EFL teachers’ writing assessment literacy: Surveying teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and practises in China

Abstract

Writing assessment literacy (WAL) constitutes an integral part of language teachers’ professional competence, and yet insufficient attention has been paid to the WAL of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers from non-English-speaking countries. This study surveyed the knowledge, beliefs and practices in writing assessment of 219 tertiary EFL teachers from China. Data were collected through a Likert-scale WAL Survey (Crusan et al., 2016), and analysed quantitatively with a focus on the WAL level of tertiary EFL teachers in China and the influence of their demographic characteristics. Additionally, this was the first study exploring the association and relationship among different dimensions of WAL, namely, teachers’ levels of knowledge, beliefs and practices in writing assessment. The findings indicated that Chinese tertiary EFL teachers’ WAL depicted a relatively positive picture and that teachers’ training experiences and academic degrees had significant effects on teachers’ WAL. In addition, teachers’ writing assessment knowledge and beliefs were two significant predictors of their writing assessment practices. Implications for future EFL teacher training programs are discussed.