A Research On Junior High School English Teachers’ Assessment Literacy

Assessment literacy refers to the knowledge and skills that people need in the process of making assessments.English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2022 Edition)emphasizes achievement assessment should obey the “integration of teaching,learning and assessing” principle,in which teachers are required to provide prompt feedback and assistance based on students’ performance in the learning process and constantly reflect on improving teaching.The new curriculum set higher requirements for teachers’ assessment literacy.Only when a teacher has sound assessment literacy,can they use assessment results to guide their teaching.Therefore,it is of some practical significance to investigate the current situation of junior high school English teachers’ assessment literacy.Based on Developmental Assessment Theory and Teacher Professionalism Theory,this study adopts questionnaire to investigate the status quo of 77 English Teachers’ assessment literacy in Jiangmen,Guangdong Province.According to the results of the questionnaire,5 teachers were interviewed.The questionnaire is adopted from Lin Dunlai’s Questionnaire,including four dimensions: mastery of assessment methods,mastery of grading skills,attention to the validity of assessment and interpretation and using of assessment results.The research aims to explore three research questions:(1)What is the general situation of junior high school English teachers’ assessment literacy?(2)Are there any differences of English teachers’ assessment literacy in terms of genders,ages,years of teaching,teaching titles and experience on assessment literacy? If so,what is it?(3)What are the major factors affecting junior high school English teachers’ assessment literacy ?The results show that:(1)the status quo of English teachers’ assessment literacy is at an upper-middle level,but there are still some deficiencies.In the four dimensions of the questionnaire,the score of Dimension 3: focus on assessment reliability is the highest,while the scores of Dimension 4: interpretation and using of assessment results is the lowest.In terms of Dimension 1: mastery of assessment methods,teachers get to know different kinds of assessment methods,but it is hard for them to put the alternative assessment methods into practice.As for Dimension 2: the mastery of grading skills,teachers tend to use summative assessment methods.For Dimension 3: attention to the validity of assessment methods,few teachers are willing to reflect on the effectiveness of the assessment.With regard to Dimension 4: the interpretation and using of the assessment result,teachers are concerned about processing and interpreting the results of the data.(2)There is no difference in genders,ages and professional titles.There are obvious differences in teaching years and experience on assessment courses.In terms of teaching years,due to lacking experience,novice teachers own lower assessment skills than the teachers with longer teaching years.As for the experience on the assessment courses,teachers who have received assessment training courses perform better than those who have not receive the assessment training course.(3)For influencing factors,it can be seen that many factors affect teachers’ assessment literacy,among which three aspects are more obvious,namely individual,school and educational environment.At the individual level,novice teachers own lower grading skills because of lack of teaching experience.Besides,most of the teachers do not take the initiative to learn related assessment knowledge.At the school level,educational meterage courses in normal universities are not given much attention and pre-service assessment courses still focus on the theoretical aspect.What’s more,the lack of a full assessment course makes it difficult for novice teachers in-service to put what they have learned in practice.At the level of educational environment,teachers are influenced by the examination-oriented culture.Their teaching and their way of assessment is still examination-oriented.Most of the teachers are more likely to use summative assessment.According to the research results,some suggestions for teacher,school and educational administration department are presented as follows.For English teachers,they should take the initiative to actively practice a variety of assessment methods in their daily practices as well as reflecting on the effectiveness of assessments.Through the way of establishing learning groups and apprenticeship model of teacher education,teachers are encouraged to exchange their ideas and learn from each other so that they can promote learning awareness,enhance assessment practices and improve their assessment literacy.For the schools,ongoing and systematic assessment related courses should be provided.In the phase of pre-service,courses could focus more on developing pre-service teachers’ understanding of assessment methods and their ability to interpret and apply assessment results,while post-service training could incorporate teachers’ experience to raise teachers’ attention to the validity of the assessment and improve teachers’ grading skills.For educational administration department,it is necessary to optimize the examination system and gradually change the rooted examination-oriented pedagogical context.