EFL Teachers’ Writing Assessment Literacy, Beliefs, and Training Needs in the Context of Turkey

Abstract

Teachers’ assessment literacy and beliefs contribute to encouraging or undermining students’ learning; therefore, investigating such literacy to fulfill the teachers’ training needs is essential. This quantitative survey study investigated the current level of 152 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ writing assessment literacy (WAL) in Turkey and identified their training needs in this area by means of a questionnaire. Further, this research explored the teachers’ beliefs about different writing assessment methods, general assessment issues in writing classrooms and then scoring accuracy in writing assessment. Although 80.9% of the teachers stated that they had already received prior training in WAL, a vast majority of the participants (over 90%) stated they need to receive training in all the investigated WAL areas. The training need areas which stood on the highest six ranks included “Using pre-designed integrated writing tasks”, “Designing integrated writing tasks”, “Giving feedback to students based on information from tests/assessment”, “Designing good writing tasks/tests”, “Using the scoring rubrics”, “Designing the scoring rubrics”, “Using self-assessment”, “Using peer-assessment”, and “Using assessment portfolio”. The detailed findings regarding the teachers’ beliefs in the above-mentioned issues are explained and discussed in the paper. To improve the situation, the shortcomings in the language teacher education programs in Turkey should be addressed.

Iranian EFL teachers’ perceptions of writing assessment literacy: a countrywide study

“…Similarly, the studies so far focused on writing assessment literacy showed that teachers do not receive enough training in writing assessment (Crusan et al, 2016;Lee, 2017;Weigle, 2007). In a study by Valizadeh (2019), it was found that although most of the teachers had already received prior training in WAL, a vast majority of them (over 90%) stated that they need to receive training in using predesigned integrated writing tasks, designing integrated writing tasks, giving feedback to students based on information from tests/assessment, using the scoring rubrics, designing good writing tasks/tests, and designing the scoring rubrics.…”

“…This was mostly due to the missing place of a special training program for writing teachers. Similarly, studies in different contexts (Alkharusi et al, 2012;Ghanbari & Barati, 2020;Jannati, 2015;Tayyebi & Moradi Abbasabadi, 2020;Taylor, 2009;Valizadeh, 2019) have revealed that many writing teachers receive little or no formal assessment training in the preparatory programs and often they do not have enough knowledge about assessment. Similar to the findings of the present study, the literature shows that in different EFL/ESL writing assessment contexts, the pre-service and in-service teachers are not provided with a holistic and experiential training program that enables them to integrate the theoretical knowledge of the teachers with the realities of their practice.…”

A Self-Investigation into Thai EFL Writing Instructors’ Perceptions toward Written Feedback on College Students’ Writing Essay Assignment

“…The instructors in this research, and maybe other academics as well, graded similarly to how their own writing instructors did. Writing is highlighted as an essential medium of communication, and writing teachers take up a significant amount of time and energy assessing student writing (Lu et al, 2021;Valizadeh, 2019;Honsa, 2011). Consequently, coaching on how to do this productively, as well as studies on how to start making feedback more advantageous, meaningful and valuable to students, are strongly suggested toward the domain of EFL writing in the near future.…”

Investigating Business English Teachers’ Belief About Online Assessment: Q Methodology Conducted During COVID-19 Period

“…Among them, teachers’ beliefs are closely related with the implementation of their teaching practices (Shinde & Karekatti, 2012 ).In classroom teaching, teachers’ attitudes can work as a predictor of students’ achievement and teachers’ commitment appears to play a key role in students’ performance (Howie, 2005 ). Moreover, the close relationship between teachers’ beliefs and their assessment practices are well-documented (Valizadeh, 2019 ). Therefore, if Business English teachers’ perspectives and approaches in the process of performance assessment are clearly revealed, their instruction and evaluation practices are expected to get improved.…”