| At both the classroom level and school system level,assessment impacts much how and what teachers teach and students learn.Especially at the classroom level,teacher-mediated classroom assessment might have significant impacts on learners' academic achievements.Due to its strategic nature,assessment has been accepted as a core principle underlying curricula in many educational systems around the world,as well as a key aspect of teacher professionalism.Therefore,assessment literacy(AL)has been a critical field for researchers,scholars,teachers or anyone interested in improving the English language teaching environment.Based on the relative studies,the current study,taking High School Affiliated to Southwest University as a case,investigated senior high English teachers' status quo of AL and its impact on learners' writing achievements as well as their current assessment practices in writing class.Therefore,three broad research questions were raised in the study:(1)How do the teachers in the case study understand,conceive and implement classroom assessment?(2)What are the differences in assessment perceptions and practices between assessment literate teachers(teachers with a high level of AL)and assessment illiterate teachers(teachers with a low level of AL)?(3)Is there a significant difference in students' writing achievements between assessment literate teachers and assessment illiterate teachers?To conduct the study and gather the required data,the researcher employed a recomposed Teachers' Assessment Literacy Inventory(TALI),semi-structured interview,non-participatory classroom observation,Writing Competence Rating Scale(WCRS)and SPSS 19.0 as the research instruments.To investigate the level of teachers' classroom-based assessment literacy,the researcher administered the recomposed TALI among 15 senior high school English teachers,which also helped the researcher select the teacher participants in the latter investigation.Besides,non-participatory classroomobservation and semi-structured interview were applied to gain more trust-worthy and reliable data to analyze the differences between assessment literate teachers and assessment illiterate teachers.To examine the impact of teachers' classroom-based assessment literacy on students' writing achievements,the students were guided to take the pre-test writing and posttest writing during the researcher's internship.Then the researcher employed WCRS to evaluate students' writing achievements.At last,a one-way between-groups analysis of covariance was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of teachers' classroom-based assessment literacy on students' writing achievements.Based on the quantitative data analysis,the results of the one-way between-groups analysis of covariance demonstrated that teachers' assessment literacy has a significant impact on learners' writing outcomes.Generally speaking,the better teachers' assessment literacy,the higher learners' average writing achievements.In addition,the findings from the qualitative data analysis of inventory,semi-structured interview,and the non-participatory classroom observation also confirmed that there is a great difference in the assessment knowledge,assessment conception and classroom practices between assessment literate teachers and assessment illiterate teachers.As it can be observed in the current study,assessment illiterate teachers had limited knowledge about classroom assessment,and they were not motivated enough to try out different forms of assessments in their classrooms.As for the assessment literate teachers,they had three common features,which were setting goals based on learners' interest,giving formative feedback,and operating dynamic assessment through classroom assignments.Last but not least,the research also proposed some implications of improving AL both for the teacher trainers and those assessment illiterate teachers.Lastly,the researcher summarized the shortcomings and limitations of this study,hoping to provide new inspiration for the study in TAL field. |
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