THE IMPORTANCE OF DEVELOPING TEACHERS' ASSESSMENT LITERACY COMPETENCE

Abstract

The following article is based on the action research done among English as foreign language (EFL) educators to identify the language assessment literacy level; hence, educational assessment has always been an integral element of teaching. The principle aim in undertaking the following research was to investigate the language assessment level of EFL teachers at Higher Educational Institutions (HEI) and mitigate the barriers to success in gaining procedural/ conceptual level of assessment literacy. There are many studies on language assessment literacy, taking the definition of assessment literacy as the root and focusing on the competence of language teachers, there exist several definitions. They will include a range of skills related to the test production, test score analysis, and the roles/ functions of assessment in education and society. The following research was undertaken with the help of two data collection methods: qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative method helped to identify the perception of teachers the language testing and assessment and generate the answers. Test with authentic and contextualized scenarios was used as quantitative method. Both data helped to identify the level of teachers’ assessment literacy. A total of 103 EFL educators from three language universities: Uzbekistan state university of world languages, Samarkand state institute of foreign languages and Nukus state pedagogical institute named after Ajiniyaz, were involved in the study. The result showed that the gap between subject matter knowledge and pedagogy of assessment can be bridged by aligning pre-service and in-service teacher programs. The consistency in developing teachers’ language assessment competence can be reached if conducting a clear and well-developed assessment course in practicing classroom assessment.