Vietnamese university EFL teachers’ practices and literacy in classroom assessment: A sociocultural perspective

Abstract

Taking a sociocultural perspective, this study investigated Vietnamese university English EFL teachers' classroom assessment practices and the extent to which teachers' language assessment literacy (LAL) was reflected in their practices. Adopting a mixed-methods explanatory sequential research design, data were collected using a self-reported questionnaire and follow-up interviews. Data were analyzed quantitatively using SPSS version 22.0 and qualitatively through thematic analysis. Findings revealed that traditional assessment tasks were ranked as being more prevalent than alternative assessment, and there was no association between the usage of different types of assessment tasks and teachers' teaching experience. The results also suggested that all alternative assessment tasks were perceived as challenging due to certain material, institutional, and Confucianism ideological constraints; however, there were discrepancies between teachers' preferred types of effective alternative assessment. We argue that EFL teachers’ assessment practices and their LAL repertoire interact with many factors in a particular sociocultural context. Implications for L2 classroom assessment practices and teacher professional development are discussed.