also showing their motivation and attitude toward learning (Natalia, Asib, and Kristina 2018:50).It encompasses four distinct criteria.Firstly, it pertains to the teacher's proficiency, performance, and attitude during the learning process.Secondly, it integrates different aspect of proficiency and performance.Thirdly, it relies on diverse sources and evidence collected within a specific timeframe or context.Lastly, it employs standard, structured, and professional rubrics (Karim et al. 2018:496).
Teacher perceives that there is a distinctive skills in the classroom.Learners who is lack in writing can not be considered for having low language skills.It also works on other skills.Teacher needs to be aware not to give a judgement on learners' skill.The authentic assessment is proved to become an aid for assessing learners' writing skills.Their actual competence is depicted in the process of writing production.In this case, poster assignment enables the teacher detects the learners' writing competence level.Compared to other types, the result of them genuinely are insufficiently to become a reference for learners' actual competence.Identically, Natalia et al's study (2018) confirmed the flexibility of authentic assessment which can be adjusted to the targeted aspect for assessing.b.Comprising real world relevance Authentic assessment, in its most practical form, requires learners to utilize the combinations of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that they will need to apply in real-life (Nieminen, Bearman, and Ajjawi 2023:229).Authentic assessment provides learners with the chance to engage in meaningful tasks that are interesting, useful, and relevant to their lives.These tasks encourage learners to be innovative and creative, as they allow for personal development and help foster a more positive attitude toward school and learning activities.This positive attitude, in turn, influences learners' thinking patterns, leading to improved academic performance and achievements (Karim et al. 2018:496).Relevance prompts learners' encouragement and engagement in learning (Mccarthy 2013).
Tasks are designed based on the knowledge being evaluated rather than just mimicking real-life scenarios.Authentic assessment aimed at directly measuring what the student is expected to have learned.This approach avoids using indirect methods that approximate real tasks and then infer student achievement from those approximations (Wiggins, 1990 ;McArthur, 2023, p. 87).An 8-year-old learner might not take into consideration the significance of their future career, which lies at least a decade ahead.However, applying the obtained knowledge on the playground or at home is more valuable than just learning for achieving highest score in their test (p.88).
Connecting to the book that is used for learning, the teacher attempts to consider the topic familiarity.The content for learning encompasses learners' daily basis, such as sleeping, eating, drinking, and swimming.Grammar, in this case, present continuous tense is taught in a contextual way.
When designing an assessment, the teacher emphasizes real-world relevance aspect.The topic familiarity eases learners to comprehend the instruction and accomplish the assignment.For example, the teacher assesses learners' writing skill by portraying a picture of 'father is going https://journal.banjaresepacific.com/index.php/han24 to work by motorcycle'.It is in line with Bin Abdul Aziz and Yusoff's (2016) study that declare the priority to conduct the type of assessment that allows learners' real-world experience.

c. Encouraging evaluation
The assessments are designed to both evaluate and promote student learning.In other words, they aim not only to measure the level of achievement students have reached but also to serve as a fundamental component of the curriculum and the overall learning experience (Mccarthy 2013:4).It is carried out as a tool for evaluating learners' accomplished assignment or produced written text (McArthur 2023:87).
Both teacher and learner draw upon the outcome to carry out self-evaluation and feedback.Teacher enhances the teaching process while learners do the same on their learning (Crusan and Matsuda 2018:5).Feedback can also be beneficial when learners are eager to pay attention.Providing feedback for peer tends to assist learners to comprehend the betterment of writing production.Learners apply the critique, contained the error-making, for reviewing their own product (McNamara and Kendeou 2022:13).Formative feedback interprets the score to the description of their competence which transforms into action for prompting their upcoming performance (p.14).In reality, teacher generates feedback which focus on the grammatical errors, eliminating the content and organization, due to the time constraint (Yagelski, 1995 ;Sari & Han, 2021, p. 67).
Poster assignment is perceived to be favorable for teacher in assessing learners' competence compared to the traditional assessment.Designing poster enables wider opportunity for learners to explore their competence.Whereas, fill in the gaps and jumbled word only portrays short answer and limited access to maximum level of competence.
Through observation, the teacher conducts the evaluation by personal approach.Simply, the teacher ensures every poster is evaluated by monitoring the learners' work.The evaluation is given orally in order to maintain the tidiness.The teacher approaches the learners or vice versa.By calling out the targeted learners, teacher ensures that they obtain the needed information.The teacher affirms their knowledge and understanding personally and directly.Furthermore, the peer evaluation strengthens the practice.Learners are facilitated with a chance for providing and receiving suggestion one another.They can experience grasping knowledge from different source of learning.Putri et al's (2019) study strengthen the idea of how assessment is drawn upon the evaluation on process and product of learning.The format is ought to encompass the applied curriculum, the content of the material being assessed, and the authenticity of assessment.

The challenges of the practice
The teacher admits the challenges for practicing authentic assessment as an aid for assessing learners' writing skill is in the process of designing the instruction.The level of difficulty should be adjusted to their level of writing competence.In heterogenous classroom, it definitely brings about burdening consideration since superior should be fully aware of the assessment's objective whilst the inferior needs to confidently accomplish it.
The authentic assessment offers guidance for learners' learning process.The teacher facilitates personal assistance by privately directing learners' error.For evaluating each product, the teacher requires adequate time for providing detail correction.Since the teacher is able to denoting learners' error, she is challenged to make sure the learners' progression-making.Moreover, the teacher requires additional times for ensuring that every learner obtains equal evaluation.The teacher should use the leisure time for providing evaluation for guiding their improvement.Rukmini and Saputri's (2017) study revealed the identical issue connecting to scoring accomplishment, that is considered as time-consuming.While, Bin Abdul Aziz and Yusoff 's (2016) study inserted the more detailed challenges encompass the instruction's understanding, the brainstorming idea process' barrier, and vocabularies' restriction.

CONCLUSION
To sum up, the authentic assessment can optimally be implemented as an aid for assessing learners' writing skill in young learner.Teaching young learner is not a 'piece of cake' job that requires deep understanding towards learners' characteristic.In this case, assessment is supposed to be conducted for monitoring learning progress.The writing assessment practice in the classroom, still, is vary in the types.Yet, the authentic assessment evolves in coping teachers' vagueness in learners' writing competence.
The practice confirms the previous studies that have uncovered the effectiveness.The akin of assessment can be employed for depicting learners' actual competence, real-world relevance, and encouraging evaluation.Owing to achieving learners' attainment, understanding the learners' competence plays crucial role.The teacher strengthens the core of learning by the understanding.Furthermore, the topic of learning is ought to be managed.Additionally, the presence of evaluation differentiates this assessment from the others.Learners comprehend their strength and weaknesses in the way they wish.The expected stair of achievement is obviously spotted.
Nevertheless, the teacher had better become eager of conquering the challenge.Since the authentic assessment is considered as the captivating invention in education, the teacher might call out the adaptation and adjustment for the flawless implementation in the classroom with diverse characteristic of learners.Some educational and pedagogical training in designing the instruction and time-management is urgently demanded for teachers. https://journal.banjaresepacific.com/index.php/han19