Should Ss be penalised for language errors in answers to Reading Comprehension questions

A former Master's degree student emailled me with a question that is posed to me from time to time by former education students and teachers. In brief, the question is: 

In a Reading Comprehension test, if students' written answers to short/long questions contain language errors, should students be penalised even if the errors do not interfere with the meaning? 

MY  RESPONSE: 

 You've brought up a tricky question which lends itself to two contrasting perspectives: (a) 'focus on meaning' vs (b) 'focus on meaning AND language form.' Adherents to (b) usually contend that this will ensure that students build up  the habit of attending to correct language forms all the time. 

Adherents to (a) emphasize the purpose of the language/communication event. For example, in a Reading Comprehension test, the purpose is to assess students' understanding of the reading text in question. Hence, as long as their answers to short/long questions clearly show their understanding, other language form errors that do not affect the meaning of their answers should not matter. 

Both perspectives are valid, especially in the context of school education. I would like to cite, in conclusion, my experience in public exam assessments (e.g., TSA; LPAT). In the Reading Comprehension section, a student's answer to a short/long question is mainly assessed on its correctness in MEANING. Errors that do not interfere with the correct meaning will not be taken into account. 

My personal opinion: for a school's internal test/exam, if teachers also want to look for 100% correct language form in the written answer, they might consider specifying that in the Reading Comprehension instruction (e.g., 'Marks will be deducted for ...'). Otherwise, just focus on the meaning. 

Just my two cents. 

Regards

Paul Sze

Creating a WG presentation starting with an imported Google slides file

After the import, the interface on WG's 'create presentation' will look like Google Slides, but in fact is still in WG. You can edit the imported Google Slides. (If it is a PPT that is imported, then each imported PPT slide is a non-editable slide in WG.) You can of course add new WG slides. For the imported Google slides, if you want to edit them, you have the option of editing them within Google slides. If that button is clicked, you will be taken back to the original/imported Google slidedeck. Then if you go back to the WG presentation being edited, if you click on 'update' in the top right corner, then the changes you made in Google Slides a moment ago, will be shown here in WG. (Of course, this action is optional.)

 TAKEAWAY: It may be better to import a Google slidedeck rather than a PPT since (a) each imported slide is still editable, and (b) you can also do the editing in the original Google slidedeck and update in WG.