Abstract
BackgroundAssessment policies and practices are key to the success of curriculum innovations. Therefore, large-scale ELT innovations always include changes in assessment too. Thinking that Iranian students were not enabled to communicate in English after six years of English education in public schools, educational policy makers have recently embarked on a new curriculum that is thought to be a departure from traditional reading and grammar approach towards a communicative one. This study investigated the impact of a recent language assessment reform (LAR) on Iranian English teachers’ assessment practices.MethodsTo this end, four teachers participated in a focused group interview (FGI) session. Teacher-made tests were also collected and scrutinized. Both FGI and test data were content analyzed and the recurring themes were derived.ResultsIt was revealed that managerial, institutional, and individual barriers stand in the way of the reform. First, the managerial, technocratic approach to reform implementation has caused teachers not to take ownership of the reform. Secondly, at the institutional level, two obstacles were identified in the way of reform: inadequate resources within schools and the accountability demands that foster grade inflation. Finally, regarding professional competencies, teachers appeared to be largely unprepared to conduct language assessments consistent with the LAR demands. In particular, they seemed to have difficulties with the contents of their assessments, with the reasons for doing assessments, and with adjusting their assessments in keeping with LAR communicative aspirations.ConclusionsTo remedy the situation, action should be taken to convince teachers to buy into the reform and to create opportunities for teachers to become adequately literate in language assessment.
Highlights
Assessment policies and practices are key to the success of curriculum innovations
In the documents we reviewed there was no explicit reference to a certain theory of educational change, evidence from the focused group interview (FGI) suggests that a techno-rational, managerialism approach was behind language assessment reform (LAR)
This study addressed the barriers in the way of implementing LAR and English as foreign language (EFL) teachers’ competencies to embrace the innovation
Summary
Assessment policies and practices are key to the success of curriculum innovations. large-scale ELT innovations always include changes in assessment too. Thinking that Iranian students were not enabled to communicate in English after six years of English education in public schools, educational policy makers have recently embarked on a new curriculum that is thought to be a departure from traditional reading and grammar approach towards a communicative one. Iran has undergone three major reforms since 1939 (Foroozandeh and Forouzani 2015) , the most recent of which introduced in 2010. This reform was intended to shift the focus of teaching and testing from language forms to meaning and communication. Interested readers are referred to Foroozandeh and Forouzani (2015)
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