Abstract
Teachers’ assessment literacy has recently captured the attention of scholars across various educational contexts. The literature has it that there is a gap between teachers’ assessment practices and national assessment policies. The present study investigated the assessment needs of Iranian EFL teachers in the wake of the new assessment reform, which aims at replacing traditional discrete point testing policies with performance testing. In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 EFL head teachers. In addition, documents related to the curriculum reform were also closely examined. Inductive coding of the data showed that to meet the demands of the noted reform, teachers’ current perceptions of language assessment need to change. Furthermore, teachers need training in both knowledge and skills of language assessment. More specifically, teachers need training in developing rubrics for use in assessing the productive skills of speaking and writing. They also need to develop literacy in devising higher-order thinking skills in assessing reading and listening comprehension. Finally, as non-native speakers of English, Iranian English teachers need better English aural/oral skills.
Highlights
Language assessment literacy (LAL) is considered a key construct in language assessment literature (Inbar-Lourie 2013)
Evaluation includes diagnostic assessment, progressive assessment, and summative assessment which can be achieved through paper-and-pencil, oral, performance assessment, self-assessment, peer assessment, and informal observation
Decision about students’ progress and the success of instruction are made based on these evaluations. (NCD, p.126) 5.2.5
Summary
Language assessment literacy (LAL) is considered a key construct in language assessment literature (Inbar-Lourie 2013). Given that classroom assessment transpires within diverse educational contexts with different educational policies, the identified components of assessment literacy based on the standards of assessment in English speaking (2019) 9:2 contexts (e.g., Brookhart 2011; DeLuca et al 2016; Xu & Brown 2016) may not be adequate in accounting for the language assessment needs of teachers working in other educational contexts. In the Iranian EFL context, there is evidence that English teachers’ language assessment literacy is, at least, partly responsible for teachers’ failure to comply with a mandated reform requiring teachers to assess communicative competence rather than discrete bits of language knowledge (Razavipour & Rezagah 2018). The current study attempts to identify the components of language assessment literacy which are compatible with recent assessment policies of the country
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