Education paper by Wéber, Katalin
Identities Between the Lines
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
In my presentation I will focus on some guided compositions of students with Hungarian background and trace how their identity is implied between the lines of their essays.
The ECL language exam system offers language assessment of Hungarian as a foreign language. Candidates from all over the world try to pass this exam evaluating the candidates’ communicative competence of Hungarian. One of the exam skills is an essay to be written by the candidate. The length of the text is varying according to the level (A2, B1, B2 or C1 levels are offered). However, on each level in the assignment 4-5 topic elements are provided to make prompts about what to be written thus guiding the candidates to reach a certain degree of content complexity required by the level. That is to say it is a relatively free writing task framed by the restrictive prompts.
The guided composition task gives an opportunity for the writer to write about his/her personal life, opinion and view of the world segment defined by the prescribed topic. In an analysis of compositions of higher levels (B2, C1) I intend to reveal the students’ (of Hungarian origin) clear-cut references to their Hungarian identity and how these identity elements are mingled with the cultural features of their homeland they are presently living in. As an outcome I am going to show what are the most frequent areas of life where their Hungarian identity is utterly manifest.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Katalin Wéber currently works as a test developer in ECL Language Exam Centre, University of Pécs. She graduated in 1992 (Hungarian and English major), earned her doctorate in linguistics in 2012. Her major research fields are the Hungarian conjugations, language acquisition, foreign language assessment. She translated several books from English and Polish and worked as a literary editor.