Academic literature on the topic 'Teachers' assessment in English language teaching'

State universities in Saudi Arabia have adopted a new educational policy, which made English the medium of instruction for all scientific departments. This has led to establishing a Foundation Year Programme (FYP) in the English Language Institute (ELI) of those universities, which aims to prepare university students to cope with the new academic requirements in their chosen majors and to improve their overall language competence. This study investigates teachers’ roles and beliefs regarding assessment practices in the ELI with the aim to uncover not only the role(s) teachers play in both continuous and summative assessment practices, but also teachers’ understandings of and attitudes towards assessment and their roles in it. Findings will also include how teachers perceive this role in this interpretive study, where the data were collected using open-ended interviews with twenty male and female expatriate and Saudi EFL teachers who work in the ELI of a specific Saudi university. The data were analysed on the basis of participants’ views and explanations about their roles in both continuous and summative assessment in the institution. The findings revealed that teachers had no role in summative assessment unless they were members of the Assessment Committee and that most teachers wanted to have a voice and be more involved. While teachers had a limited role in continuous assessment in the classroom, they felt the need for more involvement in the choice of materials/topics employed as well as more freedom regarding the way it is administered. The study also revealed that the ELI was not well receptive of criticism from teachers, which made teachers sometimes reluctant to being more involved in assessment or voicing their views in fear of being labelled negatively. Finally, some contributions to knowledge, implications for the context and recommendations are provided as well as some suggestions for improving teachers’ roles in assessment for future consideration.

This qualitative study aims to address the current understanding of English language assessment of both the teachers and students in the secondary schools in Bangladesh. The study conducted semi-structured interviews with six English teachers and focus group interviews with two groups of students in two different secondary schools and these interview responses were compared to probe the related understandings and experiences of both the teachers and the students. These findings reveal that the present English assessment system in the secondary level in Bangladesh does not reflect a balanced development of all the language skills of the learners and there are inconsistencies between the stated objectives of teaching English and the actual teaching methods in the language teaching in the secondary schools in Bangladesh. Though summative assessment is still dominating, the practice of formative assessment is slowly developing. The study indicates that there has been a gradual shift in the assessment process and the teachers were trying to use individual assessment strategies to motivate the students’ learning. Both the teachers and the students in the study emphasised that current assessment is mainly based on reading and writing. However, for overall development of language skills, the secondary English language curriculum may need to be redesigned so that all the four skills are able to be included in the assessment system. Better opportunities for training to develop teachers’ effectiveness and their knowledge of learners should be considered also.

This essay focuses on what impact developmental dyslexia has on assessment and grading in the second language teaching of English in the Swedish educational system. The data presented in this essay are based on six semi-structured interviews with English language teachers of lower and upper secondary schools from the south-eastern parts of Sweden. The interviews were conducted in Swedish, and the collected data have been translated into English. The inquiries of the interviews focused on the teachers' awareness of dyslexia and its impact on learning and teaching, as well as how they worked with and their considerations made when assessing and grading dyslexic pupils. The interviews specifically enquired what particular challenges arose in the assessment and grading process, what provided aid, and what could be done to provide further relief during this process. The results show that the assessment and grading of dyslexic pupils is similar to the general practice. The teachers do, however, accommodate the dyslexic pupils' needs in the teaching and carefully consider their difficulties when assessing and grading. The teachers use, for example, spelling programs and such technical aids to help them, to some extent, disregard dyslexic difficulties while assessing. However, results show how the teachers are not able to transfer their awareness of dyslexia and its implications into the assessment and grading situation, suggesting that the teachers' own ability to assess dyslexic pupils is somewhat inadequate.

This study aims to investigate Korean teachers’ beliefs and their practice with respect to classroom-based English language assessment; thus it examines the teachers’ current working principles of assessment and their practices. This study also sets out to uncover, and to gain an in-depth understanding of further issues which emerged from the dissonance between the teachers’ beliefs and their practice. Following a discussion of the English teaching and assessment context, the first part of the study examines mainstream theories of language testing or assessment; it then considers how closely classroom-based assessment in Korean primary schools conforms to these theoretical principles. The second part of the study presents a small-scale research project. Four stages in teachers’ classroom-based assessment were examined; planning, implementation, monitoring, and recording and dissemination. A questionnaire was developed reflecting these stages; its findings were analyzed statically and qualitatively. Further qualitative data was also collected and analyzed through interviews with volunteer participants. This is based on an analysis of teachers’ firsthand experience and their opinions of the assessment of English as a foreign language. The results of the study revealed that generally the teachers hold and exercise their own firm beliefs regarding classroom-based assessment, and have a good knowledge of assessment or testing principles; thus they carried out their assessment using appropriate procedures taking into account the context of English teaching and assessment in which they operate. However, there were a number of issues which emerged from their assessment beliefs and their practice. It became clear that they did not put some of their principles into practice; a number of important factors, which are normally outside the teachers’ control, were found to be responsible for this, these include: overcrowded classrooms, heavy teaching loads, the central bureaucracy of the education system which controls primary education, and a shortage of funding for foreign language teaching. Teachers were also affected by the rather complex relationship with other teachers, head teachers, and even the parents of the students. However, it is evident that the teachers are constantly developing their skills and knowledge regarding assessment in order to address any possible challenges or tasks given to them. In addition, certain areas needing further investigation were identified. Based on the literature review and the findings of the research, tentative implications and recommendations for the development of classroom-based language assessment are discussed.

An abstract of the thesis of José Luis Perea-Hernández for the Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages presented February 11, 2010. Title: Teacher Evaluation of Item Formats for an English Language Proficiency Assessment. Language testing plays a significant role in the collection of systematic information about English Language Learners' ability and progress in K-12 public schools in Oregon. Therefore, the following thesis reports on a process of the development of this assessment as I was at some point one of the members in the test development team and then drew upon teachers' opinions and judgments to compensate for a gap in this process. For instance, despite the fact that Oregon item-writers produced test items in summer 2004, they identified some deficiencies as they followed the process. Therefore, the need of more examples of item formats in order to develop better items, a proper identification of materials for reading and listening and mainly the lack of detailed item test specifications was imminent. Unfortunately, item writers did not posses a guiding document that would allow them to generate items. The item writing process was not `spec-driven'. Hence, these drawbacks in this test (larger project), provide the basis and rationale for this thesis. Thus, the aim of the present study was to identify what item formats worked best based on professional teacher judgment. Then, once identified these were used to detect what items could potentially be reverse-engineered into specifications for future studies or developmental stages of this assessment. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis was to analyze through professional teacher-judgment the suitability of item formats, test items and the construct in a way that would be helpful for future item-writing sessions, but most importantly to the better understanding of teachers devising items for this test. Teachers determined what items and item formats were more suitable in a testing situation for the diverse English language learners according to their relationship to the construct of the test, practicality, cognitive level, appropriateness, and similar tasks as used in classroom instruction. Finally, the outcomes based on teacher feedback allowed the required data to establish a process to reverse-engineer test items and item formats into item test specifications. Thus, based on this feedback a more systematic process was illustrated to demonstrate how item formats can be the basis to reverse-engineer item test specifications.

Mestrado em Supervisão<br>O desenvolvimento educacional moderno trouxe novas portagens para a avaliação das capacidades que os alunos irão utilizar em tarefas da vida real. Esta necessidade tem criado uma mudança radical nos métodos tradicionais de ensino e avaliação. Assim, são necessárias abordagens alternativas de avaliação, quer do processo, quer do produto de aprendizagem. O presente estudo leva em consideração o uso de estratégias de utilização do portfólio no ensino de Inglês, com particular destaque para o sistema de ensino da Líbia. Além disso, apresentam-se definições, algumas vantagens e desvantagens do uso de portfólio, bem como possibilidades de sua utilização para a avaliação e melhoria do desempenho dos alunos. Além disso, será dada atenção à importância de desenvolver a consciência dos professores para o portfólio. A investigação indicou que os portefólios podem ser vistos como conjunto selecionado de trabalhos importantes, o que se relaciona com a medição do desempenho do que foi conseguido. O seu uso pode fornecer aos professores maior feedback sobre o seu ensino e obter mais informações sobre o processo de aprendizagem dos alunos. Como conclusão, podemos afirmar que os portfólios podem servir como uma boa alternativa de ensino- aprendizagem e avaliação no ensino de Inglês, devido às vantagens que oferece.<br>Modern educational development has brought up new tolls for the evaluation of the skills students will need in real-life tasks. This need has created a radical change in traditional methods of instruction and assessment. Therefore, alternative evaluation approaches are needed in assessing both learning process and product such as achievement portfolio. The present study takes into consideration the use of portfolio assessment strategies in English language teaching with particular emphasis on the Libyan education system as a case study. In addition, definitions, advantages and disadvantages of the use of portfolio are presented using the achievement portfolio as a tool of teaching and evaluation pointing out its importance in improving students‟ performance. Moreover, attention will be paid to the importance of developing teachers‟ awareness as far as the importance of portfolios is concerned. Research has indicated that achievement portfolio is a collection of the important works, which is related to the measurement of the performance of what was achieved. Its use can provide teachers more feedback about their teaching and more information about students‟ learning process. As a conclusion, we may state that portfolios can serve as a good alternative teaching and assessment tool in English language teaching due to the advantages that it offers.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate English second language(ESL) teachers' perceptions about learner self-assessment in the secondary school. The study also examined the factors that might influence the perceptions that teachers hold about self-assessment. The participants of this study were 163 ESL teachers who are teaching at secondary schools in Gauteng Province; they were from 94 randomly selected schools. The data was collected through questionnaires and the response rate was approximately 53%. The literature review was utilized to identify the main perceptions. The studies led to a 57-item teachers' perceptions of learner self-assessment questionnaire based on the following main perceptions: the value of self-assessment in the teaching and learning processes, the use of self-assessment as an alternative assessment technique in English second language learning, the accuracy and reliability of self-assessment and the role of teachers in the effective implementation of self-assessment in their classrooms. The data for the study were analysed using quantitative techniques. the findings for the study showed that teachers have a strong feeling about the value of learner self-assessment; they showed that it helps in the improvement of teaching and learning. The results also indicated that teachers agree that self-assessment should be used in English second language teaching as an alternative form of assessment as it enhances learners' linguistic skills. Teachers perceive that they have an important role to play in ensuring that the implementation of self-assessment becomes successful in their classrooms. However, some have indicated that learners are not objective enough when assessing themselves and therefore the results derived from self-assessment cannot be reliable and accurate. Teachers' perceptions correspond with their classroom self-assessment practice because most of them also indicated that they employ self-assessment to enhance learners' performance. Majority of teachers also indicated that factors such as class size, availability of materials, teacher professional training and development, formal teacher training, years of experience, classroom experience with self-assessment, and time available for self-assessment played a significat role in influencing their perceptions. The conclusions were drawn from the results and the recommendations were made for further research. The limitations of the study were also discussed.<br>Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2009.<br>Curriculum Studies<br>unrestricted