How relevant is the size of essays at English language schools ?

While browsing the LSF-site I came across the challenges site.
Once there was a 500 word challenge . That reminded me of an essay we had to do in English at school with an Englishman as English teacher and the essay at school was a 500 or 1000 word challenge too. All German women we had as English teachers before never assigned tests with a word count. The Englishman said n words +/- 10%. Exceeding the 10% meant a penalty. Is (Was) that an English speciality? In Germany the size of an essay doesn't matter. If you only wrote your name on the test paper you wouldn't collect to many points for it especially if you managed some mistakes ;) Oh crap that reminds me of a German male English teacher. female student less than 200 words 1 mistake A, male student more than 1000 words 5 mistakes, C. He only marked mistakes and admitted it. Afterwards he never had much to correct.
Are the size (n words) and percentage rules for essays authentic ? In Germany you get a task and size is more or less irrelevant.

For younger school pupils, generally the more you wrote the better. In tests, I don’t remember there ever being a word limit on essays. It was always write as much as you can in the time given. For homework, I think from GCSE (exams taken at 16) and definitely from A-level (exams taken at 18) there was a word limit on essays and teachers would either deduct marks for going over the word count or say they would only read up to the word limit so anything beyond that wasn’t considered. So it would be marked as though you hadn’t written a conclusion.

Oh, and I remember at university the 10% thing. If they said e.g. 2000 words you could be up to 10% above or below that amount.

I recall in high school that there usually were no word limits but teachers would tell you to write enough to make your point and not to repeat it. 1000 words was a common suggested length. Most English teachers took points off for misspellings, grammatical errors, and the like. You might get points for well-written paragraphs and effective use of language.

Teachers had their own approaches to reading repeated lines assigned for punishment or at detention. I recall a young female teacher who marked every error in red and made you do the bad lines or all the lines over if you made mistakes. Others would accept your hard work writing the 1000 lines and toss them without reading them.

When I was at primary school, they were called compositions. At that stage, length wasn’t that important. It was more about spelling, punctuation, grammar, how well you could put your ideas across. Some kids just naturally wrote more than others. At high school, lengths started to come in. You could be asked to write on a certain topic, or include a specific sentence, use certain words, etc. some specified a minimum length. I never heard of a maximum, but I’m sure if you wrote too much, the teacher would have mentioned it. I used to participate in a writing contest elsewhere, and they had a word limit of 1500. I tend to write long stories, so this was a good thing for me, because it forced me to be concise, that cuts down on repetition and exposition. It also makes you choose your words carefully and use them well.

And of course at Hogwarts, the students are required to turn in essays of a certain length, so they may be asked to write sixteen inches on 'The Seven Uses of Dragon's Blood'...!

The Englishman was first a teacher in England, before teaching in South Africa and finally he stranded as English teacher in Germany.
i. All I remember from him is the test where he gave a word count, since it was at a higher grade11th+ it had a duration of 2 academic hours (2x 45minutes), we never got a word count in German. I always thought that has to be the standard in English/England. I only remember that we got 3 themes to select from and the last 10-15 minutes was math everyone counting his progress. Then it was either write a meaningless sentence to get at least 900 words or compress a sentence to stay below 1100 words. Not very productive if you ask me.
ii. You could later discuss your grade with him. That for sure let you improve your verbal skills.
iii. He would often say English is a living language. Everyone uses it this way so its OK and he would reduce you Error count by one.
iv. He would operate around a percentage count while German teachers preferred to let you in the dark giving them more power.
v. And most importantly English English and American English, your choice but you had to stick to it. German English teachers. Oxford conscience dictionary = law, American English was always wrong.

@lesliejones
Marking all errors in red is/was normal. I remember a teacher in 12th grade. One day when a student turned in his test he said Oh you, it makes no sense to grade it, I always dunk you tests in a barrel of red ink. Nowayday with privacy laws, he would be tarred and feathered. Actually all teachers should be tarred and feathered.

@myrkassi
Would make life easier, especially if your math skill is lacking as with language teachers. But then girls would use Tahoma 20 points and boy Arial 10 points. On the other side girls would reach 6inches instantly claiming not enough space to write while boy would never finish not enough imagination.

When I was an engineering student one of the lecturers memorably said "When I receive your assignments, the first thing I do is weigh them. If they weigh too much I don't mark them."

The point here was that one shouldn't try to compensate for shortcomings in one's work by verbiosity. Whilst it might appear good, in this context efficient communication can easily be compromised by boring the pants off the reader.

The 500 word story is an excellent format by the way.

When I was in my Masters program in college, most professors when assigning a project with a report would specify a maximum page length. One prof. told us that she would read until the max length, and go no further.

her masimums were such that it was no trouble to make your points, support them and your conclusions within the limits given.

@ opb
That lecturer sounds like the relative of the one with the barrel of red ink.


@ stevenr
You need to be cautious with master, people in Germany might start to think about 50 shades ;) its one of the degrees unknown in Germany during the last millennial. The same as the German degree engineer. I got an uncle with the 7 semester engineer degree that wasn't accepted in the Anglo-American world since an engineer cares about steam engines. At least they didn't mistook him for a stoker when he was responsible for building an airport in a Muslim country.

quote=Moody]Oxford conscience dictionary = law, American English was always wrong.[/quote]

What if America had adopted German as the commonly spoken language?

Would you accept that using other words for Aufzug, Gehweg, Wasserhahn etc. would be correct?