Teachers’ Attitudes About Students’ Self-Assessment :, What Research Says And What Classrooms Reveal

Abstract

The assessment reform in Algeria is still in its embryonic stage despite the wide use of self-assessment in EFL classrooms. Little empirical research is done on how to integrate formative assessment in Higher Education. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the development of students’ self-assessment by addressing the gap found in teachers’ current assessment practices. Specifically, this paper explores teachers’ classroom assessment practices in the English department of Bejaia University, Algeria and their attitudes and beliefs about students’ self-assessment in academic writing. The study involved fourteen Algerian teachers of EFL writing who developed writing logs in which issues related to their attitudes and experiences about assessment in general and self-assessment in particular were addressed. Results permitted to frame self-assessment from teachers’ perspective and identify a range of factors responsible for the development of this process in EFL classrooms. In an attempt to facilitate the integration of self-assessment into EFL writing instruction and reinforce the assessment reform, we suggested a number of implications.