‘Bringing the Teacher Back In’: Toward L2 Assessment Praxis in English as an Additional Language Education

Abstract

School assessment systems in Anglophone countries typically reflect monolingual ‘native speaker’ norms of language and literacy development and fail to capture the distinct pathways and milestones of language minority students’ social and academic English language learning in the curriculum. Such systems limit teachers’ access to appropriate and useful assessment tools and advice, devaluing their role in students’ assessment based on a contextualised and detailed understanding of their language learning needs. This chapter ‘brings the teacher back in’ to assessment by reconceptualising L2 classroom assessment as tool-mediated assessment praxis (assessment-focused teacher knowledge practice) developing within a teacher community of assessment practice. The nature and role of the Tools to Enhance Assessment Literacy for Teachers of English as an Additional Language (TEAL), an online resource system developed to help Australian primary and secondary teachers assess the stage of development for EAL students in speaking listening, reading and writing, and improve learning and teaching, is then considered within this social system of developing assessment praxis. The Assessment for Learning (AfL) and Vygotskian learning theory design of the online ‘toolkit’ is highlighted. By reconceptualising L2 classroom assessment as language assessment praxis, the chapter supports a view of teachers of EAL learners as prime assessment agents, re-imagining and revaluing them as trustworthy language assessment practitioners.