| In recent years,language assessment literacy(LAL)has been increasingly recognized as an integral part of language teacher professionalism.Existing research mainly focuses on the status quo of the assessment literacy(AL)of teachers of general education and LAL of university EFL teachers.Given the different assessment standards in English curriculum Standard between elementary and higher education and the distinction between LAL and the general AL.The present study is intended to investigate the status quo of LAL of primary and secondary school EFL teachers,the differences in the their LAL across levels and the influencing factors behind the differences.Based on the analysis of the data collected from Chinese EFL teachers participated in the study by questionnaire and interview,the major findings of the present study are summarized as follows:Firstly,the overall level of LAL of primary and secondary school EFL teachers is below the medium level and comparatively low.On the part of three dimensions and sub-dimensions of LAL,EFL teachers are comparatively the most familiar with the basic knowledge about theoretical basis of language tests and assessment(the ‘What')while the least with assessment process and practice(the ‘How'),especially the classroom assessment.On the part of specific LAL,the highest five specific LAL primary and secondary school EFL teachers achieve in descending order are developing test tasks on the basis of the latest theories and research findings,making specification grid of the test,assessing students' progress by portfolio,developing the test tasks on the basis of the theoretical model of language competence,and the item writing of the multiple choice.The lowest five specific LAL they achieve in ascending order are assessing students by classroom observation,meeting the present teaching needs by modifying the former testing items,considering students' attitude when scoring,the item writing of short sentence translation and determining the classroom assessment methods on the basis of the textbook.This finding indicates that primary and secondary school EFL teachers need to improve their LAL,especially the How dimension and the sub-dimension of classroom assessment.Secondly,there are significant differences in the overall level of LAL of EFL teachers across levels in How and Why dimensions and in four sub-dimensions of How except classroom assessment,to be more specific,senior high school EFL teachers achieve the highest LAL among three levels and significantly higher than junior high school EFL teachers in the assessment process and practice,especially item writing,standardized tests and scoring,and rationale for assessment and its impact on decision-making.Senior high school EFL teachers also achieve significantly higher LAL than primary school EFL teachers in scoring.Two types of factors,i.e.,internal factors and external factors are found responsible for the differences in LAL of EFL teachers across levels.The internal factors involve primary and secondary school EFL teachers' teaching belief and teaching style.The external factors contain education system and social pressure.What is more,the education system is a dominant factor,giving rise to the influence of the teaching belief and the social pressure on differences in LAL of EFL teachers across levels;these two factors further lead to the impact of the teaching style on differences in LAL of EFL teachers across levels.Based on the above findings,the researcher suggests that particular emphasis should be put on the dimension of assessment process and practice,especially the sub-dimension of the classroom assessment,in language testing and assessment training for primary and secondary school EFL teachers and appropriate types and levels of training should be designed and conducted according to different target trainees and special attention should be paid to the junior high school EFL teachers. |
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