Abstract
Assessment is one of the regular tasks that teachers perform at all educational levels. However, teachers’ knowledge about assessment or ‘assessment literacy’ has often been described as below the assessment practices recommended in the testing literature (e.g., Popham, Assessment literacy for teachers: Faddish or fundamental? Theory into Practice, 48, 4–11, 2009; Volante & Fazio, Exploring teacher candidates’ assessment literacy: Implications for teacher education reform and professional development. Canadian Journal of Education, 30, 749, 2007). The present chapter explores Tunisian university EFL writing teachers’ assessment literacy by investigating the way they perform their regular testing tasks. Data were collected using an open-ended questionnaire administered to a group of EFL writing teachers from different higher education institutions in Tunisia. Results showed that most teachers did not receive any training in language testing as part of their university courses or during their professional development programmes. Results also showed that despite their ability to perform certain assessment tasks, the teachers seemed to have limited knowledge especially about aspects related to test construction.
Notes
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LSP stands for Language for Specific Purposes .
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Appendix 1: Assessment Literacy of the Tunisian In-Service Writing Teachers
Appendix 1: Assessment Literacy of the Tunisian In-Service Writing Teachers
This questionnaire aims to collect background information about the way you assess the writing skills of your students in the writing course(s) that you teach. Your answers are very important and will be strictly confidential .
Please fill in the information requested.
This questionnaire includes 4 pages and may take about 15 minutes if you answer all the questions . Please return it to the person who gave it to you.
Thank You for Your Cooperation
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Athimni, M. (2018). Investigating Assessment Literacy in Tunisia: The Case of EFL University Writing Teachers. In: Ahmed, A., Abouabdelkader, H. (eds) Assessing EFL Writing in the 21st Century Arab World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64104-1_7
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