To help students develop the kind of language awareness required to complete more sophisticated writing tasks in secondary school, teachers need to provide students with both suitably rich input, appropriate contexts and purposes for communicative language use, and opportunities to work out rules and patterns under guidance. One way of achieving this is by designing learning tasks that require meaningful and purposeful application of language skills, and infusing assessment for learning strategies (AFL) to promote learning. A good emergent understanding of how language works helps students make better, more informed choices, thereby enhancing their chances of success and motivation to learn.

With this in mind, teachers at Kowloon Tong Bishop Walsh Catholic School used the task-based approach and assessment for learning strategies to provide students with authentic and meaningful learning experience that can better develop students’ writing skills and language awareness and enhance their motivation. It was found that students were able to write longer texts with richer content, better organisation and greater accuracy and they were more confident and independent in the writing process.