Chilean English as a Foreign Language Teacher Educators’ Conceptions and Practices of Online Assessment

Abstract

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, online assessment has become pivotal to allow evaluation of the knowledge and competences of teachers-to-be. In this context, this study explored language teacher educators’ conceptions and practices of online assessment and the implications of this type of assessment for language teacher education. Forty-six language teacher educators working in Chilean English language teaching programmes completed an online adapted version of the Abridged Conception of Assessment inventory. From this group, 16 volunteered to take part in a follow-up semi-structured virtual interview. The results indicate that teacher educators’ conceptions of assessment remained unaltered despite the online context. Their conceptions relied mainly on the purpose of online assessment for improving teaching and learning and checking off student teachers’ language proficiency against standardised criteria. Their assessment practices, however, had to be adapted and modified to fit the online environment, which triggered participants’ concerns about the reliability and authenticity of the assessment methods to evaluate prospective language teachers. These findings suggest that there is a need to enhance teacher education programmes that are remotely delivered in order to shed light on reliable, valid and authentic tools to assess future English language teachers.